The New Media Consortium (NMC) announced today the call for proposals for the 2008-09 NMC Virtual Learning Prize, a $100,000 competitive program of awards intended to create a collection of innovative open-source learning experiences that make use of the unique attributes of a virtual learning environment. (See the press release.)

As many as 20 NMC Virtual Learning Prizes will be awarded in 2008. Each of the US$5,000 awards will provide a cash incentive paid to the awardee of $500 as well as $4,500 in expert development assistance from the NMC Virtual Worlds team to create the learning experience. The range of inworld services available to awardees to actualize the proposed ideas includes professional building, scripting, design, animation, avatar design, and/or related services.

The NMC is committed to pushing the boundaries of how we collectively view teaching and learning in virtual space. The NMC Virtual Learning Prize is envisioned as a way to surface and realize creative ideas for how to make optimal use of a virtual setting, using a process that provides recognition, financial incentives, professional development services, and a return for education as a whole.

"Projects funded under the NMC Virtual Learning Prize program will be those that make learning fresh or novel, or that illustrate concepts that are usually very difficult to teach," explains Dr. Larry Johnson, NMC's CEO and director of NMC Virtual Worlds. "We are seeking immersive learning experiences in particular, as well as tools that support the craft of teaching. We hope to see a number of proposals with broad applicability across disciplines as that will allow us to maximize the reach of the shared resources that are to be developed under this program."

As a requirement of funding, all materials and content produced as part of the program will be licensed for broad use under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Proposal authors will retain full copyright to finished products, and all funded materials will be made available to educators and educational institutions at no cost via either the NMC's Educational Resource Center on Learning in Second Life or via the NMC's website, as applicable.

For the 2008-9 award year, funded ideas will be limited to those that can be implemented in the virtual worlds of Second Life or Project Wonderland. In future years, the program may be expanded to other virtual world platforms.

Review of proposals will begin on June 16, 2008, and proposals will continue to be accepted until all funds have been expended.

For further information, or to download a proposal submission form, please see the Virtual Learning Prize website. Questions related to the criteria or the submission of an application should be directed to virtual-learning@nmc.org.

* Book Talk with Robert Shemin, May 13, 15.

* UPenn Student Mashup Video Screenings, May 14.
* Beijing Cuisine Lectures, May 15.

* Second Life Peace Park Discussion: “Online Religious Practice Through the Looking Glass: Spirituality and the NetWeb”, May 15.
* International Sharing Second Life Stories Day, May 16.

* Siemens PLM Software Analyst Conference Velocity Launch live in Second Life, May 20.
* CCIU Open House Social, June 2.

* JT Open Translator to Second Life Prims, June 3.
The events above have been added to the SLEDevents in SL public Google calendar, which shows events in Second Life of interest to SLED subscribers, and which may be viewed in your web browser at:
http://sledevents.blogspot.com/

One of the more surreal aspects of Second Life is having a vivid voice chat conversation with a character where their mouth never moves. For years, avatars at There.com have had lip sync or at least, mouth movement, to audio.

Well, my Second Life talking friends, you can have that too with the Second Life Lipsync Viewer. This is a set of files you download and replace in your original Second Life application (see the bottom of the docs page and the Readme that comes with the download).

Now your lips move with the volume of your voice! Here is a brief test (it did not work with my dog avatar, so I had to play a human)

If you like this, vote for it to be rolled into the regular viewer.

* Celebrate Pangea Day in Second Life, May 10.

* Stepping Into History Conference, June 10.

 The events above have been added to the SLEDevents in SL public Google calendar, which shows events in Second Life of interest to SLED subscribers, and which may be viewed in your web browser at:
http://sledevents.blogspot.com/

Just stumbled across this– not directly SL, but if you are interested in virtual worlds in general… and are leveled up …

Starting today is a unique event running May 9-11 - Convergence of the Real and Virtual is the first scientific conference taking place in the MMORPG or World of Warcraft.

Lest you think this is not serious, check out the Science article of April 18 by Gonzo Scientist John Bohannon titled Scientists, We Need Your Swords!

