VWER Meeting Transcripts by Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.vwer.org.

Transcript of the EDUCAUSE Virtual Worlds Constituent Group Meeting, Feb 11, 2011

Iggy's Note: Special thanks to JeanClaude for getting the transcsript, as I could not attend the meeting. The photo is by Wrenaria, but from an earlier meeting. If you have a photo from this meeting, please post it to our VWER groups at Flickr and Koinup.

[09:54 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: Hello! I am Jeff Le Blanc. I work for the University of Northwestern Ohio and am the VP for Information Technology. Because we're a small staff of 8, I also help to support the faculty in their use of Second Life here at UNOH.

[09:54 AM] Scottmerrick Oh: yeah still loud, in the red

[09:54 AM] America Bilasimo: Longhorns!!!!

[09:54 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: I'm also a co-leader of the EDUCAUSE Virtual Worlds Constituency Group alongside AJ Kelton who is Director of Emerging Instructional Technology at Montclair State University. So with that, I'll be your inworld moderator for the meeting today.

[09:54 AM] Scottmerrick Oh: adjusting you locally ?

[09:54 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: I'm excite to say that this is a combined meeting of the EDUCAUSE Virtual Worlds Constituency Group being simulcast both inworld here and in RL in Austin, TX. So we are being projected on the big screen at this meeting in Austin.

[09:54 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: And at the EDUCAUSE West/Southwest Regional Conference there in Austin, Jim Snell, who is the Director, Instructional Technology Services at Texas A&M University, will be the onsite moderator.

[09:54 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: Just a bit of business for the good of the order:

[09:55 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: Please mute your mics as I'll be moderating and speaking for the group inworld in order to coordinate with the folks in Austin. So that means NO VOICE for today.

[09:55 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: We'll be using local chat inworld as a back channel conversation for the meeting in the room in Austin. So please feel free to chat about what you're hearing from the folks in Austin.

[09:55 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: Please IM me if you have questions for the group when we open up for interacting with the folks who are participating in Austin.

[09:55 AM] Bill Friis: Hey!

[09:55 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: If you are interested, please join at the constituency group at www.educause.org/groups/vw - it's a low volume group listserv.

[09:55 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: There's also a Facebook group for EDUCAUSE Virtual Worlds Constituent Group that you can join. You can find it if you do a search for EDUCAUSE.

[09:56 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: So to get us started inworld here, please introducing yourself. No need to wait, go ahead and type who you are, where you are, and your ties to education into local chat.

[09:56 AM] Ellie Brewster: Sharon Collingwood, Dept Women's Studies, Ohio State

[09:56 AM] Graham Mills: Peter Miller, biologist, University of Liverpool, UK

[09:57 AM] Bill Friis: Bill Freese, Montana State University-Bozeman, Department of Education

[09:57 AM] Birdie Newcomb: Birdie Newborn, publisher

[09:57 AM] Scottmerrick Oh: I'm Virtual Learning Curriculum Specialist at Metro Nashville Public Schools and Lowly High Grand Poobah for ISTE SIG Virtual Environments

[09:57 AM] Susan Thibedeau: Susan Thornton, East Carolina University - Information Technology

[09:57 AM] wanderingwiseguy Resident: Kevin wray, LIS student UNT-Denton

[09:57 AM] Jerod Bagley: Jerry Stapleton, University of Illinois at Chicago

[09:57 AM] Ilene Pratt: I teach online for UMUC and I'm Director of Library Services for University of the People http://www.uopeople.org - I'm in Tampa

[09:57 AM] Firery Broome: University of Delaware- IT Faculty Support - UD Islands Caretaker

[09:58 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: Any other introductions? Dont' be shy.

[09:58 AM] Archivist Llewellyn: Archivist Llewellyn, Director/Volunteer, NASA Library and Archives in SL (NASA JPL/Caltech), Army Artificial Intelligence FVWC entrant

[09:59 AM] Birdie Newcomb: future of ed in SL

[09:59 AM] Ilene Pratt: and the future of ed in other virtual worlds as well

[09:59 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: We do have some inworld experts here too. Just let me know if anyone would like to chime in on the conversation.

[09:59 AM] wanderingwiseguy Resident: How higher education is coping with proposed budget cuts, especially in relation to SL?

