Open Sledware July 31, 2007

Open SLedware in an initiative of SL educators to make course content accessible to all.

Material is freely provided under the Creative Commons Licensing system unless specifically stated otherwise. Code, specifically, may well be protected under a different licensing system as Creative Commons is not widely used for protecting code.

There’s a second life wiki at http://opensledware.wikispaces.com/, a second life group OpenSLedware, and a google group http://groups.google.com/group/open-sledware.

I don’t quite know what it all means but I’m going to see if I can find out!

moodle madness July 30, 2007

Been moodling today, and have figured out how to automatically make a flash file (among other types) play within moodle, by setting the appropriate filter. Hurray! Also downloaded and tested the Questionnaire and Book modules, and added sections about how to use each in the Moodle 101 course.

ABC’s new Greek show tweets July 30, 2007

NBC, CBS, ABC Family and MTV have found twitter, and are trying to see how they can tweet their shows and bring in even more money. In fact, Cappie on ABC Family’s new series, “Greek,” is going to be Twittering and encouraging viewers to do the same during Monday night’s episode.

I don’t know… TV is pervasive enough without getting constant minute by minute messages about it. Although I’d buy in if my tweets went to the actor or actress or producer. Now that would be tv 2.0! Sporting events are different- play by play is certainly appropriate there. During the World Cup, or even during an Aggie game, I’d appreciate tweets to let me know what’s going on, especially when it’s not televised or only on pay per view or something like that. That kinda happened during the world cup in the way of online chat, and it was fun to talk about the game in real time with others who were watching it. But I don’t feel that passion for a sitcom. Next thing you know I’ll be getting ad tweets. Uugh!

BlogHer 07 SL July 29, 2007

BlogHer 07 SL conference was interesting… I didn’t attend as much of it as I’d hoped, and I don’t know enough about SL to be a very active participant. But it was so interesting! To see sessions, and exhibits, and social networking opportunities (including live performers and participants dancing) in SL was fabulous, and to have a chance to attend a conference virtually when I couldn’t attend physically was all I could ever ask for. I just should’ve spent more time in life beforehand so I’d know what I was doing. I didn’t know how to dance! And it took me a few minutes to turn on streaming audio so I could hear the live band. And still there was so much typing- although I haven’t spent the time to play with voice yet either.

Next time I’ll do some prep work beforehand- as I should with every conference I attend. And I’ll make sure that other things don’t pop up that push the virtual conference to the back burner. I’ll treat it with the respect a live conference gets.

how not to develop a neurotic twitter July 29, 2007

the One Minute How To podcast has some interesting stuff- and for folks like me with short attention spans, the one minute time limit is just about perfect. A recent program called How Not to Go Crazy Using Twitter gave me some especially good ideas!

slideshare & slideshare alike July 29, 2007

slideshare allows you to, well, share your slides. And you can slidecast too.

I’m still playing and thinking of how we can use this in extension… check it out and let me know what you think! I haven’t played with the slideshare-podcast mashup which is a slidecast, but here’s a simple slidecast of a PPT I used for a camtasia training a while back:

virtual relay for life July 29, 2007

3rd annual SL Relay For Life raised over L$27 million in donations
by Kristi Guyot July 28, 2007 http://www.slnn.com/article/second-life-relay-for-life-moriash/

RELAY FOR LIFE — The Third annual SL Relay For Life virtual walkathon was this weekend. Most walkers will exert themselves by holding down an arrow key on the keyboard, but one brave avatar’s real feet will be doing the walking. Moriash Moreau, aka Nathan Walton, has rigged his computer to an old treadmill, allowing his avatar to follow his movements, including buttons for turns. Now THAT’s a way to combine walking and SLing!

EduGeek Journal post applauds Sloog HUD July 14, 2007

by Erin Jennings – Friday, July 13, 2007 @ 11:23 am

Sloog allows users to bookmark locations and avatars using a free in-world Heads-up Display (HUD), identify them using custom tags, and save them to an online profile. Each Sloog contains the Second Life URL (SLURL) to the location and the list of descriptive tags added by the user.

Although users can make bookmarks private, the best feature of Sloog is the ability to share and explore public bookmarks (or “Sloogs”). The tagging system is like del.icio.us, and is lots more user friendly than the SL search.

Erin also noted that in the list of popular tags on Sloog’s website, “Education” is one of the largest! Clicking on the tag will take you to a list of all locations in Second Life that have been tagged as educational — a great way to find and share new places or promote your own educational space.

Monroe College is havin a SL hoedown July 12, 2007

The Monroe College Second Life campus grand opening and open house is scheduled for Sun, July 22, 2007

The hay wagon and horse will start around NMC’s Teaching Island every hour on the hour, starting at 9am (SLT/PDT) with the last ride beginning at 4 pm. It will make stops at the various locations on the island where visitors can disembark or embark. The hayride will stop at New York University, Harper College, Sloan Consortium, Darton College, Williams College, Wright State University, Clemson University, & other locations. Visitors are invited to grab a partner and Square dance. They will have dance dresses and other western outfits to wear. Other activities include a Texas barbecue.

To visit or to attend the hoedown, go to http://slurl.com/secondlife/Teaching/149/186/21.
Search Places or Groups for Monroe College and teleport. 149, 186, 21 .

I’m intrigued and will try to stop by. I wonder…
what does SL BBQ taste like? And how can have a hoedown without appropriate beverages?!

 

RTM tweet July 10, 2007

Lifehacker recently posted about the ability to create Remember the Milk tasks with just one tweet. Well, it may take more than one tweet to do more than one task. But still- it’s another fun thing to do with Twitter- and it may be the most productive thing I’ve done with it so far. And you can tweet tasks to others- which may make it the ultimate delegation tool.