This will not be your typical conference. Sure, there will be sessions devoted to various research topics involving virtual worlds, panel discussions, social activities, and those conference goody bags that we’ve all come to love. But to attend this conference, you don’t have to splurge on grant money or add to global warming by flying to another country. And in the goody bags, you won’t find brochures, pens, or those quickly lost notebooks.

Instead, each conference participant will receive (while supplies last) 10 gold pieces, a red “Sciencemag” shirt, a colorful conference tabard emblazoned with an infinity symbol, two extra bags for swag, a telescope, and a pet creature. Between sessions, there will be group field trips across landscapes inhabited by dangerous beasts–some earthly and extinct, others fanciful–an introduction to the world’s auction-based economy, and finally a massive joint assault on an enemy city. (Beat that, Gordon conferences!) Anyone with an Internet connection can take part, from anywhere in the world. All you have to do is install the game, create a character, and join the guild called “Science” on the Earthen Ring US server.

In addition to the main conference web page (which has a lot of useful links) there is much more in the conference wiki.

If there are an WoW educators out there, we’d love to hear some dispatches from this event.

Last year the New Media Consortium conducted and published the results of a survey of educators in Second Life. Given how much has changed and evolved, they have decided to run the survey again.

We announce today the opening of the NMC 2008 Educators in Second Life Survey, which you can take now by going to:
http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB227S75R6YXA

Please share the survey link far and wide, as we hope to get a larger sample this time around. We will keep the survey open at least til the end of May 2008 and we will again publish the results to the NMC Campus Observer and the NMC web site.

Like last year, the the results are and will be available for free under Creative Commons licenses.

Even if you took the survey last year, please participate again (as much can change in a year). And tell everyone you know to put in their responses.

•  Student SciWriting Immersion Projects, May 5.
• Metanomics Rebroadcasts, May 6 & weekly through May.
• E-Learning in 3D: Open Lecture On Campus Hamburg, May 6.
• Community Challenge, USC Network Culture Project, May 6.
• Collaboration Technology and Engaging the Campus 2008 Conference - Live Broadcast, May 8.
• MediaCampBucks08, May 17.  

The events above have been added to the SLEDevents in SL public Google calendar, which shows events in Second Life of interest to SLED subscribers, and which may be viewed in your web browser at: http://sledevents.blogspot.com/ BDSommerville 

 Jeska Linden recently posted on the SLED mailing list regarding LL’s newest concept for improving search results. This is a big idea worth some thinking and conversation so I thought I’d repost her message here for more discussion. What do you think? How would you improve/change the proposed system?

____________________________________________________

Greetings SLED list,

You’ve been asking us to do better with inappropriate content and content classification and we’ve been listening. In an effort to make our abuse reporting system easier to access and more effective, we are planning to introduce a flagging system for our search results - and we’d love to get your feedback.
The new flagging system will help residents to flag inappropriate postings for speedy removal, while preserving everyone’s ability to express themselves freely in world.

How it will work

• First, when you post a classified, you will have to self-declare if your content is mature or not.
• Second, every listing will have a “Flag This” link. You can use this to report inappropriate or mis-classified content or nominate great content for the showcase.

Flag Categories

• Mature - the listing is adult only content (and is not flagged as such)
• Prohibited - the listing contains content that is prohibited in Second Life
• Spam - inappropriate for the listing type (ie: non event listed on Events calendar)
• Showcase - nominate something for possible inclusion in the Second Life Showcase (http://secondlife.com/showcase)

[All listings must follow the Second Life Community Standards and Terms of Service.]

Types of listings that can be flagged

• Parcel listings
• Classifieds
• Events
• You will not be able to flag avatar or group profiles

What happens when something is flagged

• Every flag counts as one vote for that flag category. While one (or few) votes does nothing, if a listing receives enough votes in that category, it will be auto-classified as reported.
• Prohibited and spam content will be taken down immediately when it gets enough votes
• When content is flagged several times, the content owner will get a note
• Residents can file a case with our support team if they think the flag was incorrect

Anything else?

