Monthly Archives: November 2011

OpenVCE Virtual Worlds Assets moved from OpenSim to Unity3D via Tipodean Collada Converter – Part 1

On my research project related to supporting the OpenVCE communities at http://openvce.net/ I was engaged in setting up a new group portal on the APAN (All Partners Access Network) hosted by the US Government for non-classified work between government agencies, … Continue reading

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OpenVCE Virtual Worlds Assets moved from OpenSim to Unity3D via Tipodean Collada Converter – Part 2

See http://converter.tipodean.com/unity3d/index.html for details of Tipodean’s OpenSim to Collada for Unity3D conversion service. The Collada translation of the open source OpenVCE assets suitable for import into Unity3D was kindly provided to Austin Tate by Chris Collins of Tipodean Technologies for experiments … Continue reading

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I, PI, … Eye

I have been working on my Digital Cultures course final project for a couple of weeks now. It is a study of Identity, Avatar and On-line Identity, Community Identity and the use of an Analytical Eye over these topics. http://atate.org/ai/pi/ … Continue reading

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Lifestream Week 10

Posthuman Pedagogy I got ahead with my contribution to the posthuman pedagogy and produced my input over the weekend, entitled “Think Like a Robot”. So I was able to provide it to the class at the very start of the … Continue reading

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Reflections on Week 10 – Presence and Voice

Indications of Presence in Virtual Worlds The theme of the readings and Second Life sessions this week was to explore the notion of presence, and mechanism for achieve a sense of community and proper interchange leading to menaingful learning in … Continue reading

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Moodle/SLoodle Experiments Issue 12 – Customised Inworld Object

With kind support from Edmund Edgar I have been experimenting with the “Demo Object” in SLoodle, which is a stub or template for developing customised objects in Second Life or OpenSim which can connect with a corresponding module in the … Continue reading

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IDEL11 Second Life Voice Meeting on Presence

Also see http://atate.org/mscel/img/2011-11-24-IDEL11-SL-Voice-2.jpg http://atate.org/mscel/img/2011-11-24-IDEL11-SL-Voice-3.jpg Space Navigator device I mentioned: http://www.3dconnexion.com/products/spacenavigator.html

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MSc in e-Learning Virtual Graduation 24-Nov-2011

For some reason, the inline thumbnail images don’t show up in WordPress for this blog post. Click on the image areas to get the source image. All images for the MSc in e-Learning graduates, and some overview shots are at … Continue reading

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Posthuman Pedagogy – Think Like a Robot

   See http://atate.org/mscel/think/ When discussing the nature of an individual’s beliefs about intelligence, knowledge or the learning process, I have noticed in a number of discussion forum threads on EDEDC and ULOE11 where it can be a useful device to … Continue reading

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Meta Body – Try an Out of Your Body Experience

A very beautifully designed Second Life region is worth exploring. I suggest you arrive in the Meta_Body area first. Use this teleport link: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Porto/132/109/703 Look at the (freely available) avatars to explore your identity and see which feel strange to … Continue reading

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Lifestream Week 9

I was pleased that David Richardson (Twitter @_djcr) was able to join in Digital Cultures as my class friend for discussions on “The Posthuman” for the current two week block. After an exchange between us about a couple of the … Continue reading

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John McCarthy – The Robot and the Baby

Professor John McCarthy died on 24th October 2011 at the age of 84. He was an early pioneer of computer technology, computer time-sharing, and inventor of LISP, one of the very first computer programming languages. LISP was, radically, based on … Continue reading

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PLE Examples – iGoogle

iGoogle is sometimes used as a framework for an individual’s PLE, since it provides a convenient and readily accessible “container” for a range of widgets and content items which can easily be added and removed. It is also relatively open … Continue reading

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Are You on Another Planet? – Well sort of… on a Moon Really

I have always been fascinated by fast cars, advanced planes and spacecraft and there is a thread running through my interests which I have been able to explore while creating my “Life Wall” – http://atate.org/ as part of the MSc … Continue reading

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AI, Cyborgs and Robots

When discussing the nature of an individual’s beliefs about intelligence, knowledge or the learning process, I have noticed in a number of discussion forum threads on EDEDC and ULOE11 that it can be a useful device to refer to an … Continue reading

