Blue Snowball mike is easy to use

The Blue Snowball mike is so nice that I decided to redo the DevLearn08 demo video.  It is very easy to set up and the quality is far superior to many other microphones.  Shop around as there is a wide range in it’s price.  I found it at Amazon for $78.

You can hear the results on the VirtualTQM store page.

Look for it’s use in the supporting videos for the eLearning Guild’s January ‘09 Online Forum session entitled

Add Value to You and Your e-Learning with Fast and Easy Virtual Agents

in which I discuss Second Life as a tool for tight budgets in 2009.  It’s easy to use and the video tutorials will be online at subquark.com for anyone to use.

Good luck with all your endeavors and check out the Online Forums, they are loaded with hands on sessions to help you add to your skillset and rachet your eLearning up a notch or two.

Getting the most from Session 708

DevLearn08 is upon us! To maximize our one hour together in session 708 here are a few things you can do that don’t take much time.

Watch the GuildCast interview, take a quick look at the sample “before” lesson and script, and watch the “original” video. If you are looking for an inexpensive and fairly straightforward way to add video to your eLearning, then this session will have value for it.

It’s not about making a game but about making your eLearning a more immersive and richer experience with the realities of what many eLearning departments face this year. Small budgets, full schedules, limited resources (people and software), and so on.

If you understand fussing over a 2 credit Dreamstime or iStockPhoto image and wishing you could do real video, then this session is for you. The software needed for this is inexpensive ($37 for a highly recommended video capture application) and the actual techniques are quick to learn and use.

The biggest factor here is not the software or technique, but your imagination. Hope to see you there!

GuildCast
sample lesson & script (live on Tuesday)
concept video

Additional suggestions are attending David Anderson’s workshop on Second Life, Breakfast Bytes on Friday morning, and DemoFest Thursday afternoon (table 37 is this topic in action).

It may also help for you to see what Newmarket’s Ed Dev department does and if it is something you can identify with in your corporate setting.

DevLearn08 Breakfast Bytes

Come participate in an informal discussion, Second Life – Giving it a Second Try, over breakfast Friday November 14th with David Anderson and myself.  You will come away with a greater knowledge of Second Life and it’s place in eLeaning.

About the facilitators:

David Anderson is offering a DevLearn08 workshop entitled A Practical Guide to Using Virtual Worlds/Second Life for Learning.  If you are new to Second Life, thinking of exploring it, or ready to move ahead, his workshop will be incredibly valuable for you.  I have participated in online forums held by David and his information is not only current, but he provides resources that allow you to act right now.

My DevLearn08 session, Add Second Life to your Training without Having Users Log into Second Life, follows a case study in which a text-based lesson is converted into a more immersive learning experience.  Starting with a “text and image” lesson written by a subject matter expert, we will write an easy-to-follow script that will help us create inexpensive video footage using Second Life.  This video footage will then be integrated with the lesson to create a richer learning experience.

If you attend David’s workshop and my session, you will be equipped with the knowledge to effectively start using Second Life right away.  We both will provide resources that will help you right now.

We hope to see you at DevLearn08! And join us for breakfast!

 

David Anderson
Elearning Guild Annual Gathering 2008,Originally uploaded by oque

David Miller
elgStageComplete_009, Originally uploaded by iliveisl

Meet me for virtual coffee?

Well, I was flattered to see this (first off, I did not know that a DevLearn08 Twitter group had been started – so job well done by the Guild!).

Twitter is such a great tool for conferences, especially when used for spontaneous meetings such as “hey, 2nd floor by the coffee cart, come talk about sl in between session.” Must be a tweet from me, Mr. Second Life on the Brain!

Gee, I could Tweet from within Second Life via that Tweet HUD and we could meet next to the coffee cart I have next to . . . “

elgStageComplete_003,Originally uploaded by iliveisl

We get serious blogosphere time!

elgStage_020, Originally uploaded by iliveiSL

I was pleasantly surprised to see this build posted as sidebar content on one of the top elearning blogs!

Brent Schenkler from the eLearning Guild asked me to create a venue for a panel discussion being held for the Guild’s Summer Series for use by eBay and Sun Microsystems.

Often, due to a hundred reasons, follow up gets lost and it’s uncertain of the value of things like this.  I have experience creating similar venues for up to 200 users (even on the four corner intersection, it gets pretty laggy!  Although if everyone sits, it makes a noticeable difference).  I have seen those in action and received the type of feedback everyone can understand – money.

But volunteer builds like this often are used and then taken back into inventory and soon forgotten (I have done about a dozen free builds of stages, club houses, and offices for special inworld groups).  The iliveisl estate was gracious enough to allow this build some permanence and it was scaled down for groups of 16-20 and moved to the adjacent park in Enercity for public use by anyone in Second Life.

So it was indeed a thrill to see how well it was liked when I stumbled upon it on Brent’s blog.  According to Alexa rankings he gets an average of 250 visits a day.  He is certainly a serious player in the elearning world.  Thanks Brent!

related links:
Brent’s Blog
Newmarket’s elearning
iliveisl estate

Note: Anyone may feel free to use this stage for any of your inworld needs.  Just search “Enercity park” in Second life.  And (shameless plug) come see me at DevLearn08 session 708 on how you can bring Second Life into your eLearning.