• Residents will be allowed to flag a piece of content only once. You cannot change your vote, so flag with care
• You cannot flag more than Y times a day total (number still to be determined)
• Anonymous basic Residents or Residents whose accounts are less than x days old* will not be able to flag content (number to be determined)
• Flagging will be available only on the search listings and not on object properties in world

Thats it. We hope that this will make content flagging more effective and will help the community better regulate what is appropriate and what is not.
Please reply to this email with your thoughts and feedback on this proposed design!

Cheers,
Jeska, Kalpana and the LL Search Team

____________________________________________________

Second Life Education Community Conference 2008

Call for Proposals

Conference Strands

Select a Session Format

How to Submit a Proposal

Resources for Attendees of your Session

Dates to Remember

Get Ready for SLEDcc 2008!

The Second Life Education community conference is a proud member of the Second Life Community Convention – the official Linden Lab-sponsored and approved event for everyone spending significant time in the best of all possible virtual worlds! This conference is for everyone currently or seriously thinking of engaging in teaching and learning in Second Life.

The SLEDcc is a peer-reviewed academic conference, with emphasis upon evidence-based practices and scholarly work that lead to innovation, the identification of best practices for teaching and learning in the Second Life virtual 3D environment. It is also designed to maximize the opportunities afforded by the Second Life medium itself – and the advantages of meeting face-to-face for an exchange that cannot (yet) be recreated in the digital milieu. Whether you wish to participate in the inworld events or the Tampa, FL (real world) events – please consider presenting and participating in SLEDcc 2008!

Conference Strands:

SLEDcc invites proposals that will address the following themes, or “strands” (please select one). The examples following the Strand Description are just a few ways your proposal might explore the theme.

NOTE: While your project or presentation might fit within more then one Strand Theme, please be judicious and select the single, most appropriate.

1. Games and Simulations (Red Strand): as significant, particular ways to engage learners within Second Life. This Strand will showcase the array of useful and effective ways that the SLED community engages users in game and/or simulation environments.
   • In what ways are SLED designers engaging learners in games, role-plays, and simulations?
   • What are the game development issues that educators-as-designers should know in their creation of engaging SLED materials?
   • How do designers, educators, scripters, and builders collaborate most effectively to create a “killer educational game” in Second Life?

2. Mixed Reality Learning (Orange Strand): as ways to bridge the so-called “real world” and the interface of a multi-user virtual environment as powerful as Second Life. This Strand will demonstrate the variety of ways that education in SL can be powerfully connected to things happening in RL – as well as ways that other media can add value to the SLED experience.
   • What approaches to Mixed-Reality Learning work best? What are the obstacles to overcome? What are some innovative ways to bring SL into the Real World?
   • What skills in the real world can be modeled in Second Life that might transfer best? What are some difficult areas for such transfer?
   • How do educators use multiple media types to best channel and enhance value to the Second Life experience?

3. Theory, Research, & Practice (Yellow Strand): as evidence-based practices to engage users of Second Life in creating intended learning outcomes, whether in formal or informal settings. Theoretical Frameworks from a variety of perspectives will be entertained in this Strand of SLEDcc – with emphasis on practical and scholarly application.
   • What does a successful Design-Based Research experiment in Second Life look like? Other qualitative or quantitative frameworks that work well (or not) in Second Life?
   • How do researchers adequately frame educational work in Second Life to gather data relevant to particular kinds of learning outcomes?
   • What meta-analyses of the literature on Multi-User Virtual Environments should every educator in Second Life know?

4. Differentiated Learning: International, Diverse, and Special Populations (Green Strand): as celebrating the many nationalities, cultures, ways of knowing, and educational efforts specific to particular kinds of learners in Second Life.
   • What are we learning in Second Life in Japan? Brazil? Europe? Australia?
   • How do we effectively teach students in Second Life who do not speak our primary language?
   • How do SLED designers create learning experiences for people of many backgrounds and skill levels?
   • What innovative approaches are emerging to engage exceptional students (e.g. learning disabilities and/or gifted education) in Second Life learning?