[09:59 AM] Bill Friis: Please repeat the questions

[10:00 AM] umsultan Tearfall: hello everyone

[10:00 AM] Bill Friis: Howdy, umsultan

[10:00 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: Cool! Thanks. :-)

[10:01 AM] Ellie Brewster: who?

[10:01 AM] Ellie Brewster: what university is he talking about? missed it.

[10:04 AM] Graham Mills: That sounds like http://scienceroll.com/2009/06/11/imperial-college-london-in-second-life-virtual-patients/

[10:04 AM] Susan Thibedeau: we are very interested in medical simulations also

[10:04 AM] Graham Mills: role play?

[10:04 AM] Graham Mills: Pharmacy people might want to check out Pharmatopia as well

[10:05 AM] Firery Broome: NMC, Virtual Ability

[10:05 AM] Scottmerrick Oh: From the perspective of a person on the periphery of medical simulation development, many schools seem interested in medical simulations but none really wants to invest the money to make it happen at its best potential

[10:05 AM] Ilene Pratt: what about using NMC or Virtual Abilities Island for orientation?

[10:05 AM] Graham Mills: Getting started as a new avatar?

[10:05 AM] Firery Broome: are very good

[10:05 AM] Graham Mills: Start with a friend

[10:05 AM] Ellie Brewster: Find your folks.

[10:05 AM] Bill Friis: Avoid the standard welcome areas for sure.

[10:05 AM] Firery Broome: Training pre entry

[10:05 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: Yes, Graham. The first experience as an avatar.

[10:06 AM] wanderingwiseguy Resident: It can be quite brutal for a new player...

[10:06 AM] Firery Broome: demo and then hands on

[10:06 AM] Ellie Brewster: Research to see who is working in your discipline.

[10:06 AM] wanderingwiseguy Resident: I nearly quit, if I hadnt found good people to talk to

[10:06 AM] Susan Thibedeau: we have our own orientation island also at our university

[10:06 AM] Firery Broome: for students and faculty is what we do

[10:06 AM] wanderingwiseguy Resident: no voice anymore

[10:06 AM] Graham Mills: Voice is choppy for me

[10:07 AM] Scottmerrick Oh: There are great folks to talk with at ISTE Island. An inworld Speaker Session every 3rd Tuesday. I'll share the url for that if anyone wants it.

[10:07 AM] Susan Thibedeau: voice is gone again

[10:07 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: Virtual Ability, Virtual Ability (128, 127, 23) is a nice starting point too.

[10:07 AM] Scottmerrick Oh: Right JeanClaude, Blu is doing great work there.

[10:08 AM] Graham Mills: Does ISTE still have a docent program?

[10:08 AM] Graham Mills: They are great people for a chat

[10:08 AM] Scottmerrick Oh: Yes Graham

[10:09 AM] Ellie Brewster: I built our island, for $00.

[10:09 AM] Ellie Brewster: Gradually, but it works

[10:09 AM] Susan Thibedeau: we have students that do a lot of ours

[10:10 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: Ours is a gradual, free build to (save the sim cost that is. ) I'm the builder here for UNOH

[10:10 AM] Ellie Brewster: To me, it's better to concentrate on the teaching. Builds come later.

[10:10 AM] Scottmerrick Oh: I'm listening irl but not really watching so if anyone needs me IM me ?

[10:10 AM] Scottmerrick Oh: multitasking

[10:12 AM] Bill Friis: Buy if you need to build and keep things up. Otherwise, no need to own.

[10:13 AM] Bill Friis: Yup. Calls for help almost always answered.

[10:13 AM] Graham Mills: SLED listserv also a useful resource

[10:14 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: Can you post a URL to that Graham?

[10:14 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: That'll help the others find it.

[10:14 AM] Graham Mills: https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/educators

[10:15 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: Thanks!

[10:15 AM] Graham Mills: See also http://bit.ly/listfaq for some general stuff

[10:16 AM] Scottmerrick Oh: Lots of resources, plus info on the monthly inworld Speaker Session at http://sigve.iste.wikispaces.net

[10:16 AM] Archivist Llewellyn: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Second_Life_Education

[10:16 AM] Graham Mills: I always reckon you need more than one reason to use an environment like this

[10:17 AM] Graham Mills: a virtual poster session is a lot cheaper than color printing irl

[10:18 AM] Bill Friis: Absolutely, Graham

[10:18 AM] Firery Broome: I think that depends on the age of the student- I find that the students I have trained in the last year and a half are Sims users. Many of them girls and they get SL very quickly.

