Best Practices Conference in SL May 25

I know we're all busy, but innovation is happening. Interestingly if you peruse the About Us for Horizon page, you'll see that many of the busiest people are each taking an hour or two for this project. This is about this project but it is also about having the conversations and research to improve education at a very real, practical level.

Beth Ritter-Guth, an advisor to the virtual worlds team and Second Life Expert is organizing a conference and any of you who would like to present or discuss your viewpoints of this project need to get in touch with Beth immediately. Following is a transcript of our discussion today that I have used with her permission.

Transcript from Google Talk on 4/14/07; sorry for the typos!

Beth: hey Vicki
Beth Ritter-Guth: 2007 SL BP Conference...HERE WE COME!

Victoria: Hey, girl.

Beth: I am planning a conference in SL for the end of May, and was wondering if your students would like to put together a poster session on the Horizon project
Victoria: Now, I can go on the adult grid but they can't.

Beth: they wouldn't have to go in - they could make the graphics and PPT, and you could operate the avatar

Victoria: What is the date?

Beth: uploading it
May 25

Victoria: That is really cool!

Beth: Friday

Victoria: Oh, our last day of school! Ha ha!

Beth: they could do a presentation or a poster session

Victoria: We get out at noon that day, but I could do it that afternoon.

We could create the powerpoint or actually, how about a video that we stream in?

Beth:
The conference is 24 hours

Victoria: yes, we could do it that morning.

Beth: That would be perfect

Victoria: Or right after it gets out.
How about I ask them if they want to see it or not.

Beth:
you can pre-record at any time
into MOV file

Victoria:
Yes, we could prerecord a mov file!
That is so cool!

Beth:
We are encouraging nest proactices from the tenn grid
sorry, best
so, the whole event is G
and you are welcome to present on thier behalf
their

Victoria:
That would be really amazing.
Can I ask them if they want to watch on the smartboard or not?
And is a person going to be videoing the event (machinima?)

Beth:
sure
that is what a lot are doing

Victoria:
They are doing movies and pulling in and presenting for their kids?

Beth:
we are looking for someone to do it, yes

Victoria:
Cool-o

Beth:
yes, they are being the avatar

Victoria:
Hey, can I copy and paste this onto the Ning?

Beth:
and putting it up on the projector for thd kids

Victoria:
And if we do it in class, they could actually "be" me and we supervise.

Beth:
yes, please do
and please invite EVERYONE
yes, they can be you

Victoria:
I can share it on my blog too-- do you have a slurl or something?
is the wiki and the main Slurl is there

Victoria:
Ok, I'm going to post this everywhere and will talk to my students about it (and administration).

Beth:
I am updating it now

Victoria:
The last day of school will be tough but I really feel like they are a small part of a very big and growing revolution.
I want them to be a part and what a way to end.
How long would it be?

Beth:
we want to showcase the cool things happening in K-12
it can be as long as you want
no more than an hour

Victoria:
OK, and do you want me to mention it to the other teachers on the project.

Beth:
yes, please :-)

Victoria:
You might even want Sharon Peters who is working with the sounding board in there too.
We would probably only be able to do 20-30 minutes at most.

Beth:
it is 24 hour gig, so we can do the live portion at a good time for everyone

Victoria:
We run a short schedule on the last da.
OK, I'll get back to you on Monday.

Beth:
ty :-)
I think it will be cool for them to have a place to go with it - teaching the professors

Victoria:
The kids are the center of this thing and that would be really cool.
We could see if some of the people from the NMC would come in.

Beth:
NMC is one of our Gold sponsors :-)
they will be very happy to see the connection, I think

Victoria:
Alan Levine is an advisor on the horizon project and has been VERY helpful with some questions.

Beth:
They are awesome
I would like to post up a wiki-board in SL on the Horizon project at Lit Alive
is that ok?

Victoria:
YES! Awesome! I'll ahve to come over and edit.
And perhaps we coudl schedule some times with the class that you and I can interact and they can interview you in sL

Beth:
It will be screen shots
saved as jpeg
sure!

