2020 #VWEDU: Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 13th Annual Conference, March 26-28, 2020. A conference on your laptop. Travel time 30 seconds. Travel cost: $0.0

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 
13th Annual  Conference,  March 26-28, 2020.  
A conference on your laptop. 
Travel time 30 seconds.  Travel cost: $0.0

Announcing the 13th Annual Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education.  Right there on your laptop.  Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education is a global grass-roots community event focused on education in immersive virtual environments. This open conference is organized by educators, for educators, toto showcase the learning that takes place in this community of practice

VWBPE 2016 entrance

• VWBPE Website
• VWBPE program (schedule of events)
• Pre-conference Immersive Experiences
• Post-conference Immersive Experiences

A conference in a virtual world

• No travel.  it is on your computer.
• No travel costs.  
• No travel time.
• Time to get to events: less than 30 seconds.
• You can see any web links they offer right there on your laptop
• And capture all the text discussion.
• You can record a video of a presentation if you want.
• You can cut out sections of the video to present to a class.  
• You can find people easily if you know the name.
• (Ctrl f gets search panel, click the people tab.)
• No security problems, no disease risk.
• You only have to install a viewer.

• update 2/27/2020 IMA SceneGate Viewer Release 1.0.0 for Linux and Windows. Kitely updates to OpenSim 9.1.1 OpenSim stats decline reversed this month

2020 ART: WW: 3DWebWorldz Installation art in a web page. Minimalist art

Installation art in a web page.  
Minimalist art in a browser. 

Minimalist installation art in a dance venue makes the audience become part of the art.

Minimalist art: 

dance hall

• Minimalist art
• . . . essentials. . .  of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features. . .
• A group of avatars dancing to the music of the sphere.
• Installation art
• Art in virtual worlds
• Go there: 3DWebWorldz 
• Look for Events-Liz Aday Concert Stage
• Web-worlds: virtual worlds in your browser 

• update 2/27/2020 IMA SceneGate Viewer Release 1.0.0 for Linux and Windows. Kitely updates to OpenSim 9.1.1 OpenSim stats decline reversed this month

2020 Virtual: #VWEDU: OSCC19 SCENEGATE VIEWER--Thales group and IMA. For OpenSimulator and other digital scene creators.

OSCC19 SCENEGATE VIEWER--
Thales group and IMA.  
For OpenSimulator and 
other digital scene systems.

This presentation from Infinite Metaverse Alliance® (IMA) and Thales Group discusses development of a new open source viewer for the OpenSimulator community focused on improvements in usability, accessibility, and interoperability. 

• Watch on YouTube
• Thales teams with Infinite Metaverse Alliance (IMA) to work on next generation collaborative and training tools.

Development is driven by inclusive “design thinking” while adding capabilities for the future to address gaps in development aimed at the needs of new users and those with different abilities that may be digitally marginalized.  

Use SceneGate

• Download SceneGate
• SceneGate Wiki 

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Thales and IMA

The SceneGate Viewer project is one of several R&D projects integrated with decentralized OpenSimulator development supporting the mission to advance virtual worlds, virtual reality, and synthetic environments. 

The work of IMA and Thales is directed toward broadening use of the Metaverse for Public, Education, Industry and Government sectors but the digital-3D community as a whole benefits from open source.

SceneGate

• The SceneGate Viewer open beta: Rationale, documentation, support, roadmap
• SceneGate has an extended mode for experienced users. Planned developments will offer more reasons for experienced users to want to use it.
• SceneGate improvements: Starting, voice, vision, performance, grid manager, button groups
• OpenSimulator Community Conference 2019 Dec. 14-15. Dec 15 events: Selected presentations with emphasis on education and broad interest
• Scenegate improvements: onboarding, accessibility, performance, usability
• Gathering educational support in OpenSimulator. Scenegate, RezMela™, Kitely Organizations, DTA
• Scenegate beginner's instructions: for people coming to a class or meeting in OpenSImulator. DTA content
• SceneGate: updating the strawman model for education

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Visit me on the web

• Drop by my web offices Weekdays: 12:-12:30 pm Central time (US)
• I am available for free consulting on any topic in this blog.
• Cybalounge and 3DWebWorldz (Orientation room)
• I will be in both places, so you may need to speak to get my attention.
• Web-worlds, 3D virtual worlds running in a browser. Summary
• And we can visit the Writer's Workshop on the Web
• Don't register -- enter as guest.  

