Annual Report Time

Location: Microsoft Word

How do you capture the coolness of working with virtual worlds while using the most boring piece of software imaginable?

For the past four years, that has been my challenge, just in time for my 1 July deadline.

This year, the Usher Project in Jokaydia Grid has some of the same committee members excited about the grant and the potentials for literary study.

I'd be curious to see how other faculty with annual evaluations, rather than tenure, report their work in virtual worlds.  I hope that all of my evaluators will take time to look at a simple wiki with Viv Trafalgar's video of the Usher project that existed in Second Life, to give some sense of what will happen in a different virtual world where I'll have more creative freedom.

Without incentives and rewards, this work will never move forward in academia. It has long been that way for other technologies that are easier to master.

One day, we'll have smart paper with working videos embedded, or my committee will read e-texts on tablets. That's one day, not today.

Maria Korolov to Speak at Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable

Maria Korolov, editor of Hypergrid Business, will speak to VWER members this Thursday, starting at 2:30 Second Life Time. AJ Brooks will interview Maria in voice, and yours truly will transcribe voice-to-text.

Maria has strong opinions and lots of contacts in the world of non-SL grids, and I look forward to her discussing the state of the metaverse beyond Second Life. She's pictured at VWBPE 2011, where she gave an interesting talk on this topic.

Join us for Thursday's event, and put questions to Maria in a Q&A following the interview, at VWER's new home at Bowling Green University's virtual campus in Second Life. We meet 2:30-3:30 SL time at this SLURL:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/BGSU%20Community/54/85/25

See you at the Roundtable!

Machinima Novices, Take Note: Pile o' Resources

 
Location: VWER meeting

We had a very productive session last week, and many veteran machinima-makers offered advice for free or cheap resources, screen-capture technology, machinima-friendly locations, and examples of best practices and inspiring work.

Have a look at the full transcript; I aggregated the links at the start for your reading pleasure. Then get out and make some movies!

Some Shakespeare Quotations for Linden Lab

Location: Virtual Globe Theater

The Lab will have an even harder time winning back disaffected educators and non-profits if they let The Virtual Globe Theater close.

Here's hoping that the CEO will let Ina Centaur have access to her account again. As "nexus burbclave" pointed out at New World Notes, the treatment of debtors by the Lab is Kafkaesque. Centaur does owe the Lab a great deal of money, but one wonders about the PR value of magnanimity from the godlike powers in-world? Even one month's extension of the death penalty?

Be wary of portents, otherwise, Linden Lab. You'll get all the academics hauling out their Riverside Shakespeares for appropriate quotations. Here are a few about those who dwell overmuch on money:

• Nay, take my life and all; pardon not that; You take my house, when you do take the prop That doth sustain my house; you take my life, When you do take the means whereby I live.  Shylock, Act IV, scene i, The Merchant of Venice.
• Thus do I ever make my fool my purse. Iago, Act I, scene iii, Othello.

And of the foolish decisions by those in power:

• I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.  King Richard, Act V, scene v, Richard II.
• Men’s judgments are a parcel of their fortunes; and things outward do draw the inward quality after them, to suffer all alike.  Enobarbus, Act III, scene xiii, Antony & Cleopatra.
• As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods, — They kill us for their sport. Gloucester, Act IV, scene i, King Lear.

Of course, Mr. Humble and Linden Lab, Ms. Centaur owes you money. She needs to pay it. But wouldn't it be better to work out a deal and give her a reprieve for a few weeks, before deleting her avatar's accounts? Shakespeare's plays contain a great deal of forgiveness and mercy. And remember:

• All's well that ends well; still the fine's the crown; Whate'er the course, the end is the renown. Helena, Act IV, scene iv, All's Well that Ends Well.