Its been a crazy semester with lots of travel (2 trips to Texas still to come).  Just yesterday I gave a presentation on the electronic portfolio projects that I have been involved with at work.  Thanks to the recommendation of a friend, I was asked to speak to a small group of representatives from various NJ colleges at Centenary College  – their efforts are funded by a UPS Venture grant supporting the investigation on student assessment.  Details about the projects outlined in the presentation can be found on the following site: http://tech.shu.edu/eportfolio/. 

It is interesting to hear the different perspectives on ePortfolios – the need for collecting products of student work sometimes lends itself to language that reminds me of the “mind as container” metaphor.  How can we create a portfolio that serves as a creative, reflective vehicle for students but also meets the needs of institutional assessment?  I hope to be able to explore other uses of electronic portfolios with our involvement in the National Coalition for Electronic Portfolio Research (more to come).

While losing time looking at Flickr pics I stumbled upon pictures that were taken at the ELI Fall Focus Session – Supporting Learning with Techology: Assessment’s Role. I knew that pictures were being taken but to my surpise I found a couple of me (and even more of my Director – I have to tell him *smile*).  Cyprien must have edited out the bad ones – thanks!!

 I get teased a lot for my shopping addiction in SL (esp. by partner in crime Heidi) but a recent Wall Street Journal article says that I am not alone.  According to the article, and this should be no surprise to other SL residents, clothing is emerging as the hottest market.  What does this tell us about the attachment to our avatars?  Why do we care so much about our appearance?  In the Slatenight article “Fantasies of Femininity” Anya comments on her avatar: “I enjoy gazing at myself and thinking: yes, that reflects many aspects about me: my softness. my feminity, my mysteriousness, my sexuality and so on.” I think she sums it up well.  The Wall Street Journal article states it less eloquently:

“We found out pretty quickly that people loved owning things,” Ms. Smith says, and many start by buying items for their avatars. “It’s not surprising that fashion and hairstyles and skins are as attractive and as exciting and as valuable as they are, because it’s part of individualizing” the appearance of a player’s online persona.

I am far from an expert on online identity but I am interested in how we can use this knowledge to support the faculty and students to the SL environment.  Do we just set them up with their free accounts and leave them to explore alone?  How much fun can you have being poor in SL?  If we have the means, will providing a small budget ($2000 lindens) help to engage the new SL user?  I think that this is an important consideration when introducing a group of faculty to SL – being able to customize your appearance might result in more commitment to the avatar and more willingness to explore and learn how to use the virtual environment.

From looking at my blog you might think that my disseration has something to do with virtual worlds, that just happens to be a side interest.  My real focus is on CSCL and learning communities in a variey of environments (SL being just one of them).  My pilot data was collected in on a campus that can be described as a ubiquitous computing environment.  I was struggling for a theoretical framework but then got the chance to hear Karen Swan speak at the ELI Assessment conference this past month.  You can access her talk on the Educause web site. 

She presented a model of ubiquitous computing and teaching that is simple but yet helped me to focus in my interest in such an environment – the social aspect.

This model locates such effects in three broad areas– in the ready availability in ubiquitous computing environments of a wide variety of external, material representations of knowledge; in the particular supports ubiquitous computing provides for individual students’ internal conceptualizations and construction of knowledge; and in the unique social interactions and shared uses of knowledge ubiquitous computing enables, through and around which knowledge is constructed (Swan, Kratcoski, Diaz, van ‘t Hooft & Juliana, 2004). We use the terms “representations,” “conceptualizations,” and “uses” respectively to distinguish these domains, and view them as interacting and interdependent in their effects. http://www.rcetj.org/?type=art&id=5666&&

Within the article cited above Dr. Swan and her colleagues present case studies that examine representations and conceptualizations but not uses.  What are the unique social interactions and shared uses of knowledge that are supported by ubiquitous computing?  What does this look like in a college classroom?  Outside of the classroom?  Does it transcend classes?