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Reflections on Week 9 – The Need for a BIG Table

I have been organising my resources for three final course assignments for the MSc. I have outgrown the ring binders I was using to organise things, and finding I want to lay things out more. A large work surface is … Continue reading

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Link Ahead – Synchronous and Asynchronous Elements for Collaboration – Landow and Heywood

Landow (2006, pp 284-285) gives a very nice example of the effect of using Hypermedia alongside Peter Heywood’s usual weekly topic based course on cell plant biology. He observed that students could follow links ahead into later materials, versus being … Continue reading

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ROLE Model – Responsive Open Learning Environments

Responsive Open Learning Environments (ROLE – http://www.role-project.eu/) is an EU project which provides an interesting example of a learning environment being created with an open widget based approach which might allow for a personal learning environment to be created by … Continue reading

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Reflectons on Week 8 – PLEs and Preparing for Final Assignments

The week has been characterised by some preparatory work for assignments on the three MSc in e-Learning courses I am on. There is a lot to pull together, many interesting areas to explore, and readings to go back over. But … Continue reading

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Lifestream Week 8

The work on digital ethnographies dribbled over into this week with continuing comments on the ethnographic studies of others in the class, and feedback to those kindly commenting on my own ethnographic study on the GA-MMA community. I made a … Continue reading

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Moodle/SLoodle Experiments Issue 11 – Walled Garden or Castle Battlements and Labyrinths

Our experience of setting up Moodle as an administrator, for a couple of sample courses of different kinds (weekly, topic based and social format) and by adding in the SLoodle module both in the web end of Moodle and in … Continue reading

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Spacewar – virtual worlds circa 1972

You may be amused to read an account of virtual worlds and computer gaming circa 1962 to 1972. You needed imagination to play then! As you needed imagination for the MUDs and MOOs of the early 1980s. This is an … Continue reading

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Posthuman – Connected

“Posthuman” as a term is used quite widely and in flowery prose for a range of aggregations of human and other external entities… machinery as in the cyborg, with bionic devices, sensitivity to the environment, connections with others, remote sensing … Continue reading

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EDEDC Class Friend – David Richardson

This is a links page for the convenience of my class friend, David Richardson (Twitter @_djcr) http://edc11.education.ed.ac.uk/week-by-week/block-3-cyborg-learners/ …/block-3-cyborg-learners/weeks-8-9/ …/block-3-cyborg-learners/weeks-8-9/bring-a-friend-to-class-2/ …/block-3-cyborg-learners/weeks-8-9/weeks-8-9-readings/ …/block-3-cyborg-learners/weeks-8-9/discussion-questions-week-8/ tweet using #ededc wallwisher wall http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/posthuman2011

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PLEs and the Technicalities

My earlier blog postings have described my own preferred approach to the creation of a PLE which at its outer level is simply an easily customised web page. I chose a freely available well constructed CSS1 stylesheet that maximised the … Continue reading

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Reflections on Week 7 – PLEs Please Me

The discussion and readings on institution centric VLEs and personally owned and controlled PLEs, and all things in between, has been useful to draw out some of the argumentation behind the gut feeling I have for personal curation of one’s … Continue reading

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Personal Profiles

My interest in personal portable information stores and information predates my use of the approach as a PLE. I am interested in a computer-based personal assistant and ways in which that could build information to help you throughout your life. … Continue reading

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Lifestream Week 7

The EDC11 ethnographic study was completed over the weekend, and provided to allow comments by others on 31st October. It was very interesting to see the other studies as they slowly became available… and I commented on those where I … Continue reading

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Typographical Visual Neo-Grammar

I am experimenting with a style of non-linear essay employing a customised Typographical Visual “Neo-Grammar”. It involves experimentation with expressing the core message carrying semantically tagged “connectors” in a type and layout style and with interactive linking capabilities well suited … Continue reading

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Another Planet

I have been cooking up another project…. the appeal of utopian “Other Worlds” and projecting identities into them (see Gee, 2003). The creative experience of imagineering such a world, making it plausible and “real”, and inhabiting it in a social … Continue reading

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