Second Life Librarians

Librarians in Second Life--of course!

Donavan Vicha 56, Male
Chicago
United States

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Die/|\Hard 2.0 Returns

Another Look at SLoodle

A few months ago, I wrote about the grand opening of the San Jose State Unviersity's School of Library and Information Science in Second Life. One of the biggest impressions left on me that day was how they connected the inworld presentation with a Moodle chat room, allowing people without SL connections to chat with those who were in world. By happy chance, I was inworld and alerted to a meeting going on. Here are excerpts from a transcript of my chat with Pedro McMillan, the new full-time developer for SLoodle, an application that links SL with Moodle.

First up, a Glossary tool:

[7:46] Pedro McMillan: here's a nice simple one to start with

[7:46] Pedro McMillan: are you familiar with the glossary tool in Moodle?

[7:46] Oberon: No.

[7:47] Pedro McMillan: it's a module you can create for any course, and it is exactly what it sounds like.... a glossary of terms which you can look up. [On SLoodle.org,] we have a glossary with various Second Life terms in it

[7:50] Pedro McMillan: this little cylinder on the floor [in Second Life where our avatars were standing] lets us connect to that from here, so that e.g. a classroom full of students can all see the definitions together

[7:50] Pedro McMillan: it works by chatting "/def WORD", where "WORD" is whatever you want to look up

[7:50] Pedro McMillan: /def avatar

In the chat text area, the following information was generated by the object:

[7:50] Sloodle MetaGloss .3: Avatar: 1) The digital representation of your virtual self in Second Life. Or, in plain English, the character in Second Life that's you; 2) Other people's characters. Generally, any other thing with a name above it (though there are very convincing cardboard cutouts in Second Life); 3) A "costume" or outfit; a full set of avatar body parts, clothing, and/or attachments that provides a specific look.

[7:50] Oberon Octagon grins and chuckles, Cool!

[7:51] Oberon: /def slurl

[7:51] Pedro McMillan: there's not much in it at the moment (everybody always thinks of terms that we haven't added yet!)

[7:51] Sloodle MetaGloss .3: SLURL: A door to go into Second Life from www.


[7:51] Oberon Octagon pumps fist

[7:51] Pedro McMillan: /def prim

[7:51] Sloodle MetaGloss .3: Prim: Primitive - the smallest unit of building objects. Box, sphere, etc.

[7:51] Pedro McMillan: so that's the basic idea... nice and simple, but can be quite effective, especially if you are teaching languages

[7:52] Oberon: Oh, yeah.

[7:52] Pedro McMillan: (or just *better* language to people who are not very literate)

[7:52] Pedro McMillan: (which counts for a lot of the population of


Scotland

(where I am!))

[7:52] Oberon: In a reference desk situation, this would be very nice.

The next HUD we looked at allowed me to post to a Moodle blog:

[7:56] Sloodle Toolbar Box owned by Pedro McMillan gave you 'Sloodle Toolbar v1.1.1' ( http://slurl.com/secondlife/virtuALBA/246/232/31 ).

[7:56] Oberon: But I don't see a Toolbar in my inventory. [I'd gotten a bunch of things from a SLoodle exhibit during the grand opening.]

SLoodle Toolbar

[7:57] Oberon: So here goes.

[7:57] Pedro McMillan: this has just been updated (well actually reprogrammed completely), so this is the most up-to-date one anyway

[7:57] Oberon: One is customizable, but I figure the other is what I should test?

[7:57] Pedro McMillan: yes... the sloodle.org one

[7:58] Sloodle Toolbar v1.1.1 (sloodle.org): Please chat the subject line of your blog entry.

The HUD was telling me to use the chat line in SL browser to create the title.

[7:58] Pedro McMillan: if it doesn't say "Initialising..." when you first wear it, then try detaching it and wearing it again

[7:58] Oberon: Testing the Sloodle Toolbox

The HUD showed that the title of my Blog post would be Testing the Sloodle Toolbox

[7:58] Sloodle Toolbar v1.1.1 (sloodle.org): Please chat the body of your blog entry.

