second-life

Murdoch University Island in Second Life

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Tonight’s interview with the State Library of Victoria went very well. We discovered that you need to use “push to talk” to stop the echo from speakers creating feedback – but once we knew that, we were flying.

Here’s a backup clip that I put on YouTube in case technology failed. It talks about why Murdoch University bought an island, how we manage it and what we’ve learned. It takes up where my earlier clip – Murdoch Uni Library gets a Second Life – left off in July 2007.

Murdoch University Island in Second Life.

If anyone wants to learn more about Second Life, I am running day long workshops in Sydney and Melbourne for CAVAL , Exploring Second Life, on 9th and 12th of May. Melbourne is booked out, but there are still a few places in the Sydney session.

Live interview via Second Life

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In an act of great faith in technology, I’m being interviewed live via Second Life next Tuesday. It will be screened on the big screen at the Experimedia at the State Library of Victoria, on the other side of Australia.

I had great fun with Indra from SLV last night getting the technical setup smoothed out and refitting her avatar with new skin and clothes, even eyes, so she will look the part for the interview Thanks to the two techies at SLV who were helping her out and stayed after their home time.

I just sent this email to our local librarians’ list, WAIN. Hope it doesn’t make the Technology Gods to rain all over Second Life next Tuesday …..

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I’m being interviewed live next Tuesday by Margie Anderson, ALIA Victorian Local Liaison Officer, about what Murdoch University Library has been doing in Second Life. The event will be screened on a big screen in Experimedia in the State Library of Victoria, as part of their “Outside the Box” series of professional development events.

I’ll be sitting in a PC lab at Murdoch Library for the interview, which we will be conducting via Second Life using two avatars and a couple of headsets. Anyone who would like to pop in and watch what happens from my end would be welcome. I’ll be focusing on ensuring the tech setup works, so may not be a stunning hostess, but will explain what I can. You will be able to hear/see the live interview on the lab screen…all, of course, technology permitting ….

The publicity info from the State Library of Victoria is below.

Details:
DATE: Tuesday 22 April 2008
TIME: 4:15pm – 5:30pm
VENUE: Murdoch University Library
ROOM: South Wing Level 1, 1.015
RSVP: Please let me know if you are coming by emailing me before midday on Tuesday:
k dot greenhill at murdoch dot edu dot au

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Get a Second Life! – An interview not to be missed

Join Margie Anderson, ALIA Victorian Local Liaison Officer and Second Life newbie interviewing Kathryn Greenhill, Emerging Technologies Specialist, Murdoch University Library in Second Life on Murdoch University Island! Margie will explore, with Kathryn, the library workshop series that led to Murdoch University purchasing an island in Second Life, the rationale behind the purchase, how the island is managed, projects run on the island and what they have learned from the experience.

Join in the discussion about the use of Second Life within the library and information industry and share your ideas about how Second Life can be utilised to enhance services to our users. Please email margie.anderson@alia.org.au with any questions you might like included in the interview.

Details

Tuesday 22nd April, 6.30 – 7.30pm

Venue: Experimedia, State Library of Victoria

Bookings: 8664 7555 or bookings@slv.vic.gov.au for catering purposes

Free Entry

This program is part of Outside the Box, a series of professional development events presented by the State Library of Victoria in partnership with the Australian Library and Information Association

Four slideshows for Second Life Workshop

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I’m running the first of three “Discover your Second Life” workshops at work tomorrow. Below are four slideshows I will use to guide people through some background to Second Life, creating an avatar, getting through Orientation Island and then finally completing a “Treasure Hunt” designed to familiarise them with the interface on Murdoch University Island.

I played around with SnagIt to capture images from Second Life and then caption them. Easier than using the snapshot tool within Second Life.

For previous workshops, I have just had a few images on a wiki ( Murdoch Second Life ). I decided to try doing a screenshot for most screens in the process this time. I embedded the slideshows in the class wiki so people can follow along in class or used them as a resource after the class.

Second Life training NEVER goes according to plan, so I wonder whether it will be too structured. I was also struck by how complex the screens all seemed when each one is shown. When people have to work out what goes next, it doesn’t seem like so many steps or so complex. I wonder whether it will be a bit more off-putting than my last workshops where I just showed people what to do and said “now, go for it”?

During the Treasure Hunt, I also give them a “how to” notecard with instructions how to complete each station. I also have some good old print handouts.

I just hope I don’t get caught out by the Rolling Restart possibly planned to happen during the workshop.

Anyhow, here’s the slideshows.

