Spring semester 2024
January 29, 2024Welcome to the module ‘Virtual Environments: Is one life enough?’ being offered as an elective module to students of Technological University School of Art & Design and Dublin School of Archtitecture.
Classes will start on Friday 9 February for a special introductory class. After that we will meet every Monday from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm and most Saturdays from 5:00 to 7:00 pm. We meet online at TU Dublin in Second Life. Please note: you will need a Mac or PC desktop or laptop to access Second Life – you cannot do so with a mobile device.
Full details about the module are available to eligible registered students on the university VLE, Brightspace, where you may self-enrol. Read the Introduction unit carefully where you will find instructions on how to access Second Life and set up your personal avatar. Learning how to get around the virtual world and familiarising yourself with the environment and how to control your avatar will take a few hours so give yourself plenty of time before class starts.
Please read pages 1 to 9 in the column on the right also. If you would like to find out more about what to expect during the semester read the posts in this blog: all class since 2009 have been summarised.
If you have any problems email John O’Connor at TU Dublin.
Once again, this semester we will be working with Prof Murat Gülmez (aka Magua) and his students at Çağ University in Turkey. In addtion we will be joined by Dr Lucia Morales from the Business faculty at TU Dublin who will also introduce her PhD students to Second Life.
Project Team presentations
December 1, 2023The Project Team presentations for the VWEC Student Challenge were recorded on the final day of class this semester and this formed part of their submissions. The presentations were well delivered with participants making a strong showing. The collaboration between Turkish and Irish students was excellent. All video recordings are courtesy of Sitearm Madonna.
The Purple Team:
The Yellow Team:
The Red Team:
Autumn semester 2023
September 24, 2023Welcome to the module ‘Virtual Environments: Is one life enough?’ being offered as an elective module to students of Technological University School of Art & Design and Dublin School of Archtitecture.
Classes will start on Wednesday 27th September at 3:00 pm for two hours. We meet online every week at TU Dublin in Second Life. Please note: you will need a Mac or PC desktop or laptop to access Second Life – you cannot do so with a mobile device.
Full details about the module are available to eligible registered students on the university VLE, Brightspace, where you may self-enrol. Read the Introduction unit carefully where you will find instructions on how to access Second Life and set up your personal avatar. Learning how to get around the virtual world and familiarising yourself with the environment and how to control your avatar will take a few hours so give yourself plenty of time before class starts.
Please read pages 1 to 9 in the column on the right also. If you would like to find out more about what to expect during the semester read the posts in this blog: all class since 2009 have been summarised.
If you have any problems email John O’Connor at TU Dublin.
Once again, this semester we will be working with Prof Murat Gülmez (aka Magua) and his students at Çağ University in Turkey. We will be spending much of our time with Lynne Berrett/Lissena Resident, (aka Wisdomseeker) and her team at Whole Brain Health on Inspiration Island in Second Life.
Final Team Presentations
May 8, 2023Each of the four student groups presented their final Team Projects in the final class of the semester. The work was excellent and very well presented. Each of the students spoke during their team’s presentation and everything went off without a hitch. Many of the guest speakers during the semester were in the audience, along with many others who have an interest in online and virtual education.
Francisco Koohaven from Whole Brain Health made a video of the Student builds supporting their presentations. This video fly-through of each project shows the amount of thought and effort the students put into the supporting work for their presentations.
Team Project – dry run
April 24, 2023The practice run for the Team Project was led-out by Sitearm Madonna who put the student teams through their paces. The exercise provided an excellent opportunity to identify exactly what had been achieved by the teams so far and what yet needed to be done. Sitearm also recorded the class for later review.
Next week is a public holiday in Ireland so there won’t be a formal class. The final presentation of the students’ Team Projects will be hosted by Whole Brain Health the following week, 8th May 2023.
Building in SL
March 27, 2023
There was poor attendance from TU Dublin students at this class so here is a link to the transcript of proceedings. It will give you a sense of the presentation. Tooyaa, Fran and Cats, along with Wisdom, covered a range of useful tools such as making and saving notecards, building, communications options and so on.
Tooyaa also reminded the students of the Masters of the Metaverse modules which can be found here: Lesson Module 1 – Basics and Lesson Module 2 – Synthesis.
International Student Project
March 26, 2023The Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Eductation annual conference has been taking place over the weekend: VWBPE 2023: Uncommon Realities. In a packed programme with a variety of presentations two students from Çağ University, dogukansalatan and caglasolak, spoke about their participation in this model during the Autumn 2022 semester in International Student Project in the Metaverse: Student Perspectives. You can see read the transcript of their talk or view the recording below:
Teamwork and collaboration
March 20, 2023Sitearm Madonna presented on the theory of teamwork at today’s class. This was followed by a briefing on the Team Project No One is too Small to Make a Difference by John / Tae.
Working together
March 6, 2023Our friends from Çağ University joined us for the first time today and Sitearm Madonna gave us a gentle introduction on how to work together in teams in a virtual environment. The Turkish students and their facilitators joined in seamlessly as if they had been working in Second Life since the beginning of the semester.
After the talk Sitearm gave the class an immersive collaborative experience through music. It was tremendous fun and we were sorry not to have more time to engage with his brilliant instruments.
Virtual Environments: Is one life enough? 