5. Projects and Events (Blue Strand): as a milieu for teaching and learning, SLEDcc showcases an amazing breadth of specific projects and events that educators are creating.
   • By examining a cross-section of SLED Projects, provide the audience with a “best practices” overview and assessment for engaging learners in SL.
   • Provide an in-depth look at a particular SLED Project created by your group or organization and highlight the “lessons learned”, challenges, and “next steps”.
   • What is the “magic formula” for creating an engaging, successful SLED event?

6. Educational Tools and Products (Purple Strand): with the vast array of tools and products for free or for sale in Second Life, SLEDcc can help develop capacity for the newcomer and the experienced practitioner alike to make informed choices.
   • Outline the technical specifications, design process, and creation of a functional SLED tool for the would-be designers and educational consumers in SL.
   • Showcase a compare and contrast session, looking at the variety of tools used for a particular purpose and hold a discussion with the audience.
   • Hold a workshop on a SLED tool or product of your choice – providing support and specialized integration assistance as needed.

Select a Session Format:

(a) There are a number of ways that you may present live at SLEDcc in Tampa, FL:

• Tampa Workshops: (90 minutes or ½ day). Get “face-to-face and hands-on” instruction from experts in Tampa (bring your own laptop).
  • Pre-conference workshops are specifically for “Newbies” to Second Life, to prepare them for the SLEDcc! Newbie Specialists, please propose something for this pre-conference day long event!
  • We recommend at least two facilitators for each workshop.
  • Facilitators need to provide all handouts and related materials for attendees.
  • Accepted workshop proposers will receive 50% of all workshop fees beyond those recouped for administrative purposes; the other 50% will go toward a fund to provide token compensation for the volunteer staff of SLEDcc.
• SLED Sparks: Present 20 slides in 2 minutes on a SLED topic of your choice.
• Speed mentoring: Teach skills in an informal, practical fashion – by roundtable.
• Paper Presentations: Presentations supported by more rigorous findings.

(b) Additionally, there are a number of ways for you to present within Second Life, itself:

• The SLEDccademy Awards – the “Sleddies”: Select a Strand Theme and develop a SLED build in that category – open for judging by all registered SLED participants (Note: Participants need not register to attend SLEDcc in Tampa to vote on SLEDccademy Award entries). All winning entries will be verified by an Independent Review Board, verifying the popular vote assessments prior to sponsored prize packages being distributed.
• Poster Sessions: create a display of your SLED project, event, or institution.
• Workshops: get “hands-on” instruction from inworld experts.
• Inworld Presentations: Presentations inworld by the leaders of the SLED community. Inworld presentations will follow the same review process and format as the Real Life sessions in Tampa with some exceptions, perhaps, allowed for special circumstances (email slcceducation @ gmail.com with subject line “Inworld SLEDcc Inquiry” to start dialogue with the SLEDcc Committee).

Whether you decide to be LIVE in Tampa or VIRTUAL in Second Life for your SLEDcc experience, you’ll have a chance to participate with the attendees of each – and many sessions will be taped and available for viewing / download later.

Proposals should (SLED Sparks and Speed Mentoring session proposals not included):

1. Clearly state the problem or issue that your proposal will address and to which Strand Theme it relates.

2. Indicate how your work has effectively addressed that problem or issue.

3. Indicate the outcomes participants should expect from your session and examples of how you will facilitate achievement of those outcomes.

4. Describe the strategies you will use to engage participants in discussing, analyzing, synthesizing, and applying the information you will share.

5. Describe how your work might be applied to a particular or multiple sectors of education, i.e. K-12, large universities, community colleges, adult education, Second Life-specific, etc.

6. Include links to relevant Web sites or electronic copies of the materials you will share (electronic copies of materials can be provided later).

7. Be aware that we will provide access to Tampa and inworld SLEDcc participants to ask questions and discuss how the work might be used to help students achieve essential learning outcomes (threaded discussions). We strongly encourage all presenters to be active in the SLEDcc Ning: http://sledcc.ning.com/

8. All accepted SLEDcc proposals will be notified by June 29^th. Presenters will be invited to add their materials to the SLEDcc wiki at http://sledcc.wikispaces.com/

How to submit a Proposal:

Submission

· In order to have your proposal considered, please submit it by June 4^th, 2008 to slcceducation @ gmail.com using the following guidelines:

o Your proposal should be in MS Word format and submitted via email. The file name should include the name of the primary author followed by .doc extension. If you are submitting multiple proposals, please add a unique number to each filename. e.g. my_name1.doc and my_name2.doc.

o Include the author’s name, title, contact info, and short bio (use the 1^st or primary author’s name only in the filename)

- If you are submitting to present in Tampa, FL, your email should use the subject line “Tampa SLEDcc 08“.