Second Life Workshop Background

Creating a Second Life Avatar

Orientation Island in Second Life

Second Life Treasure Hunt – Murdoch University Library

CAVAL courses – one each month

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CAVAL is an Australian consortium owned by universities. It provides “shared services to the information and library sectors throughout Australasia” .

They offer an excellent and varied training program around Australia. I’m going to rave about two upcoming seminars and give a plug for a third one.

At the start of March, there is still time to get tickets to see Michael Stephens, of Tame the Web fame, talk about the Hyperlinked Library in Adelaide (Monday 2 March), Perth (Wednesday 5 March) and Brisbane (Thursday 13 March) . From Michelle McLean’s account of the Melbourne seminar, it looks like THE training seminar to go to this year.

At the start of April, Richard Wallis, Technology Evangelist from Talis, is talking in Perth (1st April ) and Melbourne (3rd April) . His topic is Web 2.0 – Where Next ? He’s looking beyond Web 2.0 toward the Semantic Web. I’ve been following Talis’ Panlibus blog for a while now, and I’m finally beginning to understand their concern with freeing up our library data, providing mechanisms for sharing it and manipulating it into more retrievable bundles.

At the start of May, I’m giving a CAVAL seminar called Exploring Second Life . (this is the plug bit). I’ll be in Sydney on Friday May 9th and Melbourne on Monday May 12th. I’ll take people through creating an avatar, how to navigate Second Life, how to use its tools, how to stay safe and discussing some of the institutional concerns with providing training or managing property in Second Life. I hope we get time to do a bit of building and scripting too. ..that’s the really fun stuff. With just 10 in the course, I’m planning to tailor it specifically to whatever the participants want, so if you have registered, please feel free to contact me and tell me what you’d like covered.

What if this blog was a Second Life avatar ?

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Well… it would look something like LibrariansMatter Bloch , the avatar I just created to attend the 2007 Edublog Awards in Second Life.

She’s seen here looking at the station for Librarians Matter at the pavillion created by Jo Kay, who is hosting the awards on Jokaydia. She’s created 85 stations in a building that is a fantastic example of Second Life architecture – created for ease of access and maximum immersion.

LibrarainsMatter Bloch on Jokaydia

And to think that in February I freaked out about the absurd concept of someone creating a Second Life avatar called something like LibrariansMatter DingDong .

I’ll let you know how the Eddies went (if I don’t sleep in and miss them). If you voted for Librarians Matter, thanks for your support.

UWA Sharecase: Murdoch University Library gets a Second Life

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Here are the slides and notes from my presentation on 23 November 2007 at the Teaching and Learning Sharecase at University of Western Australia. It outlined why we ran workshops in Second Life at our library, how we did it and the outcomes. I had 10 minutes – so had about 2 minutes to explain what Second Life is…..interesting thing to attempt.

(I was tempted to call the presentation Fluffy Librarianship – but of course I didn’t )

The slides are here, Murdoch University Library gets a Second Life

Here’s an outline of the presentation:

1. Outline:

  • What is Second Life
  • What is an academic library doing there?
  • What we did
  • Outcomes

1. What is Second Life?

  • 3-D Online Digital world imagined, created and owned by its residents
  • MUVE = Multi User Virtual environment
  • Avatars- 3D representation of yourself – can chat, IM, use voice, fly, teleport, dance, walk, join groups, attend events
  • Islands – 256m by 256 m rendered by a single server
  • Objects – can be scripted to force web browser to a web page, stream multimedia, give objects and more

2. Why is an academic library there?

  • The Horizon Report 2007 identifies virtual worlds as one of six major trends in emerging technology that will impact on higher education. This is a publication of the New Media Consortium and EDUCAUSE learning initiative
  • Reviewed key trends in the practice of teaching, learning,and creativity
    • Trends were identified through a careful analysis of interviews, articles, papers, and published research.
    • Ranked in order of importance, to identify those likely to have a the most significant impact in education in the next five years.
  • …In the same way that the number and sophistication of websites grew very quickly as more people began to browse, virtual locations will become more common and more mature as the trend continues. Virtual worlds offer flexible spaces for learning and exploration— educational use of these spaces is already underway and growing.
  • Gartner Inc., which bills itself as the “world’s leading information and technology research company”, claimed on 24th April 2007 that “by the end of 2011, 80 percent of active Internet users (and Fortune 500 enterprises) will have a “second life,” but not necessarily in Second Life

3. What we did

3.1 Leased a plot of land on Cybrary City II in the Information Archipelago

3.2 We wanted to offer our community

  • Familiarity with the interface.
  • A safe destination
  • A chance to make up their own minds
  • A closed lab of PCs with updated Second Life software

