SLCC: End, "Creativity Matters!"

[Donavan Vicha]

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, there's the infamous Masquerade Ball! I suppose when I go next year, I will owe it to my readers to attend ...



This afternoon, I was able to watch Lori Bell present her panel on creating info learning communities, speaking of what the Alliance Library System has done and how collaborations took what seemed like a small impossible dream to a much larger level. The fruit of these collaborations, which has included at least leaveraging of the "presence" of the American Library Association on SL, to the following examples from panelists:

• Barbara Galik (Puglet Dancer) described how Lori got her involved in bringing the Bradley University library into SL and eventually winning an Innovate Teaching Award, which led to "materializing" the whole university campus in SL. (BTW, I met Puglet inworld during the Virtual World Librarianship course, where she was an instructor!) SL is such a part of Bradley now that it is included in this year's Homecoming activities.
  
• Craig Cunningham (Dewey Cunningham) discussed ELVEN (Education and Librarians in Virtual Environments) as well as the creation of a virtual campus of his school, National Lewis University, which gives out more masters degrees in teaching than any other university in the world.
  
• Mary-Carol Lindbloom (Korrigan Keynes) discussed the Renaissance Island simulation of Tudor England with a video and Powerpoint, calling it a "journey to authenticity."

Final Keynote to Education Track

In what I found the most inspirational talk of the convention, Dr. Larry Johnson of the New Media Consortium re-presented a speech he gave at the Symposium on Creativity in Second Life two weeks earlier this month. With a slide show showcasing the diverse artistry of SL running as he spoke, he spoke of how creativity has been boiled out of most people in the very place it should be nurtured: school. He pointed to Second Life as an example of where people are given a license to create and where one person may not be sufficient to bring a "vision" to life, groups will form to make that vision's blossoming inevitable! In SL, Dr. Johnson said, "discovery becomes the destination." He also praised the way in which the environment brings out the mentor in everyone ... that anyone who has succeeded in SL has most likely done so because of a mentor and in turn returns the favor to SL by mentoring someone else.



I was really blown away by this presentation, which concluded with showing a video by Robbie Dingo recreating the Starry Night painting by Vincent Van Gogh with the Don McLean song "Vincent" as the soundtrack.



I really wish more of my ALA colleagues had been able to attend this convention. It solidified my impression that we need to be here. (And I'll be blogging about that in my ALA Member Ning blog soon.)
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Still waiting for electric! So I cannot load the video and pix I took at SCLCC, though I was so disppointed with what I was getting on Saturday, I didn't bother with the camera yesterday. If you want pix, here's the Flickr group for the convention.