· Tampa Workshops: (90 minutes or ½ day). Get “face-to-face and hands-on” instruction from experts in Tampa (bring your own laptop).

o Pre-conference workshops are specifically for “Newbies” to Second Life, to prepare them for the SLEDcc! Newbie Specialists, please propose something for this pre-conference day long event!

o We recommend at least two facilitators for each workshop.

o Facilitators need to provide all handouts and related materials for attendees.

o Accepted workshop proposers will receive 50% of all workshop fees beyond those recouped for administrative purposes; the other 50% will go toward a fund to provide token compensation for the volunteer staff of SLEDcc.

· SLED Sparks: Please provide a brief paragraph extolling your 2 minute lesson.

· Speed mentoring: Please provide no more than one page explaining your speed mentoring proposal.

· Paper Presentations: please submit an extended abstract of no more than 2000 words (full papers will be due for selected proposals due by August 10 at slcceducation @ gmail.com for inclusion in the SLEDcc Proceedings – further instruction to be notified by email).

- If you are submitting to present in Second Life only, your email should use the subject line “Inworld SLEDcc 08”.

· For SLEDccademy Awards entries: please refer to the http://sledcc.wikispaces.com/ space for more information on guidelines, assessment rubrics for each strand, and procedures for the Awards.

· For inworld poster, and workshop proposals, please submit a brief abstract (400-800 words), including a short statement of the key lesson attendees will take away from the presentation.

· For InWorld Presentations: please submit an extended abstract of no more than 2000 words (full papers will be due for selected proposals due by August 10 at slcceducation @ gmail.com for inclusion in the SLEDcc Proceedings – further instruction to be notified by email).

Deadline: All proposals to present at either the SLEDcc in Tampa or inworld must be received by June 4^th, 2008

Notification: You will receive a message indicating receipt of your proposal when it is submitted.

Acceptance: You will receive notification of the status of your proposal by Monday, June 30^th, 2008.

Registration Fees: All presenters and workshop facilitators attending SLEDcc in Tampa, FL are responsible for the appropriate conference registration, fees, travel, and hotel expenses. Please be sure all presenters added to your proposal have this information and can be available to present at anytime during the SLCC in September 5 – 7 (or Sept 4, if a pre-conference workshop is proposed).

Resources for Attendees of Your Session: Conference attendees like to have resource materials from sessions they attend – whether inworld or live in Tampa. While we encourage all presenters in ANY format to post their materials to the SLEDcc wiki at http://sledcc.wikispaces.com/ we recommend, for those proposing in Tampa, approximately 75 printed handouts for conference-goers.

Please remember: that by submitting a proposal, you agree to register for the appropriate venue (inworld or live in Tampa) if the proposal is accepted and inform your co-facilitators about the proposals status and the need for all presenters to pay respective conference fees if presenting live in Tampa.

Dates to Remember

June 4^th : SLEDcc Proposals due by email to slcc @ gmail.com

June 30^th: Submitters notified of status of proposals

August 1^st: SLEDccademy Award entries open for voting

August 10^th: Accepted Paper Presentations (Inworld and Live in Tampa, both) due by email, 5:00 p.m. SLT (Pacific Daylight Time).

* Speed Dating Event by ‘Working in Virtual Worlds’ class at the University of Texas at Austin, May 1.
* Simulation and Teaching in Second Life, May 2.
* Storytelling in Virtual Environments - Panel in SL, May 17.
 
 The events above have been added to the SLEDevents in SL public Google calendar, which shows events in Second Life of interest to SLED subscribers, and which may be viewed in your web browser at:
http://sledevents.blogspot.com/