Joe Sanchez and Leslie Jarmon – The Educators Coop

The last group in my class Working in Virtual Worlds will present their final project in Second Life tomorrow Tuesday, May 5 2009. This group picked a unique project, they wanted to explore a Second Life culture so they decided to join the Saints of Hell. The Saints of Hell are a 1% Outlaw Motorcycle role-play group in Second Life. The students have told me that the Saints are set up like a traditional 1% Motorcycle Club where they have a President, Vice President and Sgt at Arms. The students have been spending up to 10 hours a week immersed in the role-play for five weeks.

During the last few weeks I’ve observed several changes during their role-play experience. The most obvious is their avatar appearance. When they first mentioned their project as an initial task I asked them to give their avatars a biker make-over. As you can see from the picture below, they went a little over board on the fantasy end.

The students approached the Saints and pitched their project idea. Sims Rang, the current President of The Saints of Hell was intrigued by the project and sold the idea to the other members of the group. She paired each student with a Saints of Hell mentor and the students were on their way to an immersive experience. Each student now has a custom skin designed by the Saints of Hell along with realistic looking biker clothes and amazing choppers

The event tomorrow will be a forum hosted by the students to discuss their experiences in the role-play activity. The forum will have six panelist, three students and three members from the Saints of Hell. A fourth student will serve as the host of the event and he promises that he has been watching Oprah to prepare for his role as host. During the event they will be asking for donations for the Saints of Hell Relay for Life team. The event will be held at the Educators Coop 1

If you have a chance, drop by and learn more about the Saints of Hell and role-play in Second Life.

The second group from my Spring 2009 course will be having their final project event on Thursday April 30 from 4 – 6 SLT at the Utwig Sim. They have been working with the great folks at the Music Academy Online who agreed to let them use their island for the event. During the event they will submerge the entire sim by raising the water level to 100M (normally 20M) and have diving and other water activities. The event will feature the live band Friendly Fire and D.J. Autumn Beaver and is a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society Relay for Life.

As part of their marketing campaign the students made an appearance on the SLCN show Music Academy Onlive. The students did a great job discussing their project and talking about the experience of being learners in Second Life. A video of the show is available at SLCN.tv. My students appear after the first guest, about 8 minutes into the program. They are easy to spot since they are wearing their diving gear. Benton, the host and founder of the Music Academy Online, also interviewed me for a short segment. It follows the segment of my students.

UPDATE: My students that held the Longhorns for 100,000K fundraiser surpassed their project goal. They raised over $111,000L during their event and donated close to $450 USD to their selected non-profits. Way to go Team!!

Starting on Friday and ending on Sunday evening a group of my students will be hosting Horns for a Hundred Thousand. A fundraising event for Project Jason/Garden for the Missing and the Team Fox Organization. An invitation from my students is below.

Hi there,

We are students at University of Texas in North Lamar’s class. As a group project that we have been planning for a few weeks now, my group and I have decided to hold an event benefit to raise money and awareness to the Project Jason/ Garden For the Missing nonprofit organization and the Team Fox organization in order to bring awareness to people through using Second Life as well as donating all the money raised at the event to these two organizations. We will be trying to raise L$100,000! The event will consist of a dance, live DJ and music playing, a dance floor, raffles for items, silent auctions, go-karts and bumper cars as well as free stuff given out all of this which benefits two great causes! We would greatly appreciate a donation to our event that benefits two nonprofits, Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinsons research and Project Jason assistance for families of missing persons so come to our event!

Come help the University of Texas Longhorns Raise L$100,000 for two worthy charities – free entry & free rides.

Friday April 24th to Sunday April 26th.

Activities include: go karts, bumper cards, raffle, and silent auction.

Live Performance Schedule (SLT):
Friday April 24th
6pm – 7pm Dann Numbers
8pm – 9pm Harper Messmer

Saturday April 25th
3pm – 4pm Vienna James
8pm – 9pm PheobeAnn Theas

Sunday April 26th
12pm – 1pm Phemie Alcott
4pm – 5pm Gregg Huet
8pm – 9pm Dale Katscher

SL URL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Remora/68/226/22 or

Search: University of Texas Landing Point for Project Jason

Please stop by and check out how my students have learned to work in a virtual world. The students designed the entire project, booked all the talent, and found the non-profit clients to work with. Their goal is raise 100,00 Lindens.

The fine folks at SXSWi have started placing some of the video segments from the Interactive conference on youtube. I’m embedding a couple of videos from sessions that i enjoyed. SXSW will be posting more videos throughout the summer so subscribe to the youtube channel if you like what you see. The panel I participated on is not yet available but Joystiq has a great synopsis of the session

SXSW 2009 – Strong Gaming Communities: Text vs. Speech

SXSW 2009 – Tangible Interactions in Urban Spaces

Oh yeah, to my research friends; you aren’t the target audience here so follow the spirit of the talks, don’t focus on the data : )..

Tags: sxsw

April 15 at 6SLT I will be leading an interactive discussion about the use of role-playing for learning in Second Life at ALA Island . During the event we will participate in a role-playing activity so I ask that attendees come dressed as a favorite historical figure. We won’t be judging the avatars so homemade, default, slider-type avatars will be fine. This is a learning experience so please don’t feel the need to purchase a new avatar and by all means don’t be embarrassed if your avatar doesn’t look as good as you like. As you will see, role-play is more about being able to “play” the role rather than looking the part.

I think this will be a fun event and will get us (educators in SL) away from the typical slide show and lecture format that currently dominates educational events in SL. At the event, ALA Tech Source will have a Chapter of “Virtual Worlds: Ideas, Challenges and Innovations” available for free!

From the Tech Source Blog

ALA TechSource is proud to present our first virtual world event—a discussion of virtual worlds, libraries and education with Second Life expert Joe Sanchez. Sanchez, a doctoral candidate at the University of Texas, is the author of February’s issue of Library Technology Reports, “Virtual Worlds: Ideas, Challenges and Innovations”.

Please join us on the ALA Island on Wednesday, April 15 at 6:00pm SLT for an exclusive interactive discussion and presentation of his work. We’ll be discussing virtual worlds and their potential to impact library service and freedom of information, as well as Joe’s work with LIS students using Second Life. One of the topics discussed will be role-playing in virtual worlds, so we are asking all participants to come dressed as their favorite historical figure!

Tags: ala, learning, roleplay, Second Life, sled, teaching, tech source

In October i wrote an issue of Library Technology Reports about some of my research in Second Life. The Issue, Implementing Second Life: Ideas, Challenges and Innovations is now available through the ALA TechSource Bookstore. In the report I identify the Second Life learning curve and how the learning curve creates barriers to student learning. I also discuss ways that i have designed curriculum to overcome the learning curve with specific examples from K-12 – higher education. A former student of mine and my current TA guest authors a chapter about libraries in SL. Her chapter is one of the few pieces I have read that that pushes back against some of the common held beliefs about building a library presence in SL. The editor of LTR says

In this issue of Library Technology Reports, virtual world virtuoso Joe Sanchez takes us beyond a mere exploration of Second Life and looks at the history of virtual worlds and how educators have used them as tools for learning in the twenty-first century. Sanchez extensively and objectively explores the pros and cons of using second life for both educators and librarians, and a chapter guest-authored by LIS student Jane Stimpson examines several examples of public libraries who have established a Second Life presence. Topics covered include:

A Social History of Virtual Worlds
Public Libraries in Second Life: Expanding
Service to the Virtual Environment.
Pedagogical Applications of Second Life
Barriers to Student Learning in Second Life
Understanding the User Experience in Second Life
The Second Life Learning Curve

To read more about the report visit TechSource

Tags: Second Life, Second Life research, sled

My favorite conference, SXSW, is only 12 days away and Austin is already getting energized. This year I will be on the panel “Gaming as a Gateway Drug: Getting Girls Interested in Technology” where I will have the pleasure of working again with Dee Kapila from girlstart. Dee arranged a meeting of the panelist last week and it was fantastic. We all have very distinct perspectives on our topic yet we are all aiming for the same social goals. We have the makings for a great panel. For those of you who will be attending SXSW please stop by the and say hi!

Gaming as a Gateway Drug: Getting Girls Interested in Technology
Room 6

Monday, March 16th

10:00 am – 11:00 am
Wanted: Girl Gamers! It’s not just about playing, but using play to ignite a crucial spark. This session will explore how educators, parents and the community can use video games to attract girls to pursue STEM (science, technology, engineering, math).

Dee Kapila Technology & Program Coord, Girlstart
Sheri Graner Ray Sr Designer, Sony Online Entertainment
Cindy Royal Assistant Professor, Texas State University
Joe Sanchez co-Founder, Educators Coop
Megan Gaiser CEO & Pres, Her Interactive

I’m gearing up for my Spring 09 course  and I realized I never shared the machinima links created by students from the Fall 08 semester. I had four student groups comprised of 4-5 students each. Each group had to create a 2 1/2 – 3 minute machinima telling about their final group project. I think they did a good job. Each student also created a reflective movie where they spoke about their learning experience during the semester. I will post a few of those later this week. Enjoy

If you would like to visit the projects, they will be available for viewing until Sunday January 19, 2009. On Monday I will have to delete the projects tot make way for the Spring class

Austin SafePlace

Safe Darfur

Partnerships For Children

This Thursday 12\04\08 at 5SLT my students and I will be hosting an event in SL to show the projects they have completed this semester. Earlier this semester my undergraduate class was awarded a C.A.S.E. grant from the Jimmy and Roselynn Carter foundation to promote community engagement in SL. Each project completed this semester has a community engagement focus. The
Four projects are:

Problem: Physical, social and political disasters are often so geographically and culturally remote that people who might help fail to appreciate the nature and extent of the situation.

Solution: One UT team proposal would use the CASE grant to build an online, multi-player, virtual-world game to simulate life in Darfur, wherein survival is the object and famine, displacement and armed conflict are the opponents. Game players will realize how much is taken for granted in peace and prosperity and how important even small contributions can be in a disaster. Another project provides a virtual “ride” that helps participants understand the work of the nonprofit website Nothing But Nets.

Problem: An Austin (TX) nonprofit reaches out to needy individuals in
rural Texas, but the cost of covering long distances reduces the effectiveness of the organization.

Solution: One UT team proposal would use the CASE grant to build an online, virtual world extension of the agency’s operations that would make it virtually costless to operate remotely. But rather than trying to envision every conceivable combination of circumstances and program a software solution that covers all of them, the UT student solution engages the nonprofit staff as avatars, thereby incorporating all their experience and troubleshooting skills. Further, client avatars can characterize their needs far more accurately and far faster than a “checklist” of options. The combination eliminates travel and remote operation cost without eliminating the skilled human intervention of the non-profit’s staff.

Problem: Austin (TX) SafePlace is the nation’s largest shelter for victims of domestic violence. Training new associates at SafePlace is “baptism by fire” because the problems trainees face are “live” and often overwhelming.

Solution: One UT team proposal would use the CASE grant to build an online, virtual world simulation of SafePlace where the avatars of trainees can learn to diagnose and deal with problems from hypothetical cases, safely apart from the actual operation of the shelter. The result is safe training for SafePlace. Plus, the students plan to hold a fund-raising “gala” online where participants from around the world can use “Linden dollars” to purchase necessities for shelter clients, then UT students will convert the “Linden dollars” to actual cash and purchase the items.

Please join us if you can and help celebrate the work of the students. The event will be held on Educators Coop 1 http://slurl.com/secondlife/Educators%20Coop%201/121/95/22
Hope to see you there,

Tags: community engagement, Second Life, teaching

This is an invitation from a group of students enrolled in my Working in Virtual Worlds course at the iSchool at UT Austin. The students have created a presence and SL training for a local non-profit organization called Partnerships for Children. They will be raising Lindens to purchase items such as tooth brushes, shampoo, and diapers for children under the care of Child Protective Services in Austin
Texas.

Their project has three components, creating a presence for the organization, training the members of the organization to use Second Life, and hosting a fundraiser to raise funds in order to purchase basic needs items for children. The picture below is one of the vendors that is selling Real Life toys that will be given to children in Austin. Donations range from 50L for toothpaste through 5000L for a comforter. Please stop by and view their work and make a small donation, everything helps!

Message from Students:____________________________________
This is an invitation to our Holiday Ballroom Gala Event benefiting ?Partnerships for Children. It will be held Wednesday at 4pm(SLT) at the?Educators Coop (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Educators%20Coop%201/74/91/21). It will be formal ballroom attire. We’d ?like for you all to be able to join us in our cause and to help make ?our event a success.
How You Can Help: ?You may go to the 2nd Floor of our space and right-click on any item ?that you may wish to donate and click “Pay.” (The amount in $L should ?be the amount in USD$ needed to purchase the item in real-life. We ?will use the money to purchase these items physically and give them to ?Partnerships for Children’s Rainbow Room.
We hope to see you Wednesday! ?

Tags: non-profit, sled, students