Virtual Campus Blog

Today marks an inaugural event on the BGSU Virtual Campus in Second Life. The Virtual World Educators Roundtable (VWER) will host it’s first meeting on BGSU Community Island (SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/BGSU%20Community/53/86/25). Today’s 5:30pm ET (2:30pm SLT) meeting will feature a special interview Jon Richter about CLiVE (the Center for Learning in Virtual Environments), the ARVEL SIG, and much more. This interview will be conducted by VWER founder AJ Kelton. For more info visit VWER.org.

Next week’s meeting will feature BGSU’s own Bonnie Mitchell and Anthony Fontana, Virtual Campus Co-Administrators. They will be discussing the new features and virtual world initiatives on the BGSU Virtual Campus.

On March 18th, 20011 at the Virtual World Best Practices in Education conference in Second Life, AJ Kelton announced that the Virtual World Educator’s Roundtable meeting will move to the BGSU Virtual Campus in Scond Life. The VWER community (VWER.org) has been meeting regularly to discuss issues in virtual world education for several years. The first meeting on BGSU Community Island will take place on Thursday May 4th at 6pm EDT.

“Second Death”, the MFA exhibit of graduate student Kuang Chen Hsu, is now open to the public on the Bowling Green State University Virtual Campus in Second Life. The exhibit is an exploration of the experience of death in various cultures and religions, and is an interactive, educational setting where the users can walk their avatars through the different ceremonies and traditions. It also examines the impermanence of life in contrast with the fundamentally indestructible nature of the virtual world. “In Second Life, everyone can have another life, and it is an eternal life without dying,” states the introductory sign at the front of the exhibit. “Second Death” offers a new perspective and experience for Second Life users.

Kuang recently gave a presentation of his exhibit at the Pop Culture Association Conference in St. Louis, and his work will also be featured in the MFA Thesis Exhibition at the School of Art from April 10th to the 20th. The MFA exhibition will have an opening reception at the BGSU School or Art in the Dorthy Uber Bryan Gallery from 7-9pm on April 9th.

Second Life expert Mark Bell will discuss “The Future of Research in Virtual Worlds: Developing Virtual Data Collection Interfaces” at 6 p.m. March 16 in 308 Bowen-Thompson Student Union. His talk is part of the Tech Trends Series.

Bell’s research interests are in trust in mediated environments including virtual worlds, mobile networks and augmented reality. He is highly involved in the Second Life research community, managing the SL Researchers mailing list and presenting at several conferences, including NCA and AoIR. He has published on trust, web 2.0, Second Life, graphic novels and technical books. Bell has also developed an innovative virtual data collection interface for use in the virtual world of Second Life.

His talk is sponsored by the BGSU Virtual Campus in Second Life and Tech Trends.

December 4th marks the sixth annual ArtsX at the Fine Arts Center, and the Second Life staff has some exciting events lined up for the evening! Swing by room 1102 between 6-10 PM and see a Fashion Show (6:30), play our “Mondrian Madness” game (7:30), and participate in our Ava-Art Show (8:30). We hope to see you there!