[7:58] Oberon: It asked me to chat the title and that worked. Now we're onto the blog entry. Very spiffy.

[7:58] Sloodle Toolbar v1.1.1 (sloodle.org): Please review your entry, and click "Save Changes" to send your entry to the website, or "Cancel" if not.

[7:59] Oberon: Review entry and Save changes. [I chose Cancel.]

[7:59] Sloodle Toolbar v1.1.1 (sloodle.org): Blog entry cancelled.

[7:59] Oberon: I cancelled. Wasn't sure how I was going to edit or revise the entry. But that's nice.

[8:00] Oberon: I assume you can initialize it to a personal blog?

[8:00] Pedro McMillan: only to a Moodle blog

[8:00] Oberon: Doh!

[8:00] Oberon: But each student in a class would get one. That's very nice.

We are in the process of converting the WebCT courses to Moodle. It won't be a difficult stretch to adopt SLoodle somewhere down the road, and I will keep in touch with the SLoodle developers as they refine their work on this exciting application.

What We Need to Know About Wikis

I talked to Jenny Levine, our Wiki expert at ALA, about developments in providing and promoting wikis to the association. At RUSA, we have a number of wikis under development and as they "blossom" I add a link to each wiki to the ALA ReadWriteConnect lisiting of wikis. When enough wikis are ready for greater exposure, I'll put a page together on the RUSA site as well. But it makes little sense to make known the existence of a wiki where there is no work being done. I leave it to appropriate RUSA committees to establish guidelines and policies regarding wikis, but will use this article to make some suggestions and provide links for further understanding.

First of all, ALA has begun an excellent wiki on wikis explaining what they are and how to use them, as well as suggesting what ALA staff needs to know in order to get one started for you. It also includes best practice suggestions and tips for handling your wiki. ALA has really ramped up support for these wonderful collaborative tools! What's most important to understand, as Jenny wrote me, "Almost anything can be changed in a wiki's infrastructure at a moment's notice, as evidenced by the fact that you can suddenly turn on uploading, install a plugin to display RSS feeds, etc." But she went on to state that "the bigger issue is probably going to be structure. If you set up a wiki's structure to be chronological (which just means you manually organize entries on the home page and page titles by date) and then you decide to change to an alphabetical framework, you have to manually change the organization of the home page and possibly the page titles. Technically it's easy enough to do that (just "move" pages to new names and retype the entries on the home page), but it will be time-intensive. That's why it's a good idea to talk through the structure ahead of time and think about where you want be a year from now."

(Jenny gave me some great examples from her experience with ALA wikis, but I hesitate to steal what could be the basis of a good blog article from her on this topic!)

The biggest concern I have expressed is about the multitude of "plug-ins" and "extensions" that are appearing for use with wikis that practically turn them into sophisticated interactive Web sites. MediaWiki provides a great source of information on these extensions that should be consulted before considering what the structure and scope of your wiki will take. (A look at the Categories page provides an at-a-glance look at
what can be done, which includes chat, forums (bulletin boards), RSS, Google, Firefox, and other applications.)

And, of course, every wiki that I help set up for RUSA or ASCLA will reference the MediaWiki Handbook that provides comprehensive help in working with wikis.

As always, I welcome questions and comments!
 

Oberon's Oracle

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Profile Information

Hometown:
Chicago, IL
About Me:
Technically ... I'm not a librarian! But I work for the American Library Association (going on 18 years) and support the core values of librarianship and libraries. I have opened an office for two divsions of ALA on ALA InfoArts Island and welcome visitors and feedback. Personally, I have two sons, the younger in the Army in Bagdad, the older one lives in Chicago. Love guitars, golf, camping, and reading.
SL Name:
Oberon Octagon

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Donavan Vicha's Blog

Donavan Vicha

Oberon Doesn't Write Here Anymore

I am truly ashamed to report that I spend more time registering for blogs than actually writing them, but the venues seem to be closing in on my actual interests and where I need to write. No sooner did I find the Association of Virtual Worlds and RezEd, but I am compelled to write for Virtual Presence, an AL… Continue

Posted on September 6, 2008 at 6:51pm —

Donavan Vicha

SLCC: End, "Creativity Matters!"