[10:19 AM] Bill Friis: The sense of face to face presence is a big part of what virtual worlds offers.

[10:19 AM] Scottmerrick Oh: Another factor is the media's demonization of virtual avatars as sex-obsessed, you know, like the recent HBO Valentine special, aired with full publicity support from Linden Lab, doesn't help our efforts to use it for education very much: http://secondlife.com/landing/hbo

[10:20 AM] Bill Friis would rather be pushed in SL than in RL

[10:20 AM] Jerod Bagley: Right Scott, that is a source of resistance from faculty who only know SL for what they hear in the media.

[10:20 AM] Archivist Llewellyn: Database of academic publications about SL - http://sled.dabbledb.com/publish/sled/8c1b3898-0616-46f3-b96c-63623c8a381e/briefviewwebsites-forpublicsearch.html

[10:20 AM] Firery Broome: yes Bill esp. from a tall building

[10:20 AM] Graham Mills: If that's perceived as a problem, you could use a standalone OpenSim grid

[10:21 AM] Firery Broome: well I always say that is the same thing you heard about the web too

[10:21 AM] Graham Mills: agreed

[10:21 AM] Jerod Bagley: Absolutely, but it can be a problem nonetheless

[10:21 AM] Firery Broome: rem. when searching for the white house brought up a porn site : 0

[10:22 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: It is. I have the family filter turned on at home on both Bing and Google for that very reason. I don't particularly want to see that stuff pop up when I'm searching.

[10:22 AM] Scottmerrick Oh: doesn't it still (lol)

[10:22 AM] Firery Broome: is just like the flat web, all the same rules apply. is important to remind people of that

[10:23 AM] Graham Mills: Daden had an inworld situation room for the Haiti quake

[10:24 AM] Graham Mills: Leicester used an inworld oil rig fire with their students

[10:24 AM] Firery Broome: I do the building for my faculty

[10:24 AM] Bill Friis: Actually, SL has problems the flat web does not, but they can be dealt with.

[10:26 AM] Susan Thibedeau: lost sound

[10:26 AM] Graham Mills: v quiet here

[10:26 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: I think he's still talking.

[10:26 AM] JimS Seid: question being asked here

[10:27 AM] Susan Thibedeau: jim will you type the question?

[10:28 AM] JimS Seid: discussion on how one university is using SL for administration meeting...

[10:28 AM] Susan Thibedeau: thank you

[10:28 AM] JimS Seid: for different divisions of the university

[10:28 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: Administration meeting? Now that's very interesting.

[10:28 AM] Bill Friis: Indeed.

[10:29 AM] Bill Friis: Good way for admins to get a feel for the place.

[10:29 AM] Susan Thibedeau: is there a referee involved?

[10:29 AM] JimS Seid: lol

[10:29 AM] Susan Thibedeau: :-)

[10:29 AM] Scottmerrick Oh: Kathy Schrock attempted to use SL for her school district tech meetings but couldn't achieve real buy-in from the participants

[10:29 AM] Jerod Bagley: Some of you may be familiar with the Sloan-C Consortium. Their administration is dispersed around the country. They hold their admin meetings in SL.

[10:30 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: The Sloan-C is pretty active. They have some class on how to use SL coming up.

[10:30 AM] Bill Friis: Forward looking bunch, Sloan.

[10:30 AM] JimS Seid: question about using for language learning...

[10:31 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: They offer beginners, intermediate, and advanced classes.

[10:31 AM] Bill Friis: Language teachers love the place. So easy to get conversations with native speakers.

[10:31 AM] JimS Seid: different social situations...

[10:31 AM] Scottmerrick Oh: Mike McKay is still maintaining a strong community at Cypris Chat in SL but it's struggling financially

[10:31 AM] Susan Thibedeau: now with interactive white boards language learning is a great use of SL

[10:32 AM] Angelina Venenbaum: I have recomended to my students to use SL for conversation, but they must be over 18 y/o

[10:32 AM] Scottmerrick Oh: An interesting ReactionGrid project at http://mychinese360.com

[10:32 AM] Graham Mills: inline Google Translate

[10:33 AM] Graham Mills: Try slanguages.net

[10:33 AM] Scottmerrick Oh: Angelina why the 18 y/o requirement?

