Virtual Architecture Class Underway
If you’ve been flying around the Virtual Campus lately you may have noticed A LOT of new projects underway! That would be Instructor Audra Magerman’s TECH 4800 Topics in Technology – Architecture in Second Life class.
14 students are taking the course this summer and are currently working on personal work spaces (seen above) and departmental office spaces for BGSU Departmental use (below).
The platform in the image below is a proposed ‘classroom’ built by a student for the ATE program (Advanced Technological Education).
Read us on Facebook!
The Virtual Campus Blog can now be accessed on Facebook via the new BGSU RSS Reader application! Keep up with our headlines and details from each post on this blog!
More info:
PRESS RELEASE: April 27th, 2009
A FACEBOOK APPLICATION MAKES STAYING ON TOP OF BGSU NEWS EASIER!
BGSU Creates a Facebook Application for University News, Blogs, and More…
There is now an application available for all Facebook users to keep track of what’s going on at BGSU. This application collects information from the top blogs at blogs.bgsu.edu, The BG News, and Campus Update straight to your Facebook so that you don’t have to go hunting for the latest news. Simply add the application found at http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=41501853292 and click on the arrows to see the top headlines from The BG News, business, sports, technology, and education related feeds at BGSU.
The development of the application was supported the Office of the CIO and Information Technology Services and is intended for better communication across campus. Anthony Fontana, Learning Technologies Consultant for the Office of the CIO and designer of the Facebook application views Facebook as a very versatile platform for the exchange information. Fontana sees this application as a way to aggregate the best of the BGSU campus blogs and RSS feeds onto Facebook, so that information is accessible where the students and faculty spend their time online.
The application was written by ITS programmer Chris Wammes. The Office of the CIO and ITS have agreed to make the code available to other members of the BGSU and Facebook community. Community members interested in creating a similar RSS Reader for Twitter feeds or classroom blogs can use this code. ITS hopes what they’ve started can benefit other BGSU community members who would like to create their own Facebook applications.
The RSS feeds currently on the application were chosen due to the quality and regularity of their content. To submit your official University campus blog please send the URL to afontan@bgsu.edu. Future improvements to the application may include the RSS feed from the University Academic Calendar.
Celebrate Virtual Campus Birthday/Earth Day
(Bowling Green, OH) – The Bowling Green State University virtual campus in Second Life is celebrating its second birthday in conjunction with an Earth Day celebration in the virtual world on Friday, April 24 at 11:00 – 4:00pm EST. The festivities will include a fashion show, poetry readings, art exhibitions, live music by BGSU student DJs, virtual flea market, and a “Save the Earth” scavenger hunt. The event will take place on the Bowling Green State virtual campus in Second Life and simultaneously presented in the lobby of the Bowen Thompson Student Union.
The Birthday/Earthday celebration will begin with a tour of the BGSU virtual campus and afterwards there will be an InWorld Fashion show where avatars will model a sampling of the amazing attire available in Second Life. At 12:30 there will be an Open Mic poetry reading at the BGSU Writing Center in Second Life. Students, faculty and staff are invited to “step up to the mic” at the Bowen-Thompson Student Union, where their words will be broadcast into the virtual campus.
At 1:00, there will be a special EarthDay scavenger hunt on the BGSU virtual campus. Avatars will compete in a quest to find information on how to help combat global climate change. The first avatar in Second Life to find all the clues will be awarded prizes in Linden dollars. Participants will face simulated climate change and environmental disasters that will prove to be both challenging and thought provoking.
After the Scavenger hunt ends, there will be live music by BGSU student DJs, What the Bleep and DJ PsysiX in the lobby of the BTSU Student Union. The DJ’s music will be streamed into the Performance Center in Second Life and avatars are invited to socialize and dance to the sounds of Jungle and Psytrance music.
Throughout the event, people are encouraged to attend the opening of the Digital Arts student art exhibition and visit the bargin/barter flea market. The artwork will be displayed in the Vertical Gallery and avatars are invited to “fly” through the gallery to view the work. At the flea market, avatars will give away and barter virtual objects such as clothing, furniture, buildings, etc.
To find out more about how to get a free Second Life avatar, visit www.secondlife.com.
To visit the BGSU Virtual Campus, go to www.bgsu.edu/secondlife
FATE: Student Exhibition of Art
Please join us on Friday, April 10th at 8pm EST on the BGSU Virtual Campus for the opening of the FATE: Foundations in Art: Theory and Educations Student Exhibition in Second Life.
This exhibit features student work by FATE members, including artwork by students of BGSU faculty members: Michael Arrigo, Joe Mesier, Joel O’dorisio, and Anthony Fontana. Each artwork, when clicked, leads to the FATE assignment wiki, a wiki that enables art educators to share assignments for 2d, 3d, Drawing and other college Freshman art courses.
Come meet FATE members, see the artwork, and experience an gallery opening on BGSU’s Virtual Campus in Second Life!
BGSU Exploration: The Virtual Campus expands into OpenSim
A new island is born…
On March 6, 2009, a team of BGSU students created a new simulated island for the BGSU Virtual Campus. The new island, dubbed BGSU Exploration, was created using the open source software called Open Simulator (http://opensimulator.org/), the same software that runs Second Life.
The first resident of this island was named BGSU Sif and was used to test access to this new virtual property. The BGSU Virtual Campus team, along with Dr. Hassan Rajaei from the Department of Computer Science, are looking into the potential of OpenSim. Currently, BGSU Exploration is reserved for testing and experimentation. It is hosted on a University server supported by the Office of the CIO and dedicated to the BGSU Virtual Campus.
