Federal Work Group Conference

If you were not logged in on Friday and you missed this event, you missed seeing something that was fairly exciting. There was a massive work group session with multiple locations in RL as well as SL. There were discussing using SL for ideas with the Federal Government. I was able to watch, participate, chat about the event for some time (over 2 hours) and I heard it was an all day event.

They had multiple speakers presenting different topics and using different presentation styles. What I found to be really interesting was the fact it was being streamed and presented live. One presenter used a stream of his desk top and did a primer on SL. He covered everything from how to log in to moving and viewing. We could hear his voice and watch a screen of what his computer had displayed. The next presenter was using PowerPoint or some other presentation software, but it was not just a constant presentation. During sections of the presentation it would cut from the presentation to the presenter, live! It was really exciting to see and hear live audio and video streamed from different locations.

In SL they were set up in NOAA and NASA JPL islands. NOAA filled up fast and several people who could not make it there came to NASA JPL, which is where I was. We had moderators at the locations and if we wanted to ask questions the moderator would send the questions over. I know of at least one SL question was asked while I was there.

I think it really opened up ideas in my mind about education and how we might be able to use this in the schools, or better yet outside of the schools to work with more students and extend the learning environment to more of a 24/7 model.