What the hell am I doing (T)here?
Virtual memorial to domestic violence victims
In honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, real life women’s legal advocate Ziolla Magpie will be launching a “Silent Witness” display on October 1 to create awareness of the victims of domestic violence around the United States. The installation features a ring of sillouettes with word bubbles containing various statistics about domestic violence in different…
Cisco:virtual environments help education, video-conferencing doesn’t
Cisco has conducted a meta-study of education technology entitled “Technology in Schools: What the Research Says." Produced by Cisco Systems and the Metiri Group, the report summarizes general trends and representative studies in areas such as television and video use, calculators, engagement devices such as interactive whiteboards, portable or handheld devices, virtual learning, in-school computing,…
Virtual Non-profits: Profile of Boomer Esiason Foundation
A couple of months ago I did a popular "Second Life Do-gooders" tour of how various non-profits were setting up shop in the virtual world. I focused on non-profits featured in the Tech Soup non-profit HUD, which the Tech Soup folks had recently launched. I neglected to visit one of the featured groups though, the…
Dr. John Bransford talks on using virtual environments for education on Oct 2
Folks in the Second Life education list tell me this event is a super-big deal. Dr John Bransford, education psychology specialist affiliated with the National Science Foundation will be speaking on "Virtual Environments as ways to Reorganize Thinking about Research and Education" on October 2 in Second Life. Here’s the complete description from the Learning…
A detailed look at the Virtual Aloft Hotel
I got a (somewhat illicit) sneak peak at the Virtual Aloft hotel built within Second Life last month (direct teleport here). They have been quietly opening the Aloft Island for visitors and I got to get a closer look at it today. It’s come quite a ways since my last visit a month ago. What’s…
Google justice for Gift Assistant
Ok, it’s not the same as getting my freakin money back, but it’s still gratifying to see that when you do a search for "gift assistant" on Google, my blog complaints (I and II) and Consumerist’s followup are all in the top 5 listings, right under the link to the actual Gift Assistant website.
Media Shift asks “Can human rights videos go viral?”
Mark Glaser, on the PBS-sponsored blog "Media Shift," recently posted about the new WITNESS "Human Rights Video Hub". Mark asks "so what if you could take videos shot by citizens of human rights violations, such as police brutality or torture, and got them to go viral, bringing more attention to the crimes?" He quotes from…
Love kids? Love Second Life? Here’s the job for you!
Cool dude Barry Joseph (aka "Globalkids Bixby" in SL) at Global Kids sends along a job opening at the Online Leadership Program of this innovative New York-based youth organization. They are looking for a program associate to help develop and run workshops for teens in person and in the virtual Teen Grid of Second Life. The…
Jnana helps dumb people build smart agents
Just got back from a presentation in SL by Lex Lardner of his "Jnana" smart agent builder, a powerful application that enables non-programmers to create a set of dialog menus using simple logic and query-answer statements. (Full transcript provided by Signpostmarv.) Lex showed us how easy it was by building a quick set of dialog…