[10:34 AM] Graham Mills: Um, isn't it 15y/o now?

[10:34 AM] Susan Thibedeau: sharing documents now with ways to annotate

[10:35 AM] Susan Thibedeau: Twiddla is a great collaborative tool

[10:35 AM] Graham Mills: delicious.com/pmiller/slsm for a list

[10:36 AM] Angelina Venenbaum: 18 y/o is the age to be major in my country

[10:36 AM] Scottmerrick Oh: ah thanks.

[10:36 AM] Bill Friis: Good idea. We should walk while we talk.

[10:37 AM] Bill Friis: SL has virtual marriages, and RL marriages have come out of SL.

[10:37 AM] JimS Seid: comments on how to learn about foreign countries via embassy's

[10:37 AM] Scottmerrick Oh: Thank you all for being here and have fun in Austin. I'm over nad out.

[10:38 AM] Scottmerrick Oh: and ?

[10:38 AM] Ellie Brewster: oops, RL calls, thanks for the invitation!

[10:38 AM] Bill Friis: Adios, Scott

[10:38 AM] Bill Friis: And Ellie

[10:38 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: Bye Scott. Thanks for coming.

[10:38 AM] Ilene Pratt: I have to go too! Thanks!

[10:38 AM] Bill Friis waves goodbye to Ilene.

[10:38 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: Bye, Ilene.

[10:40 AM] Jerod Bagley: Writing to the SLED list with your request for temporary space will usually yield several offers of assistance and space.

[10:40 AM] Bill Friis: Cool

[10:41 AM] Angelina Venenbaum: besides languages, what else can be taught in SL?

[10:41 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: That's a good point Jerod. There are many resources like that available for the asking.

[10:42 AM] Bill Friis used SL to teach scientific method, using experiments with in-world physics.

[10:42 AM] Graham Mills: http://www.journal.chemistrycentral.com/content/3/1/14

[10:42 AM] Angelina Venenbaum: thank you

[10:42 AM] Susan Thibedeau: We had a business retail marketing class that designed 6 stores - we brought to life and then we had a shopping day with outside our university SL users - we kept count of number of visitors, items sold, etc

[10:43 AM] Graham Mills: You can run an OpenSim on a USB memory stick

[10:43 AM] Graham Mills: Just single user

[10:44 AM] Jerod Bagley: Right on Jef. That is the real richness of SL... the community itself.

[10:45 AM] Graham Mills: sl educators

[10:46 AM] Graham Mills: um, mainly reverse engineered

[10:46 AM] Graham Mills: physics not as good as sl

[10:47 AM] Susan Thibedeau: NMC is great supporter of SL

[10:47 AM] umsultan Tearfall: no Graham

[10:47 AM] Angelina Venenbaum: do you think that is a possibility of protecting young people against the dangers of sl?

[10:47 AM] Graham Mills: hypergrid

[10:49 AM] Jerod Bagley: Angelina, good point, an Open Sim region can be dedicated to your students and walled off from outsiders. In exchange for that security, you give up the shared community. It's a trde off.

[10:49 AM] Angelina Venenbaum: ok, I didn't know that is possible

[10:50 AM] Graham Mills: you can do that in SL too

[10:50 AM] Jerod Bagley: Good point Graham.

[10:51 AM] Graham Mills: ty :)

[10:51 AM] Graham Mills: 35

[10:51 AM] Archivist Llewellyn: 35-40

[10:52 AM] Jerod Bagley: Thanks everyone. Great meeting.

[10:52 AM] Firery Broome: THanks very much

[10:52 AM] Firery Broome: for sharing the feed

[10:52 AM] Bill Friis: Been fun

[10:52 AM] Graham Mills: yay :)

[10:52 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: Fun stuff!

[10:52 AM] Graham Mills: Bravo! -- Cheers! - Applause!

[10:53 AM] JeanClaude Vollmar: Thank you everyone! It's good as always to see the support you all give to the community.