Avatar Project website changing servers

Our normal project website http://www.avatar-project.org is currently changing servers (as well as undergoing a quick facelift) and shall return over the weekend.
In the meantime it has been redirected here.

Presentation from AMES Workshop

I haven't posted too much on this blog for a while.
We are back at Debney this year, and also working on a very exciting project called the TUG Engine as well as our own Open Sim server which will be up and running at osvr.net shortly.

Here are some slides from a workshop I facilitated a couple of days ago.

Australian Virtual Worlds Workshop - AVWW08

I was lucky enough to attend and do a short presentation at the AVWW08 at Swinburne last Friday and Saturday.

Below are the slides from my presentation.

More to come about this, it was a great experience.

http://www.avww.org

Video tip - a return to the blog

After a slack couple of months of blogging, classes are finally over and I will finally get to document what has been happening.
A video tip for panning, consider the amount of times I have NOT done this, seems useful.

Best Camera Trick Ever! - Awesome video clips here

Machinima/Photo Diary from the Sydney Trip

Finally another blog post. The end of term three.
Here is a short clip we put together in a session yesterday.

It's been far too long since the last post

Busy times.

From the recent Skoolaborate congress in Sydney, I helped run a machinima workshop and met some quite amazing people;




(Thanks HC)

More video to come, I wont waste words for now.

And from the MGS Make Poverty History workshop(earlier in the week), where we had some of our regular kids acting as mentors producing a virtual concert and real projections;

Slideshow with some snapshots

Spore Test

I did a quick test of Spore, it's great, certainly has potential for some workshops involving students where we don't have net access, and perhaps good as a backup lesson. Here is the output(as an AVI) after about 30 minutes work.



http://www.spore.com/trial

Random Avatar Observations

This blog is a bit of a mish mash, a catch up from the past couple of weeks when there has been so much happening.

The last few classes
In the past few classes we had the kids working on soccer shirts, then a ball, then a game.
The shirts activity is something that the kids really seem to get into. A note for next year is to start with some Fireworks lessons - but most seem to pick it up fairly quickly and in general their attention (especially the boys) to the details on their soccer shirts (names, numbers, logo, sponsors) was probably better than with most of the other objects we have asked them to make. This lesson possibly left the students who aren't such sporting fans a little segregated, a few such students hung around together and built more fantasy-inspired costumes with wings and more of a goth/emo feel.
The ball lesson was a little more maths inspired but hopefully something all of the students got something out of, and something which with a more simplified script could be a great introduction to physics. Students are given a 'beach ball' which they can modify by changing it's size, material, texture, hollowness, and script (which has several variables including buoyancy). Their task was to find which combination made a good soccer ball for within Second Life, keeping in mind it wouldn't necessarily resemble what worked in real life.
Most students at least had a try and changing a few numbers, and I would say most had a fair understanding of how it all worked.
The game was chaotic but fun, with lots of kids staying into lunchtime in an attempt to score, and interesting people teaming up. Two of the brighter kids cheated, one by clicking the ball(which cna send it in different directions) and the other buy building a big wall which he moved as a goalie to block the goals. Quite admirable really, only the wall should have been transparent and we would have been none the wiser!



Who is going to Sydney?
The teacher team at Debney Park is selecting the seven students who will be able to attend the congress. They will be chosen next week.
The general criteria are;
- Work hard in all classes
- Work well in a team
- No suspensions
- They need a reference from one of their teachers
- Permission from their parents
It will be interesting to see how next terms (new) class goes, considering they won't have that same motivation to behave and work hard.

Sexism
One issue we have had with a student is his attitude towards women, something that has possibly meant him missing out on being part of the group going up to Sydney for the congress.
This is a shame, it was one of the female teachers who I think has made the decision (with support), however I wonder whether taking him up to a conference organised by a girls school would have been a good or bad thing, or if there is some way of letting him know that he has missed out and needs to change his approach.

