one last post from the netroots nation event

(just a note - I'm not stying at these events for very long - so this is not meant as any kind of detailed report. I just wanted to see how they set up their events, how many people were attending, etc.)

They hosted a video stream of a candidate forum with senate candidates from Pennsylvania. Arlen Specter was there. He talked (too long I guess - the moderator cut him off and said this wasn't the Senate so there wouldn't be any filibusters) and then people from the audience asked him difficult questions about his voting record.

I noticed more people in staff tshirts than this morning or yesterday. And someone in the audience with a tag that said security. Maybe because of the griefer earlier today, maybe not. Anyway - some more pictures.

More Netroot Nation Pics

At anther event for this conference, Howard Dean talking aout healthcare, they streamed the video from the live event into SecondLife. They had a twitter connection so people in world could send questions to be considered. Here are some pictures.

They had a griefer at the beginning. An avatar named Negro Nirvana. He ran up and down the aisles of the arena. He was smoking. He sat in a chair and spun around. He stood on the stage and spun around. He was using voice chat to cuss and make rude comments to people in the audience. He drowned out a lot of hte video audio at first. Eventually someone in charge turned off voice chat (no one else was using it because of the video) and then the avatar either left of his own accord or he was banned because he disappeared. Here are a couple of pics of the griefer avatar spinning around in front of the screen.

Another event - the annual conference of Netroots Nation in SL

They have some very specific events thata are in SL and RL that could be interesting. They're streaming their opening ceremonies and a speech by former President Clinton. There's a health care forum and a leadership seminar. Not sure how much interaction will take place between SL and RL but at least they have a variety of events.

Here are some pictures of the training area they have set up for new users - very impressive way to get noobies up and running.

Here are some pictures of the trade show area - vendors area.

And here are some pics of the space for the presentations and some of the avies who were there for the opening ceremony.Once President Clinton started speaking there were about 45 avies in the arena area.

The conference had a twitter link so you could tweet messages that would show up on the screen in world and in Second Life.

We kicked off our time in SecondLife today in Qualitative Research class

They all made it off orientation island - that's a great way to start the semester.

Today we went to the New Resident Q&A hosted by Bob Bonderfeld, who has been in SecondLife since 2003 when it was in beta. I sent him an IM asking if it was ok for us all to come; sometimes a space isn't set up to handle more than 20 people.

We met in an outdoor plaza. Bob had a lot of chairs set out that we just needed to left click on to sit. He was using voice chat - we didn't have any mics but we had speakers so we could hear his commentary and the students typed their questions. They asked questions related to their research project topics and got some good advice.

Some had trouble seeing the chairs (or maybe they just had trouble sitting still) The students were laughing and talking and helping each other out which is exactly what I want to see develop over the semester.

Here's a photo one of the students took during the session - Thanks Sly Deezul

In the next couple of weeks we will observe other types of classes locations and cultures in SecondLife.