Proud of JMU

Today I arranged for the teacher recertification class from UVA Wise to have a tour of the James Madison University campus, or simulation, in SL. It was awesome! Lykopis Darkstone, who is a professor there and built the sims, lead the tour. She showed us three areas: the theater, Stonehenge, and living quarters for students and professors living and learning abroad in Florence, Italy.

Landing spot with Wilson Hall in the background

Lobby of the JMU Theater

 

Inside the theater
Leko Littlebird has painstakingly recreated the actual theater

Leko uses this space to create scene design virtually before building it in real life, saving money, time and materials. His students have space in skyboxes to do building as well.

Lykopis' own students have several assignments in SL. One is at Stonehenge. They walk through a green space clicking gems for notecards which provide information about the 10000 year old Neolithic site. Once inside they learn even more. She's built it precisely as it was when whole including the sunlight from the correct direction at sunset at the winter solstice.

JMU Study Abroad space in Florence, Italy

Some lucky faculty, graduate students, and undergrads get to spend three months in this space. The house they live and study in while in the physical world is a maze of narrow halls, small rooms, and gated stairways. Visiting this space in SL first, helps them get their barrings and prepare for their experience in Italy. Faculty traveling with family get a realistic look at how small the space is, helping them not to over pack!

Deeds David talk about about using VW

David Deeds AKA Deeds David uses Second Life and other virtual worlds in his K12 International School in China. He's affiliated with the IB program and students with special needs. Here are some photos of friends at this event.

VWBPE Be Epic Begins

We begin with a Dragon Parade because dragons are epic!

Watching Hugo

I love watching movies with friends. Tonight I saw Hugo, the Academy Award winning movie. It was perfect for SL, because of the clockwork theme and Victorian time period. It was very much like the many Steampunk sims we like to explore.

Videos in Second Life are only $500 Lindens, less than $2.50 US,  and you own them inworld forever, unless you give them to a friend. Trading videos with a friend makes them even cheaper. You each buy a few and trade when you've seen them, doubling your return.

 I had never seen Hugo and wanted to, so this was very nice. The quality is certainly not as good as a DVD would be on your television, but it's good enough for me.

 This is in my current SL house on Timbucks. Come by and watch a movie whenever you like. I have 6 titles. Enjoy.

VP Conference Photography Scavenger Hunt

New Dress from MEB

I love this designer. MEB makes realistic clothes in styles you might really wear in the physical world, if you were 20 something with a cute figure. Maybe if we do the Virtual World's Best Practices in Education fashion show this spring I'll ask if MEB wants to send an outfit to be shown. I guess Lightning could show this one, for that matter.

New Dress

Sitting in the living room, waiting for a friend

There he is now. We are going to visit an art sim.

Tightrope walking on the sim.

A Fun Afternoon

It's fun to explore Second Life with a friend. Here Lightning and Jackman are exploring a new Linden continent in a vehicle provided there. We go into unoccupied houses, stores, clubs, you name it. It eventually became slow and we both crashed several times, but it was fun until the lag got to us.