Teaching students how to build airplanes, robots and simulations is serious business, but Designing Digitally, Inc. plans to make it a game — literally. Join us for the Metanomics Community Forum on Thursday, June 9th at 12pm PDT/ SLT when Andrew Hughes of Designing Digitally updates us on his firm’s virtual activities. He claims that he is bringing a secret guest who has very real information on exactly how Designing Digitally gets things done.

Designing Digitally, Inc., the web-based training firm that specializes in E-learning, virtual worlds, and 3D simulations, was recently awarded a 2011 Air Force Virtual World contract from the United States Air Force Research Laboratory located in Dayton, Ohio. This means the simulation experts at Designing Digitally, Inc. will dedicate the next year to creating an OpenSim virtual world grid, called Virtual Discovery Lab (ViDL), in which high school and college students can explore these technical topics in a hands-on, educational environment.

“We are extremely honored to have been selected for this contract,” said Andrew Hughes, President of Designing Digitally, Inc. “It is going to be a fantastic and rewarding challenge to create the OpenSim virtual world infrastructure for United States Air Force Research Laboratory’s Discovery Lab.”

The contract award not only calls for Designing Digitally, Inc. to help create the Virtual Discovery Lab OpenSim virtual world grid, but also to work hands-on with students interested in the field over the summer at WPAFB Tec^Edge office. Students in the program are able to explore a number of areas of interest in an educational, hands-on setting that is challenging and fun.

Resources: http://www.designingdigitally.com/

You can join us in Second life for this event or watch it on our web site: www.Metanomics.net where it will be streamed live from the Studio.

SLurl: http://bit.ly/MCForum

PLEASE NOTE – MIXED TEXT AND VOICE SESSION: The Metanomics Community Forum is a mixed voice / text discussion session. Please feel free to participate in voice or in text, to your preference. The facilitator and some participants will be using voice, so you may wish to enable voice in your viewer so that you can hear the voice portions of the session. Thanks for joining us!

Questions: Jennette Forager, Metanomics Community Manager
Reach me at: jennfor@gmail.com

Project Lead Lisa Dawley, PH.D. has assembled an incredible team to guide campers at 3D GameLab’s first ever, GameCamp in August of 2011. Join us at the Metanomics Community Forum, this Thursday in Second Life to talk about the project and her concepts for using this format in education.

Lisa is Professor and Chair of the Department of Educational Technology at Boise State University. With over 20 years of experience in teacher education research, practice, and policy, Dawley provides innovative leadership in the design and pedagogy of virtual environments for teaching and learning. She is co-author of the Going Virtual! research series studying professional development for K-12 online teachers. Dawley received a Top 20 Bestselling Books Award for her text, The Tools for Successful Online Teaching. She is a co-inventor of 3D GameLab, a quest-based learning software, and she created EDTECH Island, a virtual world resource supporting international teacher education. Dawley is also co-founder and Chair of the Applied Research in Virtual Environments for Learning Special Interest Group (ARVEL SIG) affiliated with the American Educational Research Association (AERA).

From Lisa’s blog: “We are thrilled to finally announce the launch of the beta version of 3D GameLab, an online learning platform that lets teachers turn their classrooms into a living game! Chris Haskell and I have been developing and using the platform for over a year with a variety of students from teens to college graduate students. We’re really excited about our August summer camp, when we launch our new closed beta version platform, inviting in other teachers and instructional designers for the first time!

“For those of you who know me, I’ve been interested in using games and game-like environments in education for many years. I believe learning should be fun, joyful, something you’re excited to be involved with on a daily basis, something that excites your passion. Chris has really helped me understand that to create a game-based learning environment, you have to game it, you can’t “teach” it. In our camp last summer, we started exploring the development of a meta-game quest tracking tool, something that would allow our kids to choose quests and track their own achievements across a variety of games and learning experiences. 3D GameLab was born.

3D GameLab will grow and evolve in ways we can’t even imagine at this point. We built the tool, but the content will be evolved by the users of the system. I hope you can join us this summer, or at a future time, to explore new ways of thinking about learning in a digital era.”

You can join us in Second life for this event or watch it on our web site:www.Metanomics.net where it will be streamed live from the Studio.
SLurl: http://bit.ly/MCForum

PLEASE NOTE – MIXED TEXT AND VOICE SESSION: The Metanomics Community Forum is a mixed voice / text discussion session. Please feel free to participate in voice or in text, to your preference. The facilitator and some participants will be using voice, so you may wish to enable voice in your viewer so that you can hear the voice portions of the session. Thanks for joining us!

Questions: Jennette Forager, Metanomics Community Manager jennfor@gmail.com

Join us, Thursday at 12pm PDT in Second Life at the Metanomics Studio. Please feel free to post comments here with links to coverage that I may have missed.

Resources:
www.Metanomics.net
SLurl: http://bit.ly/MCForum

Storify with Links: http://storify.com/jennfor/mcf-federal-consortium-for-virtual-worlds-2011

David Smith of Lockheed Martin just finished his keynote, in which he shared a historical overview as he looked to the future which he feels will be totally about Augmented Reality. In concluding he shared an Alan Kay remark: “The computer is an instrument whose music is ideas. The augmented conversation is jazz.”

There will be no Metanomics Community Forum today, but the stream will be live all day.

Later in the day (12:47pm SLT) the space shuttle Endeavour launches. (Final fueling actually begins as Kate begins her march up the aisle.) Again, the feed will be live at the Metanomics Studio from 12pm SLT. Don your booties and sterile attire and let’s send them off in style!

