Friday, April 25, 2008

Educational Possibilities in Second Life - April 19th, 2008

The conference is divided into three consecutive weekends starting from April 19th, 2008.
I hereby present you with a "summary" of Jarek Dejavu's presentation from April 19th, 2008.

Jarek Dejavu*, the founder of the DEJA VU INTERNATIONAL,

Ladies and gentleman, thank you for your warm welcome and sorry for delay. More then 1 year ago, when secondlife started to be popular in czech republic, I have came here for the first time and realized its posibilities. Only one thing has been missing here that time. It was a terible silence here.
So I sat down and cause I am experienced programmer working for years with voice systems and I did first voice to chat and chat to voice interface for SL. At first for my own use, but I found it can be one of the ways. The main thing is that my interface is the very first which does not need the speaker to use it, but which is client side, so each of you can install it on your computer (if its windows machine) and hear anybody, not only the ones who are speaking, but the ones who are just writing and thats whats so revolutional on it. You decide if to hear other or not, so you have free choice to read or to hear, to speak or to write (speech recognition is part of it).
Ok - so this was our first atempt to enhance posibilities of SL and it was first success too. Nevertheless real voice came to SL later, so nowadays its not so important, but can help a lot, cause you can i.e. be having classes for students and let them hear what you are writing by this interface and i.e. write english and speak french, cause using translator it can read by french voice all what you are writing in english.
So the posibilities of this interface are still great concerning educational purposes.

I am now working on advanced version with improved speech recognition system and incomporated translator, etc.

Our next product which helps with education in SL is SCULPT SPEED 3D sculpties editor. It was again one of the first editors done especialy for SL and now there is a new version ready to deploy. This product helps people in SL who don't know how to use complicated 3D editors to be doing their 3D models in easy way. The interface of this 3D editor is very simple and average SL user would be able to master in in few minutes or hours compared to complicated systems, where it can take weeks and months.

And finaly third educational product which my company is working on is advancement of the scripting editor for LSL. This our system is monitoring clipboard and when you will take to the clipboard some part of the name of the LSL function. It will complete it for you including definitions of the variables etc., so it is a big help for students of LSL language or general programming. So as you can see, our company is aimed on educational and productivity tools very much.
In almost two years which I spent in SL I found a lot of ways how SL can help in educating and did a lot of things which can help students to work in SL. And in future, we are preparing much more of interesting tools for all who are interested in creating virtual worlds.

Ladies and gentleman, but our afforts in Czech republic and Slovakia are going even behind this frontiers. Last week I have acquired new domain for our educational projects www.virtualnisvety.cz (virtualworlds.cz) cause I think that SL is only first but not final virtual world and that there will be soon even better made worlds letting professionals to learn and to cooperate worldwide. SL is real phenomene which is changing education as we know it in never seen way. One can sit here in europe and to study language in USA at the same moment i.e. one can sit on classes of programming which is holding somebody on the other side of the world. Never in human history it was so easy to be learning. All what we have to do is to take the chance which we are having here and bring people worldwide this vast area to be sharring knowledge......

Thank you for your attention

*Jarek Dejavu presentation was a bit adopted from the original for easier reading (timestamps removed, etc...

Apartaments to let on SlangLife Island in Second Life


Slang Life CEO - Macciej Schumann, decided to offer the readers 6 apartamants located on SlangLife Island. For free, no strings attached. The apartaments are located near the main street and all have beautifull views. Prim alowance: 100 - per apartament. All avatars interested should contact Uzi Boa or Cezary Fish inlife.

Cezary Fish

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

SL'ang Life No.4 is out!


Just got my copy of the fourth number of the magazine. A smiling postman brought it in the morning. I have to admit that the magazine gets better with it's every next issue. Slang number four is a bit political, a bit tutorial and a bit religious, not to mention rock'n'rollish with the one and only Komuso Tokugawa :)

I hope you get your copies soon. My personal favourite in this one is "In Search of Venice" by Uzi Boa.

may the force be with you,
Cezary Fish

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Educational possibilities in Second Life - a conference sponsored by SL'ang Life

The aim of the conference is to present the most interesting educational projects in SL to its residents. We strongly believe in the potential of such ventures. They are an excellent proposition for people open to effective use of their presence in Second Life. Very often they constitute the only way to pursue personal interests or gain new knowledge.

SL'ang Life magazine strives to actively participate in promoting initiatives leading to the creation of a knowledgeable community in SL. Thus, we offer space on our island and on pages of our magazine. Please, treat this conference as a ”showcase”, a possibility to present your activity to new public, an opportunity to learn about similar projects from all over the world and a chance to start a cooperation.

Due to a big number of this kind of projects, the conference on SL'ang Life island will be divided into three consecutive weekends starting from April 19. Also an educational display park will function all month. Each project will have a chance to place an information booth on our island (no more than 30 prims). All people who are nterested should contact us to receive the right to build objects on the sim (please prepare a place for a new group).

Each project is invited to make a short presentation of its activity (the conference will utilize text chat, presentations shouldn’t exceed 30 min).

A transcript of all presentations will be available at SL'ang Life magazine’s website, and a report from the meetings will be printed in our magazine.


We would also like to use this opportunity to inform about a journalist competition for students organised by SL'ang Life magazine.

As SL'ang Life is a magazine focused around Second Life platform, this is what the competition is about. Texts will be assessed in three categories:
- SL as a community platform,
- SL as a new channel of marketing communication,
- perspectives for development of SL as a virtual reality.
The best texts in each category will be published in SL'ang Life magazine, and their authors will be rewarded 250 USD.


Please, send your applications together with the name of the project, name of the speaker and preferred date of presentation.
Conference dates:
April 19
April 26
May 3
Information regarding the presentations will be available on our website and forum (http://www.slanglife.com/forum/)

All questions and applications are to be sent in-world to Uzi Boa and Mallory Beresford or to an e-mail address: uzi.boa.at.slanglife.pl.


If we have missed any interesting initiative, please let us know or inform a person responsible forthe conference organisation.
Thank you for your help and see you soon.


Kind regards,
SL'ang Life Team

Monday, April 7, 2008

Slang Life Memorabilia :)


This particular photo made my day today. A simple photo of a magazine laying on the table. Nothing special, but..... But it is a photo of the first issue of SL'ang Life, a monthly magazine about Second Life, delivered by postman to some avatar's home :) And there it is, a piece of somebody's virtual passion embedied in paper, left on a table, probably a living room table, covered with an oldschool cloth :) An important one, worth photographying and sharing.....

Cezary Fish

Slang Life mentioned in Vox Design


I just came across the weblink mentioning SlangLife Island as one of my topsy designs. I still think it is :) The everyday use of this Island by many avatars attending concerts, parties, conferences , fashion shows, exhibitions, etc. allows me to say that it is not only a good example of urban planning, but also a cool place to be.

Cezary Fish