Visit to NMC Campus
August 1st, 2006 by dmirliss
Heidi and I were successful in introducing 13 faculty members to the NMC Campus in Second Life. We have introduced students to the SL environment before but gave them an introduction and then required them to use the environment for an exercise sometime later. Many students explored the environment between this time and became familiar with its functionality which made it much easier to coordinate the actual activity.
The introduction to the NMC Campus was part of a day devoted to Educational Gaming at Seton Hall University. The day began with our keynote speaker, Ruben R. Puentedura, Ph.D, and was followed by an introduction to avatars including the NMC tour. Ruben did a fantastic job of setting the stage for our day. Once his talk was finished our faculty could not wait to actually play in a virtual environment. We started them off by creating their avatar names on the SecondLife web site. This part unexpectedly took soooo long - it seems that having so many choices for your last name is not a great idea for moving people along. Individuals finished the registration process at different times so some were able to explore orientation island before being teleported to the NMC Campus. Once at the NMC Campus they were greated by my welcome sign and gift box that you can read more about on NMC SL blog.
We were then greated by our gracious hosts, Alan Levine (AKA CDB Barkley) and Larry Johnson (AKA Larry Pixel). Since all of our faculty and tech helpers were in the same room we were able to communicate with our virtual guests through their teamspeak server. It would have been next to impossible to get everyone used to the Second Life environment and learn how to use Teampeak at the same time (just too overwhelming) so I communicated with Alan while projecting my screen and connecting my audio to external speakers. We were then greated by our gracious hosts, Alan Levine (AKA CDB Barkley) and Larry Johnson (AKA Larry Pixel). Since all of our faculty and tech helpers were in the same room we were able to communicate with our virtual guests through their teamspeak server. It would have been next to impossible to get everyone used to the Second Life environment and learn how to use Teampeak at the same time (just too overwhelming) so I communicated with Alan while projecting my screen and connecting my audio to external speakers. 
We were then greated by our gracious hosts, Alan Levine (AKA CDB Barkley) and Larry Johnson (AKA Larry Pixel). Since all of our faculty and tech helpers were in the same room we were able to communicate with our virtual guests through their teamspeak server. It would have been next to impossible to get everyone used to the Second Life environment and learn how to use Teampeak at the same time (just too overwhelming) so I communicated with Alan while projecting my screen and connecting my audio to external speakers. Our tour began with the library and since there were so many people in the space the walls turned a soft red color (really cool to see). We explored the functionality of the library including the Thinc books that were on display. We them moved to the gallery and practiced our flying skills a bit as we took in all the hanging art pieces. Finally we moved to the Spohrer Center were we saw the Whisper exhibit and played with the musical instruments. It was only at this point that I remembered that Anya would be able to stop by for a visit - I had been so busy up to that point with all the new SL residents. Luckily Anya was still online and able to join us and finally meet Larry and Alan. It was such a hectic morning, even with all of the preparation and planning that we did for this event but so well worth it!!
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