The school support
One thing which has been essential to the success of the project so far has been the support of Magdi at Debney Park. His patience has allowed us to stay there throughout several stages of us trialling the program, and his willingness to let us experiment with new lessons and enthusiasm when promoting the project to the kids has been essential.
Magdi also has the support of the Principal, who for example will be driving the school bus to the airport for the Sydney trip. It's things like this which I think have made Debney Park an ideal place for us to test the program, they are small but very flexible. Last year some of the students walked the Kokoda trail and the school has a long history (150 years) of helping integrate migrants into the community, so it's nice to be part of that from a totally fresh perspective.
Over the coming weeks I will be finalising the lesson plans for next term with Gene and Magdi. This requires quite a bit of planning because we need to use the Soundhouse studios and Gene 2/3rds of the way through to handle the machinima side of things, and we also need to try and match our activities and outcomes with their curriculum.

Skoolaborate
Once again this has been essential to how well the program is able to run at the moment. The Skoolaborate environment is evolving into a place where things like the mall and the kids own neighbourhood will take on a life of their own, and be teaching the kids some very valuable skills. During many classes the Debney Students have come into contact with kids from all over the world, with varying degrees of 'success' - ranging from insulting them, to helping them by telling them how they can do things, to chatting to them and adding them as friends. One interesting measure of this could be to check each students friends list and see where they are all from (all names have suffixes indicating this).

Building in Skoolaborate
The stores in the mall (which has been moved and needs a bit of work) seemed to have a great impact on the students, especially the freebies which gave them a good idea of what is possible, and gave us more objects which appeal to more people.



I have just built a sky-soccer stadium(yet to be scripted) as our soccer match in class went very well, except the ball kept going out of bounds.
I will be writing up our planned activities for the Skoolaborate wiki, we are also hoping to have a demonstration machinima film made to show at the congress. We may need to arrange some extra classes with the kids who are going to Sydney.

Flemington Film Festival
I have the permit forms for the film festival and hope to get full plans completed over the school holidays, including a budget, applications, sponsorship/support requests, a website to take and display entries, and whatever else we can come up with.

Taking students from Debney Park to Melbourne Grammar as mentors
A great opportunity has arisen where we can take some of the Debney Park kids to the MGS Leadership Conference which is July 28-30th, right before we go to Sydney. This is a great opportunity and is right up the Avatar Project alley in regards to social inclusion.
http://workshop26.wordpress.com/

TAFE Classes
Once again I have TAFE classes (5 all up) starting next semester. One thing we haven't considered at meetings is if we wish to do a similar kind of thing with the TAFE students, and if we can get any more research data out of it.

The effects of using Second Life VS the effects of using Cutting Edge technology
I think one thing that we might need to keep in mind for the research is that there are almost two seperate things which have influenced the project. One is the Second Life software itself, the other is the fact that we are using cutting edge 'new media.' One example of this is how the Debney kids are getting to travel to MGS - this is in part because of the social nature of the software, but realistically is more because they have cutting edge skills. When more kids know how to use Second Life it will be a different story. At the moment we are aware of every Australian kid in Teen Second Life (they are all in Skoolaborate) - so it will be interesting to see how (or if) this changes.

Reference from the HB guys
I popped past the Horse Bazaar office and Sim referred me to an Alan who wanted a youth oriented tech workshop done for a Brimbank council festival in mid September. I am looking into the Spore creature creator for this(no net required) and will drop him an email, it might be another good chance to get the kids out in the real world.

Some example stores for Skoolaborate

Today I lept into the timehole that is Second Life and did a demo store in the mall selling lighting (so the kids can get an idea of how they can sell things they make);


As well as a freebie warehouse with crates full of goodies, so everyone can stock up their inventories a bit.



Classes continue at Debney, at the moment we are working on superhero comics in pairs.

Remote teaching assistance in Second Life

For todays class I logged on to Second Life from home to see how much help I could be from there.
In a nutshell, it was a great way to observe the kids interacting virtually and be a part of that interaction.
In terms of assisting the students it wasn't very effective, although many may need a short lesson on using the communicate tool so they are not limited to communicating with avatars they can see.
I had very little idea of what was going on in the lesson, when I met the students they were hanging around an apartment which one of them has taken over. The one who had taken it over (B) had built a wall locking the rest in. I showed them how they could get out using the camera, so it was actually a lesson most of them will remember.
During this interaction a student from the US popped in. The transcript for this is included in the field reports.