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License

• Original text in this blog is CC By: unless specified public domain.
• Use as you please with attribution: link to the original.
• All images without attribution in this blog are CC0: public domain.
• Second Life, Linden, SLurl, and SL are trademarks of Linden Research Inc.
• Annotated screenshots made with Jing
• This blog is not affiliated with anything.   Ads are from Google.
• Selby Evans in Kitely and hypergrid, Thinkerer Melville in Second Life.

2019 DTA: Managing the media streams in SceneGate. For OpenSim (user level)

Managing the media streams 
in SceneGate. For OpenSim (user level)

SceneGate and other virtual world viewers offer 3 kinds of media streaming: audio (mainly for playing music streams), video, and media on a prim (BOPs).   Here are instructions  for users on how to manage them.

Onscreen buttons 

to control sound 

• To get the sound control panel, hover the cursor over the speaker graphic
• The sliders on that panel let you adjust the volume of the sound channels

Use SceneGate

• Download SceneGate
• SceneGate Wiki 

• update 2/20/2020 Kitely updates to OpenSim 9.1.1 OpenSim stats decline reversed this month OpenSim Fest 2020. August 28th-30th, 2020

2020 #DTA: #VWEDU: Vocabulary learning from the beginning: Can the DTA evaluate beginner performance? How?

Vocabulary learning from the beginning:
Can the DTA evaluate beginner performance?  
How? 

Immediate feedback is needed for optimal learning conditions.  A computer is limited in what it can evaluate.  But in a scene under its control, it can give feedback to support vocabulary learning and well up into the more advanced language skills. 

The Empty Classroom

Off to learn a language

• We started here:
• Learning the vocabulary with AI. Two major cases. The DTA can provide an intelligent environment

Can DTA evaluate beginner performance?

• The DTA can present interactive scenes to give context for learning concrete vocabulary words,
• It can record and file learner responses. 
• It can best support learning if it can evaluate the responses and give immediate feedback.
• Or if it can arrange for others to give the feedback.
• Conveniently, this feedback is only to support learning.
• It does not have to be recorded.  It just has to happen.  Indirect evaluation.

• update 2/20/2020 Kitely updates to OpenSim 9.1.1 OpenSim stats decline reversed this month OpenSim Fest 2020. August 28th-30th, 2020

2020 COMEDY: Feb. 2020: Lauren's place, Tuesdays at 5:00 PM Pacific NSFW*

2020 COMEDY:  Feb. 2020: Lauren's place,   
Tuesdays at 5:00 PM Pacific NSFW

Jan.-Feb. collection of comedy from Lauren's place:   WyNott,  Catboy, HiTech, Amouretta, Randy, Jamie, Synnove

• Watch on YouTube

• At Lauren's Place Tuesdays 5 pm Calif. time (NSFW)
• Place:  http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cookie/122/242/23
• A one-hour comedy show in voice.
• Tell the MC that you want to do comedy.
• If you can do a good 3-5 min. set with a good close will make a video.
• Our Comedy Channel
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGw_HANVLFY&list=PLmXCeJpxLXokSPNK_UVR1rS9qHSfJJsNM
• JOKE BANK - POPULAR JOKES
• Joke search

• update 2/20/2020 Kitely updates to OpenSim 9.1.1 OpenSim stats decline reversed this month OpenSim Fest 2020. August 28th-30th, 2020

2020 #VWEDU: #DTA: Entrepreneurial thinking and design thinking for the virtual world Digital Teaching Assistant

Entrepreneurial thinking 
and design thinking for 
the virtual world Digital Teaching Assistant 

Entrepreneurial thinking discovers an opportunity to market a new product or service.   Design thinking develops a plan for producing and marketing such a product or service. A Digital Teaching Assistant is potentially a new product or service.  A collaboration of ideas.  This article is explicitly licensed Public Domain (CC0).

