Star Wars at VSTE Face to Face Conf

One of the highlights of our VSTE Second Life sessions was the New Voyages Concert that occured at the Virginia Beach Convention Center AND in Second Life at the VSTE Meeting Convention. Marie introduced the Cox High School concert orchestra. Matt Poole was downstairs at the VBCC with his avatar on the computer streaming the music from the live concert into Second Life. The rest of us were in the tower room operating up to three avatars each pretending to be the orchestra. We could hear the concert as could visiting friends in Second Life from other parts of the country.

Blended VSTE Environment Session Three

I see gray people! When you, or the avatars near you, are having a network or hardware problem they often do not "rez" or load properly. That is when you see gray people. This was part of session three. Al was leading us to places of interest for educators. He created a notecard, put it in a notecard giver, and we teleported all over Second Life. It is enjoyable to look back now at the newbie avatars here and remember meeting the people behind them in person. We sat side by side with a series of computers and helped each other in-world and out.

Landlubbers Session

We had three sessions at the face to face conference in Virginia Beach, which we repeated once each. Teachers, administrators, and others came to the tower room to learn how to use Second Life to build a personal learning network. It was so much fun! Marie, Lisa, Al, Matt and I met Ellen, who jumped right in to help and the six of us lived in that second floor tower room for three days. :-) The notes from the sessions can be found at our wiki, VSTESL. This image is from ISTE Island where we recommend newbies start their second lives.

The Interview

The first event at the VSTE Conference in Virginia Beach for the VSTE in SL crew was the interview. Mandie, Jazmemo, Alfredo, and Thunder were in the VSTE Island Community Center with Spiff Whitfield and Cyrus Hush. Marie, Lisa, Al, Kim, and Matt were in Virginia Beach at the VB Convention Center. Andy, operating Spiff, was in New York state. Spiff/Andy interviewed us and Cyrus/Matt showed the interview in the second floor tower room at the VB Convention Center in front of several VSTE attendees who came with their laptops to watch. The four of us interviewees were "hiding" in another room on the same floor. The Interview went something like this: Spiff Whitfield: Hello and welcome to VSTE’s 2008-09 23rd Annual State Technology Conference. I am … (we all introduce ourselves but why didn't we ask Cyrus to introduce himself as the cameraman?) Mandie Mimulus: Jazmemo Zimminy: Alfredo Bedrosian: Thunder Insippo: Spiff Whitfield: What first brought you to Second Life? (we all answered each question) Spiff Whitfield: What was your initial reaction to this virtual world? Spiff Whitfield: What is your favorite place to hang out in Second Life? (Marie – Virtual Pioneers) (Lisa – DEN (Kim – ISTE) (Al – VSTE) Spiff Whitfield: You are all teachers. How does Second Life help you with your professional life? Spiff Whitfield: Do you have fun is Second Life or is it all work, work, work? Spiff Whitfield: Now let’s meet the real people behind the avatars! After the interview we came in person to the tower room carrying out laptops so the folks watching could see who was who. This was the most embarrassing part of the entire three days for me. I look nothing like Thunder. :-/

Burning Out

I love my Second Life for many reasons, not the least of which that I have some really good friends here. SL has also improved my professional life through learning, experimenting and playing at learning! When I noticed today that I haven't blogged in days I tried to figure out why. I'm busy doing things in SL for one thing, but I also think I'm getting a little burnt out on the writing about it. In real life (RL) I'm about to go to the annual VSTE conference. I'm hoping that will stimulate me into better blogging habits and give me a break from the patterns of RL/SL I've fallen into lately. I'm looking forward to face to face meetings with a half dozen or so people who I've only known in SL. I'm most excited to meet Terra S (Louise Borgnine SL) and Matt P (Cyrus Hush SL). My teammates are excited to meet them, too! This is an awful photo of Cyrus at ISTE trying to docent with me Saturday morning. He is "Ruthed" due to a very bad network connection.

VSTE Island Opens to the Group

Our first VSTE in SL meeting was Monday, February 2, 25 days after delivery of the island. We were all so proud! There were 32 people that night! We met at VSTE World Headquarters and sent them on their way on a self guided tour. We had many compliments. Elijah was there in a loin cloth at the Powhatan Village he created, playing drums. :-)

When the hour was over those still around migrated to the Community Center where we danced to music that Cyrus Hush streamed in from his vast collection on his computer in Roanoke. We were exhausted!

Sunday Signage

It was the day before we opened for the VSTE group and we needed signs. I created these posts with arrows pointing to the other areas of the sim. There were signposts at each of the seven areas and each had arrows to at least three other distant places. VSTE World Headquarters had arrows pointing to all other places. The interesting thing was that I learned to add a script to make them teleporters and then I learned how to edit the arrows so it took one click to send you flying to the next exhibit! This took all day! The arrow tips weren't just right visually and it was to be redone by Alfredo three days later, but I got to teach him how to do the scripting and instant teleporting. I realized after I'd put hours into it that I should have gotten the arrow graphic from him to start with. We are all learning so much!