From NASA: “Preparations for space shuttle Endeavour’s launch are continuing as planned at NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39A. STS-134 Commander Mark Kelly and his crew also are continuing their prelaunch activities. Liftoff to the International Space Station is scheduled for 3:47 p.m. EDT Friday. Mark Kelly commands a crew of six which includes Pilot Greg H. Johnson, Mission Specialists Michael Fincke, Greg Chamitoff, Andrew Feustel and European Space Agency astronaut Roberto Vittori. Endeavour will deliver the Express Logistics Carrier-3, Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS), a high-pressure gas tank, additional spare parts for the Dextre robotic helper to the station. “

PLEASE NOTE – MIXED TEXT AND VOICE SESSION: The Metanomics Community Forum is a mixed voice / text discussion session. Please feel free to participate in voice or in text, to your preference. The facilitator and some participants will be using voice, so you may wish to enable voice in your viewer so that you can hear the voice portions of the session. Thanks for joining us!
SLurl: http://bit.ly/MCForum

Questions: Jennette Forager, Metanomics Community Manager jennfor@gmail.com

Both audiences then split into small groups to discuss issues that had been raised and submitted questions. Tom Boellstorff managed to participate in both RL and virtual group discussions, sharing the comments and actions of the Second life audience with the audience in San Francisco. Chris Collins of Tipodean graciously served as cameraman for the event, allowing the audience at the metanomics Studio to see the interviews via Livestream as well as having Philip and Tom logged into Second Life. The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts crew fed Tom’s laptop to a screen so the San Francisco audience could view the Second life activity and comment thread.

The video of the event is archived and can be viewed at Metanomics Community Forum altho I’ve also embedded a small version here as well. It’s currently called “Saturday” but as soon as we split it into smaller segments, it will have the date and event attached. Philip and Tom are the first 45 minutes, followed by Michele and Amos, and group discussions.

Photo Credit: Tom Boellstorff (via Facebook)

With its rich history of counterculture movements and California abundance, the Bay Area is a lifestyle laboratory for people and communities seeking to de-center the center and un-normalize the norms. Whether in the form of radical gender and sexual identity, political inclination, body modification, or technological utopianism, we are what the rest of the country fears and/or hopes to be. What is it about the local water that attracts the Black Panthers, the weed-farming millionaires, the decompressing Burners? Given the rapid succession of social and identity-based movements here, what does the future hold for new, even radical, expressions of self?

The best way to frame this conversation is to weave together the influential voices—and avatars—of thought leaders working at the nexus of personal identity and cultural anthropology. Beginning at 1pm PDT, Part I explores technology and the virtually human: Tom Boellstorff, Professor of Anthropology at UC-Irvine, and author of Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human, will be in dialogue with Philip Rosedale, creator of the paradigm-shifting virtual world Second Life. Part II explores gender and sexuality featuring Michelle Tea, Valencia author and founder of RADAR Productions and Sister Spit, interviewing Amos Mac, founder and editor of Original Plumbing, the SF-based magazine dedicated to exploring the sexuality and culture of FTM transgendered men. Finally, we will open up the discussion to the group at large where your perspective will be an essential element of an enriching discussion.

Tom Boellstorff will be logged into Second life and able to take questions from the Studio audience. You can join us in Second life for this event or watch it on our web site:www.Metanomics.net where it will be streamed live from the Studio. SLurl: Metanomics Studio in Second Life

Special thanks to Chris Collins, Tipodean.com, for serving today as cameraman on-site at the event.

Resources:
Previously on Metanomics: Tom Boellstorff on Metanomics
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

The Metanomics Community Forum, Thursday, April 21rd at 12pm SLT welcomes the extraordinarily talented Saffia Widdershins and Elrik Merlin from Designing Worlds and the extensive Prim Perfect Enterprise.

Designing Worlds is the hit weekly show on design and designers in virtual worlds, brought to you by Prim Perfect Productions, the people behind Prim Perfect and The Primgraph magazines. It’s broadcast every week by Treet TV, the leading TV network in today’s virtual environments such as Second Life. From its roots as a “meta-makeover” show, the programme has developed into a magazine/factual format, adding interviews and visits to some of the most impressive locations in Second Life and other virtual environments. The show goes out live in 720p High Definition every Tuesday at 2pm SLT/Pacific Time and is repeated through the week on the Treet Lifestyle channel. Shows can also be viewed on the Treet Archive web site and downloaded as podcasts via iTunes.

Designing Worlds is presented by Saffia Widdershins, the Editor of Prim Perfect Magazine, and Elrik Merlin of Radio Riel.

Resources:
Designing Worlds Web Site: http://primperfect.net/dw/

Latest issue of Prim Perfect magazine: http://en.calameo.com/read/0000042343fc7f65ffc8e

The Prim Perfect Blog:
http://primperfectblog.wordpress.com/about/

And Designing Worlds! on Treet.tv:
http://bit.ly/eYqE3B
You can join us in Second life for this event or watch it on our web site:www.Metanomics.net where it will be streamed live from the Studio. SLurl: Metanomics Studio in Second Life

Saturday, April 23rd at 1pm SLT/ PDT: Tom Boellstorff, interviewed by Philip Rosedale on a topic dear to all virtual residents: The Customizable Body: The Present Future of Radical Identity. Metanomics will stream the live feed from the Yerba Buena, California . Details to follow in a later post. Info here in an article from the SF Weekly.

Blog: Virtual IEEE RoboWeek

Calendar: Virtual RoboWeek Calendar

You can join us in Second life for this event or watch it on our web site:www.Metanomics.net where it will be streamed live from the Studio.

SLurl: Metanomics Studio in Second Life

Questions: Jennette Forager, Metanomics Community Manager jennfor@gmail.com