It's over! Nearly eight hundred people enjoyed two days and nights of community in the flesh before rezzing back to their SL selves. Of course, with people from as far away as Australia, the Netherlands, and China, the mileage would skew a bit, but according to a metrics report, the average attendee traveled 1,280 miles to get to this convention! As I stated before, the demographics of the attendees was as varied as you can imagine. And then, of course,… Continue

Posted on August 28, 2007 at 4:58pm —

Donavan Vicha

SLCC: Day Two, "We need to stop being a lab!"

That's a quote from "El President" Philip Rosedale aka Philip Linden. In his keynote, he was brutally frank about being in our way as a company from doing what Second Life is supposed to do. He even wore a t-shirt that read "MISSING IMAGE" to underscore his public apology for the breakdowns that have plagued SL for the past four months. He also expressed pride that the community of SL is its most important asset. LL has only spent $20 million to get to this point in its history and if it disappe… Continue

Posted on August 27, 2007 at 10:34am — 2 Comments

Donavan Vicha

SLCC: Day Two (Really!), Second Life on HBO

Sorry about the title of yesterday's article (and the promise of more!) with the "day two" business. Friday's SLCC was mostly registration and socializing, and Saturday was Day One. Sunday, today, is Day Two. We all gathered in the International Ballroom, picked up all the swag from exhibitors, and were then treated to a preview of Douglas Gayeton's "The Diaries of Molotov Alva." This ten-part series of machinma have been picked up for broadcast on HBO.… Continue

Posted on August 26, 2007 at 1:27pm —

Donavan Vicha

Second Life in the Second City: The SL Community Conference

I've just been back and forth from ALA to the Chicago Hilton and back (via the 146 going south and the 3 going north) so I can start this blog about the Second Life Community Conference (SLCC) that began this evening. I would have stayed longer and gone home to blog this, but the same storm that made travel here for out-of-town attendees a nightmare has knocked out electricity all over the Chicagoland area. (I also needed to get business cards because that is still SOP for this kind of event!) I… Continue

Posted on August 24, 2007 at 8:35pm —

Comment Wall (7 comments)

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At 11:36am on January 3, 2008, Ms Qunhua said…
Happy New Year, Donavan,

I added info to my postings about how to identify Draconius at the Jan. 12 meetup in Philly.
At 9:41am on August 2, 2007, Heather Ebey said…
Hi Donavan - Thank you for the comment about SJSU SLIS SL campus. I am not personally involved in Sloodle, due to lack of time. Jeremy Kemp, Assistant Director of the SJSU SLIS Second Life Campus, is the lead on that project , a combination of SL and Moodle. BTW, for some current snapshots of the campus, see
http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/slis/happenings/happenings2007jul26.htm .
At 12:41am on June 19, 2007, Alexia Hudson said…
Hi Donavan!

I finally found a minute to sign up! See ya soon - in world or RL! Enjoy ALA!

Alexia Hudson/Donna Upshaw
Penn State Great Valley
At 2:35pm on May 3, 2007, Brian C. Gray said…
I wondered about displaying RSS feeds from other sites. I just had not had a chance to do it here on Ning yet. It is not listed as an option anywhere, so how do you do it?
At 10:21am on April 11, 2007, Donavan Vicha said…
Sorry! I was viewing it in Edit mode and saw the Click to Add Subtitle boxes on certain title pages.
At 8:36pm on April 10, 2007, Harvey Morrell said…
They looked fine to me, Jill.
At 7:20pm on April 10, 2007, Jill Hurst-Wahl said…
Donavan,

Your comment confused me. You wrote "not all slides were done." I don't know what you mean. Some of the slides are only images while others have text. There are three logos in the slides which link to videos (I know that isn't obvious). Some of the slides -- when you view in a slide show -- use timing to bring the text in.

If something is REALLY wrong, please tell me what it is. Thanks!
 
 

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