Betterverse: Nonprofits in the Virtual World

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!

Launch of Web-based Virtual Broad Art Museum Tonight at 6pm ET

Tonight will be the official launch of a new web-based virtual art museum called the "Virtual Broad Art Museum."  From 6-8pm ET you can attend the mixed-reality opening reception for the new 3d art space on the campus of Michigan State University or in-world at VBAM, interacting with five new exhibits created especially for this space.

Developed by the Institute for Digital Media Arts at Ball State University, the virtual museum is a precursor to a real world Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum being built at Michigan State University, designed by Zaha Hadid.  The physical museum will finish construction in Fall of 2012.

There are five main exhibits you can experience at the Virtual Broad Art Museum are:

• con|FLUENCE where visitors can create pathways based on reactions to both social and spatial relationships
• Survey, an immersive landscape simulation using real time weather data from the location of the Broad Art Museum in East Lansing, Michigan.
• dis|PLACE, an interactive gesture-based performance that will be exhibited at the VBAM reception on the 15^th of March.
• Proxy, a performative, interactive and site-specific virtual installation where participants shape the evolution of a sculptural and sonic composition as a response to the Museum. 
• and  Flickr™ Gettr which connects the social image web service of Flickr™ to the virtual Museum environment

I briefly visited the museum today and was impressed by how well it ran from my browser, using the Unity 3D plug-in.  Definitely worth checking out here.

"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.

Ball State U Acquires Blue Mars Virtual World ... or Does It?

I was catching up on my feed reading when I saw this news story about Ball State University acquiring the platform and assets of the virtual world Blue Mars. According to the release, BSU would continue to "fully operate Blue Mars for noncommercial purposes, expand upon the source code, increase its research and academic initiatives, and enhance the community of Blue Mars."  BSU will also provide original content for Blue Mars, building upon its extensive use of the platform in the past.

Sounds really great, except....

When I went to the links for the press release today, sent out on February 24 , I find that the pages no longer exist. Perhaps the deal went sour? We'll keep you apprised as news of this possible partnership unfolds.

For now here is the original press release, from a Google web cache...

IRS Career Island in Second Life: More than Just Jobs at the IRS

For all of you job-seekers out there, IRS Careers Island in Second Life is a venue where job seekers and students can chat with an IRS mentor about their education and career choices. Their goal is to be a positive member of the SL community and to be of assistance to those who need the advice of experienced public servants.

Beyond just helping people find jobs at the IRS, they "recognize the potential of SL in support of education goals and as an enabling environment for persons with disabilities. To that end we encourage schools, colleges, universities and non-profits to contact us to discuss how we can support each other in SL." Good to know!

And IRS Careers Island is not just about the IRS. Their mentors are available to help with your job search across all federal agencies.

For more info, visit the IRS Career Center in Second Life at this teleport link. 

Celebrate International Women's Day on March 4 in Second Life

 

Minerva invites you to a musical celebration of International Women's Day during an all-day concert series on their Second Life island. Among the featured performers:

 

• Naftali Torok- European folk  & Gypsy fiddling (pictured)
• AM Forte – Rock and Blues
• SonyaJevette Charisma - blues
• TerryLynn Melody - folk
• The Choo Choo Chicks - Jazz

Minerva is the virtual research and teaching space for the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at The Ohio State University.  You can teleport there at this link.

For more information, see http://www.elliebrewster.com.  Read below for the complete schedule...

Restore Center for Healthy Living Providing Chronic Illness Peer Support and Health Info

The newly opened Restore Center for Healthy Living is a peer support and information center with self guiding displays on various health topics. They will be holding a Chronic Illness peer support group every Wednesday at 10 am PT at the Health Commons location and on Mondays at 5 pm at their main office at the Chicago Sim.

They are also planning 101 classes for health issues through out the year in their  virtual offices. You will find displays with HIV/AIDS and cancer information  and an education area that will rotate with different health information. You can also visit a memorial garden in the lobby of center of the Chicago sim to remember those who have gone before due to health issues. 

Visit them by following these links: Health Commons and Chicago sim.

SL Relay for Life 2012 Team Registration is Open

We just got the news at the team registrations for the 2012 Second Life Relay for Life is now open.  For those that don't know, SLRFL is the largest fundraising effort in the virtual world, raising to date over $1 million for the American Cancer Society.  People typically participate as part of teams, but of course individual fundraisers and racers are also welcome.

Go here and click the first button to sign up your team to register in Second Life. This video explains the sign-up process for teams.

 
So get your team together and get signed up!