Teaching in Second Life - how students respond

One of the more interesting issues which has arisen so far is how various kids are responding to classes in Second Life.
Something I noticed to an extent last year with the TAFE kids and has also been mentioned to me this year by the class teacher, is how it is surprising who responds to each lesson. It would be very interesting to get the teachers views on this as well, as he knows many of the kids quite well.
Overall there seems to be a trend towards those kids who are usually on the outer, with perhaps less traditional literacy skills, being interested and engaged in Second Life.

The other aspect of how engaged the students are is the activity we are doing. For example it was surprising to see how more students seemed engaged when we were making the t-shirts than when we were initially modifying avatars, perhaps because of the more real and personal nature of the t-shirt activity(the kids can upload their favourite team/message/brand).

As we now get through to more complex lessons (creating comics) and after we have told them the best get to go to Sydney, more and more students seem to be showing more and more interest.
That said, the three who were pointed out at the beginning as the most talented continue to be the least engaged.

Eyob's comic

I missed this, another good one from class today, from a young guy who lost all his work and had 5 minutes to make it all up. Very creative (if not entirely PG).

Second Life compare to Teen Second Life (Skoolaborate in particular)

I thought I would write this on the train on the way home, as it's something I have been thinking about quite a bit lately.
Since going into the censored, calm and also uncluttered environment of Skoolaborate(TSL), I have been more inspired to build and communicate 'in-world'(some lights, cameras and a van for our machinima making class, as well as several positive and productive conversations). The classes I have held there have all been a joy.
I returned to the main (adult) grid on the weekend to shop for some talking animations I could use with the machinima films we are making.
My experience was something that has kept me away from the main grid in recent times, without me being fully conscious of it.
Firstly even though I knew what I wanted, and knew it existed, it was impossible to find it without wading through piles of adult animations.
Which had people testing them.
When I see two avatars acting something out, unfortunately I know that there are two people controlling those avatars(possibly both male based on some statistics) and the whole experience of shopping for a talking animation(seemingly innocent) - turns into a walk on the depraved side of virtual life.
Sadly it seems there aren't many experiences which don't in Second Life at the moment.

Going through all of this has made me realise how good it is to be in a controlled and smut free environment.
This is something which few people in the main SLpossibly consider due to commercial concerns, which involves traffic, but perhaps the adverse could be true in the future.
Benefits include;
- There is no content, so people have to use their imaginations rather than their vast inventories.
- No griefers (no strangers at all, period).
- No obvious idiots - I would like to phrase this in another way, but it's not just the griefers, it's that being in Second Life is often like sitting on the train around 4pm listening to schoolgirls gossip(except they are 40ish). I find this incredibly annoying. The schoolgirls who do gossip are thankfully (so far) not using Skoolaborate for that purpose.
- No ads everywhere, sales pitches messing with facts.
- Less lag.
- People are there for good reasons, and worth talking to and meeting(either teachers or students.) I have met some great people in Second Life but it is always through a personal introduction or connection of some kind.
- Being able to look at something and say, 'this guy made it all from scratch, and he is from here...."
- Kids have to make things, there are no cheap short cuts.
- Responsibility/Accountability (linked to all above).

There are some bad things;
- I have less control personally- money/land/returning objects/scripts and things I have already done in the main SL(going to Sydney should fix half of that).
- We are trashing the place at the moment, leaving a lot to be returned (same issue, I need more permissions).

The thing about the regular internet and real life, is that to a certain degree, people cannot act out their fantasies in public(on an unwilling audience anyway).
In a virtual world they can, for better or worse.

Please note that this blog has been written knowing that our own students cannot access it from the school network. If your students can and you have any issues with any of the content, please feel free to contact me directly.

Beginning to learn Comic Life

Here is Ashav's first attempt at a comic using Comic Life and Second Life. Today was an introductory lesson, over the coming weeks the students will be working in groups to create more in depth stories/comics, the best of which will be made into a machinima film.




