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!

The Nut 2011

This year VSTE is attending "The Nut" twice. I want to be sure everyone that wants to see it and might feel strangely going alone gets the chance. We went December 18th and we are going again December 28th. These photos are from the 18th. Five VSTE members were present: Leko, Esteban, Cyrus, Elijah, and myself.

"The Nut" is an abbreviated Nutcracker performed by the Ballet Pixelle company in Second Life. I've seen it at least once before and I feel like I have seen it two different years before. It was always impressive. I'm not sure how so many avatars coordinate all the action. I have seen errors that I'm not sure were seen by all. They were likely limitations of my own computer and I'm the only one who saw them.

This year the experience was enhanced by my new computer with a better graphics card than I've had before and by Leko Littlebird's new set design. Leko is a theater designer in real life. He teaches theater design at my college alma matter. He made suggestions to Ballet Pixelle's management and was given the job of redesigning the sets they had been using for years. They were much improved. You can see the sides of the stage in last year's photos. This year the sets went beyond the stage and made for a more immerse audience experience.

I was intending to add captions, but I don't want to spoil the flow of the images. Hopefully you know the story. Compare this set, and my computer's graphics, to last year's. Beautiful!