Thanks Jake and Max!

Today was rather chaotic (a word I often use in blogs about Second Life classes, it’s not a bad thing!) as each group went off in their own direction and tried to create what we will need for the concert.

The building crew was very small, I was surprised at the lack of interest.  That said the three guys who are building are doing a great job and we will have plenty of original props and decorations for our stage and concert.

The video crew was in the capable hands of Colin and Gene and actually finished early!   Despite one of the most complex AV set-ups I have seen(thanks to Shane and Tony too) – we have people directing, mixing and filming live ‘virtual’ video.

The marketing crew was with Mandy and working on a mass of tasks, the presentation for before the concert, some more facts/stats and images about Make Poverty History, some artwork, and some in world displays.  There are a lot of girls interested in marketing, which Mandy had predicted but still surprised me.

The stylists eventually got some avatars together, a few are quite complimentary, although it will be interesting to see the real performers faces when they see their virtual selves!

Management was running around making connections and helped solve a few issues, good work guys.

There has been some fantastic support from all of the MGS crew, as well as a couple of students (Max and Jake in particular) who have been as inspirational as any of the talks(which I have only had glimpses of) for a visiting teacher like myself.

Thanks and I look forward to the concert.

Day one of the workshop went quite well, we had some initial access problems which were promptly sorted by Tony, and after that the only real compromises we had to make were rushing the last exercise, and using alternatives to Fireworks.  For tomorrow I will install fireworks on the Avatar laptops for the stylists.

There was a lot of good discussion and questioning prior to us logging on(and during and after) – which was great, it’s good to see critical minds in action and it will be great to see them applied to the concert when we start planning tomorrow.

I hope everybody is enjoying it so far, I think people are learning a lot without necessarily realising it, and I look forward to the next couple of days.

Please feel free to leave comments or of course approach me in person.

Hi all,

My name is Dale and I will be helping to facilitate this workshop.

Here are some images from the virtual environment (Skoolaborate, Teen Second Life) we will be working in.

We are indebted to Mandy Salomon for these suggestions:

1.Avatars could deposit $Linden into a jar. In return they could get a white wrist band dropped into their inventory. (As a micropayment , any donations would obviously only be a gesture – the more interesting thing I guess, is to demonstrate that it can happen). (All donations would go to to OXFam: see http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/schools/index.shtml)

2. The motifs of white wrist bands and white balloons could be part of the SL set and avatar accessories : (http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/whiteband/index.shtml)

3. The global organisation for MPHistory is ‘Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) see: http://www.whiteband.org/
There are videos associated with this group. Could we stream them into the sim (?). this could be good for visitors to the site after the event.
Downloads include one from Sydney with I think the former MGS studentwho became the Asutralian organiser. Available at http://www.cs-tv.tv/tele.php?channel=wbd&m_event=&m_data=&vid=ubuntu_videos/Stand%20Up%20Sydney%20version%202#link_video_66