After a white knuckle sled ride on 81N yesterday afternoon, I did make it home from three days of the PETE&C geek-fest. My presentation on Second Life went well and I send out big cudos to my ‘virtual’ friends Kathy Schrock, Kevin Jarrett, Joe Sanchez and Leslie Jarmon for contributing to my talk on the implications of SL on developing learning communities and the future of distance education. Thanks to those folks we were able to provide a really good demonstration of how real-world connections can be made and fostered within SL. Generated a lot of discussion and excitement I think. Session notes can be found here.

I wasn’t able to get notes posted about Steve Dembo’s keynote yesterday. He gave a great talk and if I have time later, I’ll summarize my written notes on here. Until then, Kristin Hokanson over at The Connected Classroom recorded the presentation. Hope I’m not taking any liberties by reposting it here.

I should mention one thing that I took away from Monday’s Keynote by David Pogue. Two words - SKYPE PHONE! Chris and I played with Skype on our Verizon XV6700’s today. We are both running the WM6 ROM hack on these devices. We downloaded the CAB files and installed with no trouble. Minutes later we were connected to our wireless network chatting over the internet from our cell phones. (Note that the XV6700 are wifi enabled) I should also mention that we then used the BT Audio program to force feed the audio to our bluetooth earpieces. Extremely simple and works well. This will definately get me to use Skype more often.

Lloyd Onyett - Indiana University of Pennsylvania
aka Komputer Merlin

IUP has several islands, incl. Crimson Island and Archaeology Island

About 75 teachers at IUP involved to some degree.
Training education students to use SL.

Very general overview of SL using powerpoint primarily

John Branson from CCIU presents on Second Life. CCIU uses it as a professional development delivery platform of sorts.

Actually quite a few of the audience were familiar and even had SL avatars.

Linden Labs adds 22 servers per week.
140 businesses

Mentioned ISTE, EduIslands, InfoIsland, NASA, NOAA, etc.
Provided a nice overview of the SL ‘basics’

Demo of the CCIU home in SL.
covered basic movement and avatar control, HUD layout and controls
Lot of interest in SL
communication

interest in economy, controls, archiving presentations,
time spent in SL

Search functions
Tour to Vassar School of Art - The Cistine Chapel model
Tour to NOAA

Intersting discussion regarding intellectual property rights and the validity of information.

Reading a recent post from the ever verbose David Warlick today. Will, posting from the EduCon in Philly (I really wish I had time to attend that conference), commented on a session he was attending in which the speaker commented on the work of Ray Oldenburg, who talks about “third places“. Oldenburg says, in his book The Great Good Place the “first place” is home, the “second place” is work, and he defines “third places” as the “public places on neutral ground where people can gather and interact”. The speaker in the session David was writing about used the Third Places as an anology for the blogs he uses with his students. I was thinking it might be a good reference to use in my Second Life presonation next month at PETE&C.

Here’s some info from Oldenburg’s website:

Third Places
Oldenburg identifies third places, or “great good places,” as the public places on neutral ground where people can gather and interact. In contrast to first places (home) and second places (work), third places allow people to put aside their concerns and simply enjoy the company and conversation around them. Third places “host the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond the realms of home and work.” Oldenburg suggests that beer gardens, main streets, pubs, cafés, coffeehouses, post offices, and other third places are the heart of a community’s social vitality and the foundation of a functioning democracy. They promote social equality by leveling the status of guests, provide a setting for grassroots politics, create habits of public association, and offer psychological support to individuals and communities.

“Most needed are those ‘third places’ which lend a public balance to the increased privatization of home life. Third places are nothing more than informal public gathering places. The phrase ‘third places’ derives from considering our homes to be the ‘first’ places in our lives, and our work places the ‘second.’”

“The character of a third place is determined most of all by its regular clientele and is marked by a playful mood, which contrasts with people’s more serious involvement in other spheres. Though a radically different kind of setting for a home, the third place is remarkably similar to a good home in the psychological comfort and support that it extends…They are the heart of a community’s social vitality, the grassroots of democracy, but sadly, they constitute a diminishing aspect of the American social landscape.”

Second Life provides a great application of this concept and easily becomes that third place that provides a leveling and grassroots petri dish.

At the very least, here’s the perfect research-based justification to my stopping at the bar every day on the way back from work.

Its been a busy couple of weeks. Thought I’d fill ya’ll in on one project I’m doing just for the intrinsic rewards. I’ve been enlisted as a designer for a Second Life project that intends to create a virtual model promoting a concept of sustainable urban housing units called Alley Flats. The Basic Initiative, from the University of Texas (Austin), established this concept that developed a model for housing units that would essentially fit in the back yards of existing homes and result in smaller sub-houses that front the alleys between the main roads. The home owner could then either rent the smaller house or move in and rent their main house. This essentially adds to the available housing while at the same time providing income opportunity while maintaining the character of the existing neighborhoods.

I’ve been working at creating a Second Life rendition of one of the two flats that are actually going to be built in Austin, TX. The intent of the SL project is to provide a center of information about this project that can be shared with communities around the world. Here’s the SLURL, but I’m not sure if the area is opened up for visitors yet.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Educators%20Coop%201/155/105/21/

I’d say I’m about half way done with a lot of work left to do. Turned out to be a much bigger commitment than I anticipated, but its pretty interesting and I’m gaining a lot of experience building - a skill set I’m sure could come in handy. And its kind of therapeutic as well. Open house event scheduled for December 6th