Virtual Pioneers Online History Conference!

Come and join in the 3D immersive fun and learn while you do it!

 Second Life and OpenSimulator, two important artifacts of future history, are continually providing new ways to see, hear, and personally experience the past. Other 3D platforms are doing so as well, and in the course of these presentations over a two day period, as you drop in when your own schedule allows, you will see what all this can mean for learning and teaching over the next generation. Read the press release for the conference.

Andrew Wheelock (Spiff Whitfield) has facilitated into being a group of around 200 educators interested in exploring history in virtual worlds. The Virtual Worlds Pioneers has been going strong for years now, having started out in a Ning and migrating to grou.ps (as did so many other communities) when Ning dumped their free-for-education policy. The new address is at http://grou.ps/virtualpioneers/home and I heartily encourage you to join.

Why? Because VWP consistently offers events in virtual worlds where educators can share a passion for history. In doing so, they build friendships that can last a lifetime. Two lifetimes, even...

If you don't have a Second Life avatar, now's the time. Simply visit Secondlife.com and get one for free. Play around with it for half an hour prior to the conference so you will be able to sit or walk without sitting on someone's head (considered rude in any historical period or culture) or bumping into others embarrassingly.

This is the first ever VWP online history conference, but it won't be the last. Themed "Re-Create, Educate, Illuminate--Learning History Virtually," it runs Friday and Saturday, October 29 and 30, coming up in just under two weeks. I'll be wrapping up the conference with a closing keynote on Saturday, 4 pm SL (Pacific) time, to be followed by a "Closing Celebration- Socializing, dancing, prizes, and music!" The entire schedule is available online at the conference website and it looks to be a doozy!

Heck, I'll save you a click or two:

Saturday, October 29:

Date	Time (SL time)	Session	SLURL
10/29/10	1-2pm	Kimmer Jameson from PBS Eight will inspire us with her blend of great teacher resources that can adapt to Virtual Environment history.	Virtual Pioneer Headquarters
10/29/10	2-4pm	Csteph Submariner will lead us on a tour of this unbelievably detailed and historically accurate sim that highlights the trials and poetry of this era in world history.	Western Front
10/29/10	4-5pm	Jacon Cortes will take us on a tour of Antiquity Texas, an 1800's role playing sim in the Antiquty Community of Victorian Sims and ruled under the gracious hand of the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Antiqutiy. Jacon has a superior knowledge of this time period as well as tremendous skill as a Second Life designer and builder. Please join us on this fantastic tour.	Antiquity Texas
10/29/10	5-6pm	Eureka Dejavu- Understanding Islam in Virtual Worlds	Virtual Pioneer Headquarters
10/29/10	6-7pm	Tamsin Barzane- The Yoruba Light Project (still under construction) connects the past and present of the West African Yoruba people to Salvador da Bahia in Brazil and to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.	Yoruba Light

Saturday, October 30:

Date	Time (SL)	Description	SLURL
10/30/10	10-11am	BigD Flanagan- Join BigDin a discussion of team teaching Social Studies in the secondary setting.  BigD has 17 years of History teaching experience to bring to this topic.  The subject lends itself to a wide array of teaching approaches and practices.	VP SKYBOX
10/30/10	11-12pm	Shenlei Flasheart-Overview of the 1:1 simulation of the Gettysburg Battlefield being developed in the openSim-based ScienceSim grid. Discuss how educators can become involved in this large-scale, big picture project to fully simulate the critical, 3 day Battle of Gettyburg.	Virtual Pioneer Headquarters
10/30/10	12-1pm	Norma Underwood -Historical Building by Students. Come see the Lincoln Memorial and a Holocaust Memorial built on a Second Life Teen Estate and moved to the Reaction Grid. If you are interested in re-enactments or role-playing, this shows what 13 and 14 yr olds are capable of doing.	Virtual Pioneer  Headquarters Reaction Grid
10/30/10	1-2pm	DrM Magic- Connections Through Cultural Dynamics DrM & Students will present a cultural quilt of history and familial dynamics that bring educators and students together through a historic poster presentation blanketing their comforting past, gingerly gifting it to 21st Century learners!	Virtual Pioneer Headquarters

10/30/10	2-3pm	Ydnar Seljan-A Walk Through History with Language	Professional Development Cruise
10/30/10	3-4pm	Nany Kayo- Dias de Los Muertos-The Day of the Dead -Exploring this unique Mexican holiday.	Smithsonian Museum of Latino Music
10/30/10	4-5pm	Closing Speaker- Scott MerrickOh- Will wrap up our conference as only Scott can, by inspiring us with the future of virtual environments and education.	Virtual Pioneer Headquarters
10/30/10	5-6pm	Closing Celebration- Socializing, dancing, prizes, and music!	Olive's Bistro

Hey, ya'll!!!