And another one....with some great style;

Some t-shirts from todays class as a comic

Plasq / Comic Life is helping us out

My new favourite software company, Plasq, have generously agreed to donate 25 copies of Comic Life to Debney Park so the kids can have more copies to make their machinima comic book (Soundhouse has 12). At $30 a copy this quite valuable in terms of money and allowing the kids to be able to work on their assignments at the same time.
Thanks to Mark and the team at Plasq.

A quick round up of the past few weeks

It's been a while since my last confession so here goes...

Firstly the Comic Life and Second Life idea is definitely a goer. I met with Magdi and Gene a couple of weeks back, and we have agreed on the following basic structure;

1 - Kids storyboard ideas (in Comic Life). We have 30 day demos, and 12 copies in the Soundhouse studios, but I have emailed them asking for more support(25 copies).
2 - Kids take snapshots in Second Life to create a comic, several pages each. This will then be published as a book. We need some sponsors/funding for the printing.
3 - The best story is then chosen for the group to make a short machinima film of, with help from Gene. Each student will play a role in the production (eg. set design, costume design, director, cameramen, lighting)
4 - We organise a Flemington Youth Film Festival late in the year where all students from all schools can contribute. Lots of sponsors needed here.

Secondly - classes are in full swing;

This week I have so far attended on Monday (lunchtime and double period after) and Wednesday (double period and then lunchtime) for the first full classes we have been able to have.
Monday was the introduction to Second Life, where kids were shown how to sign in, the basics of getting around, and how to edit their avatars and take snapshots.
Both curiousity and 'keeping up with the joneses' meant that kids were keen to learn how they could do everything, they were very keen to get things like motorbikes and hover boards, and helped each other learn a lot. At first people often refuse to share things (like the motorbikes) until they realise that giving it to someone else doesn't cost them anything, and they get into the spirit of giving.

Mondays class was the group I will be taking for the remaining 8 weeks of this semester, year 10s who have so far been doing Alice (quite complex software by Carnegie Mellon). They responded very positively to Second Life in particular.
The lessons objective was to create an avatar and to take some snapshots of it, which all students managed to do without any problems.

Tuesday I found out we did have some unnoticed issues, after receiving and participating a long email thread based on;

"You will find attached a screenshot of two Australian people on the Skoolaborate grid, who were saying some rather inappropriate things."

At the end of the day it was all resolved but it is a touchy issue which will need more attention on my behalf in the future.

I have now included a more intense lesson regarding the rules into the introductory lessons.


On Wednesday many students were on a school excursion so we had half a class of year 9s, half year 10s. I started with some augmented reality just to get their attention (techno magic) and we then once again explored Second Life, beginning with a run down of the rules then working mainly on avatars and the basics like adding friends and using inventories. We shall teach the same group on Friday.
Gene commented that two of the girls who are very into Second Life normally struggle to show an interest in anything computer related. I think this was perhaps happening across the board in several different ways, each person was totally engaged and as opposed to the first lesson we had very few distractions.

Lunchtime we had some of the younger students in once again, they were very keen. K and his little buddies jumped straight on and into it, and barely asked a question all day, bringing in a few more new members with them. We may have to restrict who can attend lunchtimes in the future, it is going to be full next week I think.

Using Comic Life to create Second Life comics

Using http://plasq.com/comiclife-win - the subject matter is a little droll but I just wanted to see how it all worked, better things to come!
This will be one of the lessons at Debney Park.

Debney tests/festival site/signing up

I went to Debney today, the network is working as was reported, and all is looking very good for the near future. On the way home I popped past the Flemington Community Centre and got a contact for the festival site(which they assured me is as simple as letting them know in writing when and where but we will see.) There is a picture above of the wall we can project onto.
I then into the computer shop, they only have 4 of the graphics cards we need but can get more(they were meant to call back but didn't, I may have been on the phone it was a busy day.)
I then signed up Grace and Peter as well as a couple of students using the Skoolaborate signup portal, which was finally working.