Thunder

So why do I venture all the way up to Glasgow to attend the Scottish Learning Festival?

There are several reasons:

• The people, each time I have attended I have been made to feel very welcome by the Scottish educators. It is great to put faces to names you read or hear about in blogs/podcasts/wikis etc.
• It is about learning, notice the name change from SETT to SLF. The focus is on learning and less on hardware and software, that seems to plague the BETT show.
• Size, I think BETT is getting too big, trying to navigate your way around in a day is near on impossible, especially if you want to take in a seminar or a keynote. SLF is considerably smaller and you can listen to several seminars and still have time to pop around the exhibitors.
• Quality of the seminars, keynotes etc, the speakers are inspirational (I will write further posts about what I heard).
• The fringe events, including Teachmeet.

I would recommend attending SLF08 to anyone with an interest in learning.

Via Technorati I found this post about displaying Flickr images within Second Life.  This object is excellent, it allows you to enter either a flickr user id, flickr group or flickr tag and it will display 10 photographs that fulfil the criteria.  I have rezzed a copy of this object outside my house on WMnet island, the image below shows one of the images that has a ‘teachmeet07′ tag.

Unfortunately neither the code used nor the object are open source so I can’t figure out how it works, and the object will only work for the duration of the Burning Life.  If anyone knows how this works and is willing to share the code please get in touch either here or in SL my avatar is Tarannau Wollongong.

Over the last couple of days I have added several objects to the WMnet island within Second Life:

Sand Box - area for anyone to build within

Freebies - A collection of free objects, textures and a prim rezzer

WMnet Office

My House (from the outside)

My House (from within)

After my five hour journey I have arrived in Glasgow, I am here to attend the Scottish Learning Festival.  This afternoon I will be attending the In the Wild event by Channel 4, then popping back to the SECC to listen to Stephen Heppell and to end the day, the main reason for being here TeachMeet07.

Tomorrow I will be attending two seminars ‘Islay High: School of Ambition’ and then ‘Making Learning Irresistible: The Challenge in England’.

The WMnet island is now up and running in Second Life.  the purpose of the island is to give teachers from WMnet educational institutions the opportunity to investigate the potential of this virtual world for teaching and learning.

This is a private island, if you would like to visit it you will need to send me an email [steve at it4L.org] containing your avatars name, can you send the email from your school address so I can validate you are from a WMnet school.

Education UK Island is delighted to announce a new programme of free land grants. This new programme offers the opportunity to apply for one of four plots of land on Education UK island within Second Life completely free, for educational use for 6 months [January 2008 – 31st July 2008].

Applications are invited from UK organisations / practitioners whose classwork or staff CPD can be extended by using the simulation and creativity tools available within Second Life. In addition to the free land grant, the programme also offers:
A startup grant of $SL10,000 Linden  Dollars
Dedicated and password protected audio  channel
Access to other island facilities.
Access to a community of support for the duration  of your project
Successful applications will be announced by mid November 2007 and plots of land will be transferred as soon as practicable after that, so that teachers can plan for the inclusion of Second Life delivery within courses and/or CPD beginning January 2008. The land will be granted free of all charges until 31st July 2008.

Documentation should be submitted in electronic format to: chris@sleducationuk.net  . Closing date for applications is Wednesday 31st October 2007.

For more detailed information, including application form visit: http://www.sleducationuk.net/?q=node/21.

with very best regards…Chris…

Education UK Island

Second Life

Just a quick question, does anyone know if there is any software (other than Podium) that can record and publish podcasts?

I remember when C&C first came out and I spent many a day/week/month playing this hugely addictive game.  If you have never played it then I would recommend it, I guess it is a little dated now but is still a good strategy game.  This is the text from the C&C website:

Thanks largely to the efforts of our loyal fans whom continue to sustain and grow the Command & Conquer community, Command & Conquer has become a legendary franchise and it’s time to celebrate its birth once again.

In order to give back to the fans for over 12 years of devotion we are putting together a 12th Anniversary celebration during the month of September. However, as any Command & Conquer fan knows, the true party starts today, August 31st, which marks 12 years since the original Command & Conquer launched way back in 1995.

To kick the celebration off, today we have a special surprise which we are certain new and old Command & Conquer fans will enjoy. We are providing the original Command & Conquer as a free download, compatible for Windows XP! This is the same version included with the collectors pack Command & Conquer: The First Decade, and is now available for you to download for free!

I think when you start off in SL you tend to be more of a builder than a scripter, I didn’t have a clue where to start when it came down to scripting.  My strategy was to get hold of an object and study the code to try and figure out how it worked. Via the SLED mailing list I came across the ‘Script Me‘ website:

This site will help you create scripts for your Second Life objects. These scripts allow you to add interactive elements to your builds without knowing how to code. All of the script are released under a creative commons license, which means that you can use them freely!

Having given the site a go, it is very easy to use and works well, this would be a nice way to introduce the scripts to students.  I hope they can come up with some more scripts.

While searching the US Open website to find out what time Andy Murray will be playing later I found the link to games, and as you would expect I had to click.  I took a quick look at ‘Video Instruction‘…

Explore the USTA Player Development Video Instruction Library. Here you will find video clips shot during past US Opens of the best players in the world executing various shots, including serves, returns, ground strokes and complete points.

For each of the clips there are pictures of the key frames and a commentary, you can also view these key frames in slideshow view which also contains the ability to print.  I wonder if these resources will make me better on Wii Tennis.