3.3 Education programme called Discovering your Second Life

  • Collaborated with the Teaching and Learning Centre
  • Mailbomb to the University community
  • Presentation: Lindy McKeown USQ Kathryn Greenhill http://librariansmatter.com Action Learning in Second Life
  • 8 workshops over 3 months
  • Creating your avatar
  • Doing more with your avatar

4. Outcomes

  • Second Life Interest Group
  • Murdoch University Island
    • Joint owned by:
      • Library
      • Teaching and Learning
      • ITS
      • School of IT
    • Delivered 28 September 2007
    • Divided into quarters
      • Admin and development
      • Public
      • Murdoch Community Ideas Space
      • ICT33
    • ICT333 / TLC277
      • 6 IT students built a job interview simulation used by TLC227 students for their “University to Work” unit.

5. Further information:

What shall I ask about “The Librarians”?

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If you have a couple of minutes, please swing by this blog and leave a comment.

As I mentioned before, I’m hosting a discussion of the ABC TV series “The Librarians” in Second Life tonight and am after some quesitons to raise…please let me know what you think would be useful.

After watching it, I think that this is a bit like people who work in paper firms discussing “The Office“. It wasn’t really like “Frontline” or “Drop the Dead Donkey” which really did say things about how the news was made. It must mean that they got the library background pretty much right or else I’d be preparing for an onslaught of groaning.

Overall I enjoyed it. I thought that Frances had characteristics of a lot of people I’ve worked with. I wonder if there are people like that in other workplaces – that special blend of intelligence and ability with incredibly inflexible and conservative personality. There are bigots in other workplaces..but I think some libraries have particularly smart ones who run themselves in rings to rationalise their behaviour.

I think the returns chute topic is a definite goer. And maybe also things people have found used as bookmarks….can you say “used dental floss”?…..eeeuw….

I had a laugh at the white writing in different font sizes on the front window – MPOW has just been remodelled and have just the same iconography.

Do you think people will want to discuss whether the kids librarian was actually qualified? (sigh).

Anyone know if the animal knickers book was the genuine article?

I definitelly wil be asking “was it funny?”

Any questions / topics to raise gratefully accepted…

“The Librarians” discussion on ABC Island in Second Life

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The entire library community knows about this bit:

The Librarians, is a new six-part comedy series from the ABC, based around the highly-strung head librarian of an outer suburban Melbourne library. This new social satire premieres on Wednesday October 31 at 9.30pm. You can also watch it online at abc.net.au/tv/librarians from 10:00pm.

But did you know that on Thursday night, you can chat about the show with other librarians on ABC Island in Second Life?

In conjunction with the ABC, Emerald Dumont – a librarian avatar from the Australian Libraries Building – will host a discussion of the show in the ABC Auditorium on ABC Island. Do we really look like that? What would you have added? What do you think will happen? Would other professions be having this discussion if the show was called “The Teachers” or “The Doctors”?

Brush off you avatar, or follow this guide to create a new one, and join in.

DATE: Thursday November 1st

TIME: 7:30pm AEDST, 5:30pm (WA Daylight savings) , 1:30am SL time (PDT)

PLACE: ABC Auditorium , ABC Island in SL

(If you are logged into Second Life, click on this SLURL to get there: http://slurl.com/secondlife/ABC%20Island/128/75/24)

Instant message Emerald Dumont if you need a Teleport to the event, or contact her close friend Kathryn Greenhill for further information ( kathryn.greenhill at gmail dot com)

Second Life, libraries, universities and Murdoch University Library

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Here’s a slidecast of my presentaion to the Queensland University Libraries Office of Co-operation‘s event on Wednesday 9th October – Social Software in Libraries. It is at Second Life, Libraries, Universities and Murdoch University Library. The audio is from my practice runthrough on Monday night.

The wiki I used as a handout for the “Doing more with your avatar” workshop in the afternoon is at Doing more with your avatar. Information about creating an avatar and education, libraries and Second Life is at the Murdoch University Discovering your Second Life wiki.

Online Learning Virtual Worlds clips

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Sorry if you tried to click through from the links in the last post about the Online Learning in Virtual Worlds Symposium. I uploaded the clips from my presentation yesterday to viddler . Unlike YouTube, this allows you to upload the original format, and lets you add a comment at a particular point in the video. I didn’t see the big “Save Changes” button that I should have selected to make the video public.

These links should work:

Libraries in Second Life

Murdoch University Library gets a Second Life

As an added bonus for bearing with me, here is a link to mashable’s Video Toolbox: 150+ Online Video Tools and Resources.