This guy's been an idol of mine for a long time. Just take a gander at his wikipedia entry to see why. Dating myself, I think I first met him at the Well, that early iteration of collaborative technology that I first experienced on a 360 baud modem running CPM on my Kaypro 2x. That's enough geek talk.Well, ISTE managed to get Howard to talk at ISTE Island tonight, and better yet, I managed to attend. I often miss very good stuff because of my real life, which is rich. In the Great Juggling Act, SL often takes second fiddle to dinner with the family, watching a movie or a tv show with the family, or walking the big black mutt. Tonight, I managed to drop in on Howard's talk while the fam was watching American Idol, our collective "guilty pleasure."
With Dolly Parton fading in and out of
my peripheral vision, I scarfed some snippets of the session and grabbed some stills. On Twitter, afterward, it was announced that we "maxxed out the sim at 74 folks." Can you count them? Here's another with Howard in it :)And here's a snippet of video:
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4 comments:
I have an idea for a feature for the Second Life viewer: alert the person talking when his audio is terribly distorted. I think in Howard's case his recording level was up too high.
It really was great to have Howard there.
Absolutely Dave, and I would surmise that no one alerted Howard because he is Howard, lol. There was certainly backchat that noted it but he was probably too into his speaking and slides to note it, early on as it was. I was cringing through the audio and found it hard not to fire up my own mic and suggest he adjust--again, just because he's @hrheingold. Audio issues aside, I'm happy I was there!
This was my first big SL event and it was pretty amazing. Not just because it was @rhreingold, but because it was great to see another element of Howard's growing message about youth and participatory media. Combined with his TED Talk, his recent vlog posts about attention and his students and then his call for youth to create a meaningful citizen media out of these tools, it's clear that once again he is onto something important. I'm hoping to see another book from him soon that will build on where Smart Mobs left off.
I'm the kind of guy who, in real life, without being asked, even among strangers, will walk up and correct the projector focus and aim, even move a table back to make the image fill the screen. I can't help myself. A little care at the beginning has a payoff for the whole presentation.
The only thing that kept me from taking more action--like walking my avatar up to the podium during the talk when I couldn't get attention through public chat, IM to Howard, and IM to the emcee--was that I'm new to Second Life voice and I wasn't sure what the problem was. Next time watch out! :-)
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