I knew that I needed to just take a rest from trying to fix my flickr plugin.  It took awhile but I cleaned out all of the files associated with that plugin from my server, I think that the cache files (all 2 million of them) were causing the unresponsiveness I complained about before.  The new version of the plugin allows you to hide certain albums or pictures!  This is great – I do not mind sharing my scenic vacation pics, puppy pics or SL images but I like to keep the family pics private.  The new version of the plugin can be found at http://tantannoodles.com/toolkit and the instructions for the API are on the TanTanMoodles Flickr group.  So happy

 On a side note be sure to check out the new sculptures and items that have been added to the NMC museum space.  There is a new curator for the museum, whose name I would have to look up, so check back often to see exciting new additions.  There are even pumpkins, each with a spooky design and luminous center, just in time for Halloween.  Do avatars dress up for Halloween?  Maybe we can host a party at the NMC campus –  I have a feeling some people are already in disguise.

I have spent have the day fighting with my Flickr photo album plugin and have officially given up.  If you use the Silas Partners plugin which allows you to inlcude Flickr images in your post as well as create photo albums (I took down the photos page on my blog since it showed all my images even ones available to only family and friends) you need to get a Flickr API.  In a posting on the TanTanMoodles Flickr group it was explained the APIs used to support the plugin had exceeded its limit and individual users would need to request their own.  After hours of trying to get it right my blog times out each time I try to connect with the Flickr site with my new APIs.  I admit defeat

I should have enjoyed the day like little Cocoa (I took this picture this afternoon) who spent most of her afternoon being entertained by the squirrels and rabbits in the front yard. 

A special thanks must go to Ramesh for taking the time to show me the biohazard simulation that he has built in Second Life.  The Play2Train project is part of the Idaho Bioterrorism Awareness and Preparedness program.  The program is described as:

The program’s objective is to enhance the knowledge and skills of health care professionals to meet the public health preparedness and emergency response demands resulting from acts of bioterrorism and other incidents. Training will assist and facilitate understanding of the needs and response measures as they relate to the following: Recognizing indicators of terrorist events; Meeting the acute health care needs of patients and victims, including pediatric or other vulnerable populations, including those with mental health needs; Participating in coordinated, multidisciplinary response to terror events or other health emergencies; and Rapidly and effectively alerting the public health system of such an event at the community, state or federal levels.

 
Ramesh making a building explode!

I hope to be able to allow my students to experience a virtual training simulation as part of our discussion on training and development.  Stay tuned for some ideas…

Machinima seemed like such a mystery to me before doing some research on how to produce such movies.  If you are looking for some good resources check out my machinima tag in delicious – if you know of any other resources please let me know.  Hopefully I will find some time to play with making a machinima soon (hopefully both Second Life and my tablet PC will cooperate).  If you have not already seen NMC’s Seriously Engaging video I have included it here in this post.  Enjoy!

“Teacher’s Lounge” hosts prominent researcher John Bransford in-world in two weeks:
Dr. Bransford is a prominent education psychology researcher and edited the often cited How People Learn book. He agreed to chat in-world about his work with the L.I.F.E. center. He and several graduate students who read this list are doing research in SL.

EVENT DETAILS:
Monday, Oct 2nd
12 noon-1pm, SLT (San Francisco time)
SL: At the intersection of Rhodium, Palladium, Iridium, and Platinum
See: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Platinum/0/256

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“Teacher’s Lounge” hosts Sasha Barab of Indiana University to speak in-world next month:
Professor Barab is a leader in MUVE education and created Quest Atlantis using the Active Worlds platform See: http://atlantis.crlt.indiana.edu

EVENT DETAILS:
Tuesday, October 24
5:30pm-6:30pm, SLT (San Francisco time)
SL: In the Campus: Second Life sandbox.
See: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Campus/150/100

Hope to see you all there

Finally, after a month of working on this article it is published on the SLATENIGHT.com blog.  Many thanks to Dan Winckler (AKA Dan Magpie) for all of his help and Anya for her patience in waiting for this piece to be finished.  Be sure to check it out: http://www.slatenight.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=87&Itemid=40

I am sitting here at a conference in Colorado waiting for my turn to present (toture) so I decided to check up on the NMC SL blog.  In case you have not heard a Harvard Law School professor is bringing a class in SL.  I really like the idea of having the short movie clip and Heidi and I are going to explore making a movie for the class that we are bringing into SL.  Here is the clip: