Betterverse: Nonprofits in the Virtual World

Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds Streaming Free in 4 Virtual Worlds May 16-18

Starting tomorrow May 16 through May 18 is the annual Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds (FCVW) in Washington, DC at the National Defense University.  Much of the event will be streamed online for free in Second Life, Vastpark, Protosphere, Web.Alive, and 3DEvents hosting the stream on their website. Questions will be taken for presenters during the main conference via twitter hashtag #fcvw12. Workshops and government project poster sessions will not be streamed.

Among the highlights:

• Jesse Schell, Carnegie Mellon and Schell Games will discuss “The Future of Virtual Characters”;
• James Blascovich, UCSB, connects the “Mind, Brain and Virtual Reality”;
• Charles Wankel, Rotterdam School of Management, will lead a panel on “Developing and Deploying Learning in Virtual Worlds”;
• Michelle Fox, Department of Energy, will offer the opportunities in the “National Training Education Resource (NTER): A virtual worlds integration framework to spark real change in enterprise and government learning.”
• a military panel led by Douglas Maxwell, Army Research Lab, The Military Open Simulator Enterprise Strategy: Rationale and Use Cases”;
• a health panel facilitated by Kevin Hollway, Army Telemedicine and Technology, “The Future of Health Applications in Virtual Worlds: Challenges, Solutions, and Convergence”;
• a cyber security panel led by Barbara Endicott-Popovsky, University of Washington, “Security in Virtual Worlds: Can I trust on your Avatar?”

Looks like a packed and very interesting conference for those interested in virtual worlds for education, collaboration and simulation.

 

"Digital Kids" Conference in LA Has No Sessions on Education or Youth Development

I get frequent updates about industry-focused events like the "Digital Kids" conference, taking place April 25-26 in LA. This convention, now in its sixth year, is intended to "provide companies the critical information they need to build successful online and mobile products and services for kids."

I understand that the target audience is for-profit companies that market to young people. Still it galls me that with all the hundreds of panels, workshops, presentations and booths, that there is apparently no space left for education or youth development.

Here are the five tracks of the conference: Safety, Content, Operations, Business and Market Research. See anything missing?

Youth development and education are totally off the table.  And in fact, if you do a Google site search, the phrase "youth development" does not appear once.  And the only panel on education focuses on "education about online safety."

A World in Every Classroom: Noble VW to Provide Immersive Learning for 38,000 Students in Metro-Atlanta

What if every student and teacher in a district had access to a unified virtual space filled with engaging educational experiences, designed just for them?  This is not science fiction, this is being built in the Metro-Atlanta area today.

On April 13, the Nonprofit Commons hosted Steve Mashburn and Snoopy Pfeffer to talk about the Noble virtual world being created for metro-Atlanta schools.  Steve Mashburn is the coordinator of online education for Forsyth County Schools in Georgia, and Snoopy Pfeffer is the founder and CEO of Dreamland Metaverse, an OpenSim hosting provider.

I was inspired by how articulately Mashburn connected the Noble Virtual World initiative with their larger vision of 21st century citizenry, a “blended learning” approach, and re-defining what “school time” means.  And rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, they seem to understand that different students , different teachers, and different classrooms have different needs and interests.

Read to find out more about this very interesting educational virtual world project....

"Feed a Smile" Charity Store Seeks Virtual Items to Sell to Feed Hungry Kenyan Kids

The nice folks at "Feed a Smile" send out word about their new Feed a Smile Charity Store at Lavender Field (teleport link). "Feed a Smile" is a German / Kenyan project that raises funds to provide meals for poor children via the nonprofit Live and Learn in Kenya Int'l.  Founder Brique Topaz writes:

We are looking for high-quality item donations with a 100% split for Feed a Smile. Only 100 Lindens pays for a meal for a very poor child on the Live and Learn in Kenya Int'l program (RL). If you are a designer, please consider donating.

For more info and to donate, IM Brique Topaz in Second Life, visit their website or teleport to their new shop.

 

Ellen Degeneres Promotes WeTopia Virtual World to Help Charities

Television personality Ellen DeGeneres recently encouraged her millions of viewers to start playing "WeTopia," a web-based virtual world / game where players can create their own villages and play various games with each other. In addition to the fun and entertainment value, players can earn virtual credit that can be contributed to various causes, including Save the Children, Blue Planet, and Heifer International.  