Announcing October's Blog-o'-the-month! Please enjoy the ever-informative "Virtual Worlds News" at http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/.  Despite light voting in September, VWN, managed by EngageDigitalMedia, was the clear winner.

And during the month of October in the Bloggers Hut, we are sticking to our Virtual Environments theme and and choosing which we want in the RSS feed for the entire month of  NOVEMBER. Would you like to see a theme explored at the Bloggers Hut? Comment here with the theme suggestion or anything else you think would make the Bloggers Hut mo' bettah.

This month, choose between:

Terra Nova
a blog about virtual worlds
http://terranova.blogs.com/

Virtual Environments
cisco
http://blogs.cisco.com/virtualworlds/

SLA in Virtual Worlds
Sharing learnings and initiatives around SLA in Virtual Worlds
http://sla-divisions.typepad.com/sla_in_second_life/

and
We are Worldswide
KZero
http://www.kzero.co.uk/blog/

Happy Exploring!

For a video tutorial on this voting thingy, visit http://sleducation.ning.com/video/video/show?id=1537868%3AVideo%3A1506!

Previously Featured at the Bloggers Hut:

Virtual School Meanderings--Michael Barbour
Blogging ISTE (special compendium page at iste.org)
The Dariing Librarian--Gwenyth A. Jones
Why Technology in Education Rocks in Virginia--various VSTE writers
Free Tech for Teachers--Richard Byrne
Suffern Middle School in Second Life--Peggy Sheehy
OpenSimulator--assorted authors
Dusan Writer's Metaverse--Doug Thompson
CoolCatTeacher--Vicki Davis
EdTechJen--Jennifer Roland
Clive on Learning--Clive Shepherd
Technology and Learning--Lee Kraus
PESD Island--Noreen Strehlow
In a Strange Land--Iggy O et al
Second Life in New Zealand--John Waugh, Terry Neal, et al
Hey Jude!--Judy O'Connell
Learning Games--Daniel Livingstone
Learning Visions--Cammy Bean
Dr. Z Reflects--Leigh Zeitz
Hendron's Digest--John Hendron
Phasing Grace--Grace McDunnough
From Mr. A to Mr. Z--Jeff Agamenoni
Around the Corner--McGuhlin.net
Fleep's Deep Thoughts--Fleep Tuque/Chris Colling
NMC Campus--New Media Consortium
PHSPrincipal Blog--Dave Meister
Teaching Math Technology Blog--Maria Anderson
2CentsWorth--David Warlick
The Story of My Second Life--Kevin Jarrett
Oh! Second Life (now Oh! Virtual Learning)--Scott Merrick :)http://virtualworldsnews.com

KZero Report is Informative and Comprehensive!

I just got my high-res versions of several reports recently released by kzero.co.uk, and I'm very very impressed at the scope and depth of the information compiled therein. I plan to spring the 6 bucks it'll cost me to print a large poster of their "Virtual Worlds Registered Accounts Q32010" for my cubby at work, just to keep there to remind me just how huge the field is getting.

From their site: "Our Q3 2010 Universe Chart has just been completed and the major headline to report is that total registered accounts have reached 1bn (1.009bn to be exact).

That’s a 51m increase in accounts from Q2 2010 and a 350m increase over the last 12 months. The chart below shows quarterly growth from Q1 2009."

I won't reproduce the fabulous circle graph here, because you should visit the KZero site and explore for yourself, even request your own high-res versions, but here's a graph from the site, showing registered accounts in all surveyed (none was included which have fewer than 1million registrants) from first quarter 09 to date:

The complete graphic depiction at the site is amazing, so detailed that to effectively view it onscreen it needs must be broken down into quarters segmented by age groups--ages 5 through 10, 10 through 15, 15 through 25, and 25 through eternity. Predictably, the largest registrations in the group of older adults that is sneaking toward eternity reside in something called Second Life. Around age 9, Poptropica leads with 110 million participants. That happens to jibe with my personal teaching experience, but I can also add that a single child may register multiple times, as Poptropica does not collect user information and kids tend to forget thier original logins, logging in from the start the next time and saving with a new username at the end of their play. I wonder how many of KZero's finding may be similarly skewed. No matter, actually, as this is marvelously engaging work no matter how flawed it may be! I enjoy just blowing up the main graphic to 200% in my .pdf viewer and navigating around. Who knew that Barbie Girls, with 19 million registrations, beats out WebKinz, with its still impressive 16 million? And who's heard of "Fantaqe," "Ekoloko," or "Dofus?" 

As Lowly High Grand Poobah of the ISTE SIGVE, the Special Interest Group for Virtual Environments, I thank KZero for its work. This gives us alot to chew on between now and ISTE 2011 in Philadelphia!