I just wanted to wish everyone a fantastic Christmas! 2008 will be a mementos year, with continued work by residents of Second Life such as Dan Livingstone and his Sloodle project and the emerging of new virtual worlds such as MPK20 by Sun microsystems.

www.sloodle.com

www.sunlabs.com/projects/mc/mpk20.html

The audio stream was recorded live at the Second Life Media Zoo Launch on the 18th Dec and consists of a presentation which introduces the Media Zoo project and my involvement in the project. Apologies for the quality but thats what i get for using google video xD

Currently we myself and James are writing a chapter in the “Handbook of Research on Computational Arts and Creative Informatics” that will tentatively be published in 2009 by IGI Global. This chapter will focus on the impact of virtual environments in the classroom where we will discuss research in Second Life and how it can applied to other areas of research (i.e. Human-computer interaction, Art, Psychology and other areas) http://www.igi-pub.com/reference/

On the 18th December 2007 Twofour Learning and the Beyond Distance Research Alliance at the University of Leicester launched the Second Life Media Zoo project.

The event was synchronized between a virtual and real life launch at the University of Leicester and at the Media Zoo Island, within Second Life
In total 42 avatars attended the launch at the Media Zoo Island, an extremely positive number, and around 70 people attending the real life launch at the University of Leicester. I will be adding more images of the event to the gallery section of the site very shortly!

We received a great deal of positive feedback from the event;

“Gilly Salmon’s presentation was very interesting … we were well looked after around the island - people offering help or to answer questions, extremely well attended!”

We just finished and uploaded the Second Life Media Zoo Promo Video to Youtube! enjoy!!

Twofour Learning officially releases a press release of the Second Life Media Zoo project the article can be found at the below web address:

http://www.twofourcommunications.com/news-second-life.asp