Second Life Education Research

It’s still completely strange to me that folks are posting videos of the talks I give. Anyhow…if you weren’t able to listen in last Monday or you just wanna see my shiny face have a look here to see the video shot at UNC. Thanks to Larry Taylor for shooting this and posting it.

Here are some links I mentioned in my Project Parlor today at Educause. Please feel free to poke around and bring any questions you might have to tomorrow’s concurrent session.

To create a Second Life account, navigate to www.secondlife.com and click on the orange “Join Now” button
Second Life Education page
Second Life Educator’s Mailing List
Second Life Researchers’ […]

The UNC talk went so well today. We had over 60 people in the room in RL and 80+ in SL. Audio was streamed in, Larry Taylor did a great job displaying my Powerpoint, while Mark “drove” my avatar so I could talk to the room. UNC will be posting video of the talk soon. […]

I don’t know why I’m so excited, but I am. Finally over 100 del.icio.us bookmarks for my site! Woot woot!

Chris Essex, of Indiana University, interviewed me about my Second Life class. You can listen here.  It’s a fun listen and he asked great questions. Have a listen!

I’ve been working on lots of presentations lately but this one is the most fun. For CCCC I’ll be talking about the value of identity play in SL as a benefit to education. This picture is the first slide of the PowerPoint. A little provocative? Maybe. But very fun. The allusion to “What Not to […]

Monday. It’s week two of Intellatour 2007! This week I’m off to New York City for CCCC and then off to Raliegh NC for a lecture at UNC and Educause Immersive Learning Environments focus session. Between the two stops I’m presenting SEVEN times! Yikes. Here’s the lowdown:

Thursday 3/22: 6:30 pm 1Up Video Games Special Interest […]

You know Second Life has “arrived” when blocking it is a selling point for security software. According to Computer Active, security software company Sophos will soon release a patch to prevent corporate users to log in to SL. And I thought only high schools were control-freakish enough to clamp down on computer use with this […]

Over at The Atlantic, Michael Hirschorn is writing about whether or not the “Web 2.0 bubble” is about to burst. Hirschorn quotes Todd Dagres, co-founder of venture-capital firm Spark Capital, told The Wall StreetJournal. “[speaking of the current wave of web 2.0 sites]Lots of incomplete and […]

I’ve just come back from a day of presentations at Columbia College in Chicago. In the afternoon I spoke in Patrick Lichty’s media theory class. Patrick had just begun to introduce MMO culture so I gave a little talk about identity construction in digital environments. Via communication mechanics is these digital spaces, we create versions […]

I’ve been interested in participatory media for years and it just keeps getting more interesting. Last night on Heroes (best show on TV by the way) NBC announced a contest that allows viewers to submit their theories about the truth behind on the twists and intrigue in the show via videos. This is far from […]

AngryBeth Shortbread is a genius! If you haven’t been to The Port, then GO! Go now! Come back and read the rest of this later. If you have been there, well…go again! Why? Because AngryBeth does something that most great Metaverse creators just don’t seem the catch on to…she changes things up. The great bits […]

For the last few weeks my students have been researching the rhetorical relationship between communities and the spaces they inhabit. The students have written several blog entries analyzing spaces they find interesting in real life to break down how communities create spaces and how these spaces serve to create emotional responses and prompt people to […]

We’ve all made the jokes about the lack of reliability in Microsoft products and I’d normally be the last person to crow about the wonders of anything with so much spyware…HOWEVER…Office 2007 Word makes blogging to a Wordpress site so nice!

Since I updated to Firefox 2.0 I’ve had endless problems with the popup menus that […]

This is pretty interesting. Take a look.

A recent study by professors at San Diego State finds that today’s college students are narcissist. Over 16,000 college students filled out a questionnaire to measure their NPI score (Narcissistic Personality Inventory). “The NPI test divides narcissism into seven components: superiority, exhibitionism, entitlement, vanity, authority, exploitiveness and self-sufficiency.” (Pinsky)
The study asserts that narcissists “are more […]

Thanks, Spin. How nice of you to say so.

Pheww! Take a deep breath. Don’t scream. Well not until after you watch this. Yes, Fox news has done a report on the John Edwards campaign (which it claims is officially endorsed by his office though I’ve read the contrary).
Seriously, after watching this “news” report I had to walk laps around my living room to […]

In the podcast I recorded yesterday with Akela Talamaska we discussed the potential effects of the integration of voice in Second Life. As we discussed it I mentioned that voice might result in a “wave of honesty across the grid.” As is the case with many […]