Group meeting in a virtual world
Click image to enlarge

• A Digital Teaching Assistant (DTA) in MUVE (virtual world): What would it do?
• Entrepreneurial thinking (search)
• Entrepreneurial thinking (scholarly articles)
• Entrepreneurship (Wikipedia) 
• 5 Stages in the Design Thinking Process
• Design thinking (search)
• Design thinking (Wikipedia)
• David Lee - Design Thinking in the Classroom: How-to for project-based learning

• update 2/20/2020 Kitely updates to OpenSim 9.1.1 OpenSim stats decline reversed this month OpenSim Fest 2020. August 28th-30th, 2020

2020 VW: WW: #VWEDU: #DTA Use-targeted learning plan for schools in digital worlds. Learners can pick the skills they need for the uses they intend. Gamified as a model

Use-targeted learning plan in digital worlds.
Learners can pick the skills 
they need for the uses they intend.
Gamified as a model

A gamified plan for learning how to use digital/virtual worlds is offered both as a suggestion for teaching the use of virtual worlds and as a model for gamification in other educational contexts.  This article is explicitly licensed Public Domain (CC0).

Practice goal setting 

Overview

• Use-targeted learning plans rest on units of competency-based learning.
• Use-targeted learning plans put the units into clusters of skills needed for practical objectives.
• And they arrange each cluster into subclusters that can mark stages of learning progress.
• The learner sees demonstrable achievement milestones marking progress.
• And, for the more advanced uses, the learner can choose the objective.

Proposed roadmap for instruction in the use of virtual worlds

• Identify the uses
• Identify the user levels
• Specify the skill sets required for each use-level combination.
• Organize tool buttons and instructional units to fit the skill sets.

"Game" elements

• Clearly specified goals and levels. (Practice goal seeking)
• Closely spaced levels allow frequent achievements.  (Growth mindset)
• User choices in targets and paths (Independence)
• Levels based on what the learner can do.  (Objective success) 
• Skills focus rather than "knowledge" focus.  
• "Game" is in quotes because the elements serve for learning, not just for games.

• update 2/20/2020 Kitely updates to OpenSim 9.1.1 OpenSim stats decline reversed this month OpenSim Fest 2020. August 28th-30th, 2020

2020 #VWEDU: BIZ: Want a digital campus for your school? There's an app for that. Actually several. Here are some on RezMela Apps (Kitely grid)

Want a digital campus for your school?  
There's an app for that.  Actually several.   
Here are some on Kitely grid.

A Kitely region showing the use of several Rezmela Apps to build spaces with no need to know much about building in virtual worlds.

An app-built place

• Not just the building. The trees and shrubs, everything.
• You still have to decide what you want. 
• And tell that to the app.
• But you don't have to learn to build.

Go there

• Web page
• Firestorm Hop
• hop://grid.kitely.com:8002/Apps/129/129/23
• HG address:
• grid.rezmela.kitely.org:8002:Apps
• Travel tips for the Hypergrid. A DTA content page
• Ingrid (within a grid) Travel tips for OpenSimulator . A DTA content page
• More demonstrations are available on the RezMela Grid Hub region:
• HH address: 
• grid.rezmela.net:8002:hub 

• update 2/13/2020 Kitely updates to OpenSim 9.1.1. OpenSim Fest 2020. August 28th-30th, 2020 IMA SceneGate Viewer 1.0.0 for Linux and Windows Tangle Grid SciFi Expo Feb 5-Mar.5

2019 #VWEDU: #DTA: GAME: Any learning task in school is a game if you want it to be. Turn study into a game

Any learning task in school is a game 
if you want it to be.
Turn study into a game.

What people do in education is much like what people do in games.  Educators can use the principles of games to enhance the effectiveness of education.

Learning in a game?

Start with a puzzle

• People voluntarily work to solve puzzle games like this. 
• They learn answers to things that are of no lasting importance.
• Just because they like the game.
• Education has a more efficient system.
• Give them all the answers at the start.
• Don't let them waste time figuring things out for themselves.
• After all, education already has all the answers.
• Except how to make education as attractive as games.
• Puzzle: Finding the answers teaches something more than being given the answers
• What do students not learn when you give them all the answers?

Here is an opportunity for inquiry-based learning

• What would it take to make a course as interesting as a game?
• The Game of School

• update 2/13/2020 Kitely updates to OpenSim 9.1.1. OpenSim Fest 2020. August 28th-30th, 2020 IMA SceneGate Viewer 1.0.0 for Linux and Windows Tangle Grid SciFi Expo Feb 5-Mar.5