EDUCEDGE,

“Demographics of Virtual Worlds”, by Jeremiah Spence (2008, in Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, pdf)

Abstract

Virtual worlds, as both a concept and an industry, has changed radically over the past 10 years, from a toy for the technological elite, to an over-hyped marketing phenomenon, to a needed reexamination of the uses and utility of virtual world technologies and experiences, as provided in this paper. Within academia there are a number of issues that require further examination. The academic community appears to be divided into four camps: 1. those who embrace virtual worlds; 2. those who ignore the shifting use of technology; 3. those who are aware but have not yet explored the technology; and 4. those who are entirely unaware that virtual worlds exist. There is an overwhelming focus of research, publications and funding on a single virtual world: Second Life, which does not serve more than a fraction of the entire population utilizing virtual worlds or similar technologies. An overview of the size, shape and forms of virtual worlds may have a positive impact on both of these issues. This paper presents an in-depth survey and analysis of virtual worlds and related technologies. (abstract: http://www.jvwresearch.org/v1n2_spence.html

The Virtual Worlds Research Consortium (http://vwrc.org) is planning to launch a large census project covering social virtual worlds, opensims, and mmorpgs over the next couples months.  VWRC is actively seeking partners for this project.

Intellagirl at http://ubernoggin.com/archives/383
“As some of you may know, as part of my dissertation research I’ve been noting the presence of ten facets present in virtual worlds. It’s taken me about 18 months to do it but I’ve noted the facets in over 70 worlds. If you’re interested in the chart I’ve published it here:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pgKqGR6eOiPOKjMG9f856Sw

Ken Deanmead, May 13, 2009: “Twitter has of late been inundated by, shall we say, “normals.” What was once our little playground has become rather more populated. But that doesn’t make it any less effective a tool for communication. It just means we have to stick together, and keep the geek community thriving. To this end, GeekDad has assembled the following: a list of 100 awesomely geeky-geeks. These are great, creative gamers and chiptune artists, astronomers and LEGO builders. <…>

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/05/100-geeks-you-should-be-following-on-twitter/

Read about it here: http://www.muvedesign.com/the-virtual-worlds-hype-cycle-for-2009/

A range of charts created by Gary Hayes across games, social networks, cross-media, broadband services, virtual worlds. Used in various presentations already and all marked as creative commons - attribution, non-derivative, non-commercial. See them all at http://www.flickr.com/photos/garyhayes/sets/72157613331811096/

1-Distributed Story Online - (legend and better visual at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/garyhayes/3251571561/sizes/o/in/set-72157613331811096/)

See the rest of the diagrams on Gary Hayes’s Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/garyhayes/sets/72157613331811096/

ok, that’s really cool. But I really can’t take the credit for discovering this. I saw this ppt presentation tool used by Jeremy Kemp at his dissertation research discussion yesterday and I HAD to have it. I LOVE gadgets and I LOVE ratpacking so I had to try this when I saw an awesome way to present slides in a more dynamic way that the regular pre-loaded single panel. I present the Slide Toggler:

*video by Peter Bloomfield (1:15)

AngryBeth Shortbread’s Interactive Whiteboard has been a favorite for many. In fact, many tools and sims that AngryBeth creates are positively exciting. Her Interactive Whiteboard is a communal slide presenter in which people can drop, delete and even write over images (anything you download as textures, really, such as ppt). It can also be used as a brainstorming tool in which everyone can add their notes.

The ppt tool i used for my dissertation proposal defense was Dudeney Ge’s presenter. It allows me to pre-load all my ppts (downloaded as textures) and the HUD allows only me to preview the following slide. It actually pre-loads it so that the slide does not take for ever to rez for everyone else (pending THEIR technical performances). It also responds only to the presenter’s touch, which means that anyone touching the ppt presenter won’t trigger a change of slide. (check here other tools created by Dudeney Ge)

I also saw another panel that allowed a pointer to be used outside the slides. I saw it used once with Jeremy Kemp at his previous presentation on SLoodle 2 weeks ago, and by a NCI instructor Protomas Ludwig (SL) on Boomer Island during a gesture workshop. Once I dig this up, i’ll be ready to offer a workshop on presentation tools for the following social presence in 3D session. Stay tune.

Since I’ve been volunteering in my son’s class (1st grade), I’ve been looking for web-based educational games for that particular audience. I realize how my professional training and experience has absolutely NOT prepared me for this (Obviously. I never thought that I would be interested in K-12 education). However, this has become quite fun, but at time frustrating because I really REALLY have no clue where to look. So I started by the RezEd-based SIG K-8 Virtual Worlds. For those of you who have not checked out the RezEd.org site, you are really missing an absolutely awesome resource. Do yourself a favor and join (it’s free. and no, i have not personal interests in promoting it besides the fact that the more educators join, the more brains I can pick

http://www.kidscom.com/ is pretty cool. Thanks to Sally Schmidt, Executive Producer at KidsCom.com, for pointing me toward this site. It is well organized. It offers a virtual community (with a purpose) as well as online games.

Sally Schmidt (01/15/09, RezEd communication): “On KidsCom.com kids play educational games to earn Virtual Points they can use the take care of a virtual pet or buy stuff for their house, character, etc. in our virtual world. Many of the games would be appropriate for 1st graders–we have a math game called Math Monster Crunch, Tangrams game, Maze game, Appetite Attack nutrition game (although it is probably a little advanced for 1st graders). You can find these games easily by going to KidsCom.com and clicking on the Games tab in the top nav.”

howdy friends,

I am so excited about this that I’ve got to share.

You mostly realized by now that you must pay for a professional account on SurveyMonkey in order to get unlimited questions for your surveys (otherwise limited to 10 questions).

This also allows you to request for the html to be activated on your account (only professional accounts get it). Just email SurveyMonkey and they do it within the hour (I found the activation request link when I looked in the FAQs and click on ‘how to add html in my survey’). This means -among other things- that you can embed a video in your Survey! For that, go to your video hosting location, YouTube, Veoh, whatever, collect the html code (i.e., copy from the ‘embed’ window provided by the host), paste it in your SurveyMonkey window (in the edit page of course). save. et voila.

Your students now do not need to exit the Survey in order to watch your video (or listen to your podcast, view a picture, etc.). Once they are done, they can continue to the post survey or whatever else you need them to do.

Isn’t this excellent? no need to build a website! It’s all confined to your survey page!

ok, that’s for my discoveries today. And thanks again Lorah.

http://www.flamingtext.com/net-fu/forms/flaming-logo.html

Cool little thing to create your own flaming logo.

http://tomuse.com/online-storage-backup-software.html

as of 12/03/08, there are about 40+ locations listed on this chart.

http://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2008/11/100-blogs-that-will-make-you-smarter/

http://www.elearningyellowpages.com/blog/2008/10/ditch-the-backpack-100-essential-web-tools-for-virtual-students