EVENTS

[Sabine Reljic / Willow Shenlin]

Inworld and RL conferences, inworld meetings, workshops, research discussions: What i find interesting, I post here. Please feel free to post events that you feel would interest this audience,

Cheerio,
S.

[Azwaldo Villota]

The submission deadline announced at this VWBPE page is "no later than March 14th". Has there been a change?

[Sabine Reljic / Willow Shenlin]

Thanks for noticing. I corrected the post.

[Sabine Reljic / Willow Shenlin]

I am in the committee for Posters and Exhibits for the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 2009 SL Conference.
There has not been much answers so far so this is my shoutout. You are all working on something that everyone would want to know about. Don't be shy and share. Submit now.

The submission deadline is coming soon for proposals: Feb 28th.
posters and exhibits: March 14
vendors: March 21

Here is the call for posters and exhibits:

[Sabine Reljic / Willow Shenlin]

Who: Jeremy Kemp
About: "How to Start Right: Lessons from a Second Life orientation for 1100 graduate students" (Jeremy's doctoral research)
What: VIRTUAL WORLDS RESEARCH DISCUSSION GROUP
When: Mar 16, 2009; 1400SLT/PST
Where: SJSU SLIS 128/128/0 (slurl: http://tinyurl.com/ajubaz)

Abstract: San Jose State University's School of Library and Information Science is the largest of its kind in the world. Students starting the program in Fall 08 and Spring 09 completed a mandatory orientation including a section on Second Life. Most of them were able to create an avatar and visit the school's island. Others completed a reading and quiz option. Kemp is surveying this large population and basing his dissertation on their feedback. This interactive session will ask the audience for feedback and ideas.

Background on Jeremy's presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/jeremykemp/kemp-jossey-presentation

[Terry Hodgson]

Will this be in voice or text? Thanks.

[Sabine Reljic / Willow Shenlin]

So far most of our presenters have presented using voice. This allows for a smooth presentation in which the audience is free to comment at anytime of the presentation in the chatlog. The backchannel is then used by the presenter to answer questions either immediately or after his/her presentation is over. To the presenter's choice. Yesterday, I received a couple of IMed that informed me that voice was not working at SJSU SLIS location. It was. I suggested the persons to try relogging and/or check if they had the latest SL client (the new one had just been offered a day or two before)...unless they use the Release Candidate.
I hope you were able to attend. This was a really interesting conversation. The chat should be posted shortly with a summary of the links and tools that Jeremy used for his research.

[Sabine Reljic / Willow Shenlin]

The Virtual World Research Discussion session 01/12/09 with Don Wen: Pics are posted here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sreljic/sets/72157615500744399/

The Social Presence in Virtual Worlds and the Virtual World Research Discussion sessions Mar 9 and 16, 2009 with Jeremy Kemp: Pics are posted here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sreljic/sets/72157615596089920/

The Make it Like an Action Figure event 03/18/09: pics are posted here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sreljic/sets/72157615594640526/

[Sabine Reljic / Willow Shenlin]

AERA, April 13-17, San Diego
Can you spell AWESOME?! The ARVEL sessions were great. Even those I disagreed with were great. After all disagreement is what makes for interesting conversations. And come on you all, you've got to agree that seeing the RL face of those whom one has talked to and/or worked with in SL all this time is quite a cool experience.
S.

[Sabine Reljic / Willow Shenlin]

Reminder: Today, April 27, at 1400SLT/PST, Willow will host the workshop on gestures.

Location: Center for Social Presence (Meadowbrook 72_202_22)

Workshop: 1)Quick revision of how to create animations with inventory-based gestures. 2) Personalizing your own A/O. 3) If time permits, we'll discuss the next workshop's topic: Blender: creating gestures.

Note: Please visit the Boxed Heroes Main Shop at Plush Epsilon 86,22,22 and get the free male and female animations. We will use these animations to personalize your A/O. ComicCon/Met@morph participants welcome.

Schedule: http://socialpresence3d.wikispaces.com/SpeakerSchedule

>>>May 11: Presentation and Teaching Gestures (I will provide folders of gestures. We will discuss different options for a minimal cognitive load)

Everyone is welcome. There is no fee. You may request access to the wiki in order to edit the speaker page and add your own demonstration (let's keep it to tools that help educators enhance their inworld delivery/activity and promote student participation). You may also join the inworld group (Social Presence in Virtual Worlds) and the RezEd-based group (Social Presence in Virtual Worlds). IM me (Willow Shenlin) if you have any questions/comments,

[Sabine Reljic / Willow Shenlin]

I booked too much in last week's session. So we mainly reviewed the platform's UI affordances relevant to gestures (UI, inventory, Edit menu, etc).

The next session (May 11), we'll focus on the A/O and how to personalize it. Go get the free gestures from the Boxed Heroes shop (you'll find them catercorner to the entrance). When you get those gestures (one set is female, the other male), you'll also find 2 A/O in the folder that you bought (for $0 Linden). You will also receive some notecards regarding the A/O. Read them before the workshop (ideally). This will allow us to go a bit faster in the workshop and focus on practicing what the notecards are explaining. One hour DOES fly at supersonic speed.

I will also provide gestures that I selected for my presentation/teaching sessions. They are gender specific (I'll put them in 2 separate boxes). Of course, I am not saying that MY gestures are THE gestures to have. However, what I am saying is that gestures are a reflection of your personality: you choose what you like and/or feel more comfortable using and/or what represents YOUR personal style of presenting or teaching. SL provides some base-gestures such as the speech gestures which are gender neutral and the absolute necessity --the lipsync (if your avatar still does not move its lips when you use voice, go to Advanced/character/enable lipsync. As I got more familiar with the SL platform, I got slightly irritated with those gestures (again, a personal choice), and started looking for gestures that reflected certain behaviors such as active listening, nodding, pointing, etc. and less whole body movement.
I've got most of my gestures from freebies I collected everywhere (Yadni's Junkyard being a regular place i visit). Keep your mind open to -what i call- 'gestures opportunities:' such as gestures called a certain way but that you can use differently in your specific teaching context. For example, the 'over there' gesture can be used as pointing to the slides behind you or an avatar in the audience or even used to poke an avatar who seems to be sleeping.

See you on May 11, 1400SLT at Meadowbrook. same place.

[Sabine Reljic / Willow Shenlin]

CENTER FOR SOCIAL PRESENCE: WORKSHOP NEW DATE AND TIME
-obviously still in progress, but looking forward to finding one day/time that would be most attractive to USA and another for other time zones. Clearly needing your input to figure this out -
Results of last data collection (survey still open -please do answer it if you have not done so: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/134500/center-for-social-presence-week... and if you have a particular time zone need: do include your input here: http://socialpresence3d.wikispaces.com/NEWS under 05/12/09 in the table: ask for wiki access if you have not done so. Only then can you edit the table and add your info)

Center's Days

Center's Hours

[Sabine Reljic / Willow Shenlin]

I took the Friday anytime answer I received by email in my decision to use Fridays as a replacement day to Mondays.
However, since Mondays seem to be one of the least preferred days of the week, I am considering permanently reschedule the workshops to Wednesdays and Fridays. What do you all think? Fridays at 12:00SLT and Wednesdays at 8:00SLT? Please consider other events in SL that you might be attending already. I really do not want to put you in a either/or situation (for example, if you attend the SL Education Roundtable, the SLOODLE class or ISTE (which incidentally, are all on Tuesday afternoon: so if you all want to make it an SL day, I can also make it so that it is between the SL Education roundtable and ISTE: between 15:30 and 1700 SLT))