Victoria:
It would be awesome to have an interview in there
And some way to film it.
I don't know how to do machinima.

Beth:
camstasia works soooo slow
but it can be used

Victoria:
I have camstudio.

Beth: it goes super slow, but it will work

Victoria: The free thing.

Beth: let me see if one of the animators will help us

Victoria: Oh, that would be great.
Because I would love for that group to have some real machinima in their final video.
I've already required them to listen to last week's show.

Beth:
one of the people i have met here is one of the animatots from Lord of the Rings

Victoria: Wow!

Beth:
what is the link?

Victoria:
to their project page?

Beth:
I will email him and copy you
to the wow page

Victoria:
Nothing on the page yet but their project page is at http://horizonproject.wikispaces.com/Virtual+Worlds
Sent at 8:50 AM on Saturday

Beth:
ok
i sent him an email

Victoria:
Awesome!
I'm going to make sure that everyone over at horizon and on my blog looks at this.

Beth:
excellent :-)
We really want the K-12 population to have a voice at the conference
GlobalKids will likely be a gold sponsor

Victoria:
And I'll let you know on Monday -- If we do it, it will be from 8 a.m. until around 8:40 on Monday at the longest -- maybe closer to 8:10-8:30 but I have to check the final schedule.
I wish there was a way to have it on an island on the teen grid and get approval for the adults who enter.

Beth:
I know :-(
Kids people
oops
WE are going to chat with Global Kids
and see if they can stream

Victoria:
And yo uare the originator?

Beth:
lol
of course
I like to start fire
passion

Victoria: It is wonderful!

Beth: we are very blessed

Victoria: OK, I'm going to leave up this box and copy some of it onto the blog in amoment.
graham wegner is thinking about agreeing to be a sounding board for our peer review process.
And give advice for middle school peer review.

Beth: awesome!!!!

Victoria: It is very exciting.
OK, thank you and I'm going to be in touch on Monday.

Beth:
I am asking one of the gurus
if we can stream live into both teen and M grid

Victoria:
Oh YEAH! Now that would be awesome!

Beth:
I know we can do the videos
at the same time
but then the QA

Victoria:
Ok.
Hmmm

Beth:
would be streamed over from teen grid

Victoria:
Well, it sounds like you have some work to do.
We'll just make ourselves available.
And I hope to do an interview with you for our team next week. I'll be in touch.

Beth:
lol
no i am good at delegating
tc :-)

Victoria:
OK, we'll be in touch.
I'm excited and I'll pass this along!
So, if you want to present or be involved, get in touch with Beth. One rule on the new Internet -- don't wait to be asked, if you see something that interests you, don't say "I'm not important, they wouldn't want me" because I guess I was blessed early on by not knowing how important the people are that helped me and were encouraging me with their comments and e-mails.

I guess I didn't know I might need to think about being intimidated. All the people here are just like you and I -- they want to make a difference and they live their lives like the rest of us -- still feeling like that 16 year old kid wondering what they'd do when they grew up and wondering how the rest of their life will pan out.

I don't know about the future, but I'm proud to be small part of an educational revolution that is growing up around the feet of education. Will you join in and add your voice and practices?

We need 3 experts to give three specific teams expert feedback during the project via the wiki on April 23rd, do you know an expert or person who follows these areas?

E-mail me at coolcatteacher at gmail.com

We are signing up sounding boards to take one classroom day, we will have lesson plans for high school and middle school levels (High school for April 23 and 30) Middle School will be available the first week of May and will probably be video evaluation. Kudos to Sharon Peters and Graham Wegner who are going to be our coaches for the peer review process. (See the rubric Sharon has already posted that will serve as the basis for the beginning of the discussions they will lead.)

Remember, those educators who are giving a little time are being added to our private ning network that will allow you to follow the conversations that Julie and I and all of you are having about how to conduct this project and what needs to change for the future. We have 21 members over there and a few who still have to accept their invitation to join (about 27 of us.)

This is exciting!

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