Nice to see a celebrity who understands that fun game play and supporting charities can go together, and that virtual worlds are places that "normal" people can visit.

Learn about Archeology Island on ScienceSim at this Friday's NPC Meeting

Ms. Marion Smeltzer of the Indiana University of Pennsylvania will be at this Friday's Nonprofit Commons to talk about the sim she built called Archeology Island on the ScienceSim (opensim) virtual platform. Previously housed on the Second Life platform, Archeology Island was moved after Linden Lab recinded the education / nonprofit rate for land rentals.

Archaeology Island consists of virtualizations of archaeological sites investigated by faculty members in the IUP , including a Monongahela Village, a Roman site in Cyprus, an underwater shipwreck, a Maya site in Belize , and the Laurel Hill /Brown farm, was the site of an antebellum community of former slaves. Come find out how these recreations are being used to further research and education at IUP.

Learn all about it this Friday, April 6, starting at 8:30am PT at the Plush Nonprofit Commons amphitheater. 

Can YOU Make a Game for Peace? Enter the Playing 4 Peace Game Challenge!

My friends at Global Kids tell me that there is a new game design contest that might interest Betterverse readers: the "Playing 4 Peace" Challenge. Between now and April 30, youth around the country are being challenged to design games promoting peace and the end of war using the Gamestar Mechanic game development system.

The top prize winner will win an AMD-powered laptop, a three year Premium Subscription to Gamestar Mechanic, and a personalized t-shirt featuring original Gamestar Mechanic artwork and a screenshot of their game.

Sounds like a really fun challenge and a great cause.  Get your entry in before April 30. 

Freedomland USA: An "Educational Virtual World" from Another Era

I randomly found this link to this promotional video for "Freedomland USA," a failed attempt to create a "Disneyland East" theme park in the Bronx, New York.  Freedomland was essentially a 60s era attempt to create an immersive virtual world that combined family-friendly entertainment and education.   

The various rides and entertainments seem pretty tame and boring by today's standards.  Most of the visitor experience appears to be queuing up for rides to sit on a slow-moving conveyance to look at simulations of various eras and historical sites in America's history. Basically, the Freedomland designers copied the most boring parts of Disneyland and left out most of the fun.  Even the paid actors working there appear bored, particularly the firemen in the Chicago fire experience.

 Freedomland USA was a financial disaster, plagued by accidents, robberies, and poor attendance, filing for bankruptsy in 1965.  So what can we learn from Freedomland for our modern day educational experiences we design?  My own takeaways:

• It's easy to create rides, it's hard to create wonder.
• Visitors don't just want to passively have images thrown at them, they want to explore, discover, and create.
• Your public-facing staff should exhibit and model the kind of engagement you want from your visitors.
• The educational content needs to be baked into the experience, not presumed just because you are situating youth in a "historical" recreation.  Did those kids learn anything about the Great Chicago Fire by pumping that firetruck? Hard to say.

That said, I bet the "ore bucket" ride and the mirror maze were a lot of fun!

"Be Epic" at Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education March 15-17

Starting tomorrow is the 5th annual Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference, happening in Second Life and other virtual venues from March 15-17.  It's an impressive gathering of educators from around the world sharing their knowledge about how to leverage virtual worlds and digital games for learning.  And it's totally free.

There are hundreds of panels, talks and workshops to choose from, which is kind of overwhelming.  You can go to sessions on:

• "Massively Minecraft"
• "WoW in School: the Hero's Journey"
• "STEM Research on the Mars Geothermal, Nonlinear Game Design on Atlantis and Unity3D, and the Migration to MOSES"
• or "A Cloud Topoanalysis Montage for Learning in Virtual and Cloud Computing Spaces"

Wow.

Check out the full program here.

Global Kids Teens Talk about Climate Change and e-Waste in Second Life (video)

 

My friend Daria told me at the Digital Media and Learning conference last week that Global Kids has finished three episodes of the youth-run Second Life talk show "Let's Talk Sustainability."  "Let's Talk Sustainability" supports teens to develop expertise regarding sustainability, online broadcasting, and virtual world construction through producing a virtual talk show. LTS features interviews with STEM-related professionals, pre-produced videos, and audience activities. Each show is designed to introduce audiences to what they can do to live in a more sustainable world. 

You can watch on YouTube the climate change and e-waste shows now.