Tag: nonprofit commons

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Machinimart with Gaberoonie Szondi / Gabe Salgado for June 22 Nonprofit Commons Weekly Meeting

This Friday, June 22, Gaberoonie Szondi / Gabe Salgado of Machinimart will be joining us at the Nonprofit Commons to share the power of stories in virtual environments captured as motion pictures called machinima. http://machinimart.com

Nonprofit Commons Weekly Meeting

June 22, 2012, 8:30 AM SLT / PST

Plush Nonprofit Commons Amphitheater

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Plush%20Nonprofit%20Commons/88/126/26

AGENDA

• 8:30am Introductions

• 8:40am TechSoup Announcements

• 8:45am Mentors Central

• 8:55am Machinimart with Gaberoonie Szondi / Gabe Salgado

• 9:30am Open Mic/ Announcements

About Gabe:
Gabe Salgado is Producer at Machinimart, a machinima and virtual world production studio currently based in South Korea. Although his training is in web development and motion graphics editing, he spent 6 years working in education before joining his first virtual world venture. As an educator, he created a series of acclaimed multimedia cultural programs, including “The Sticker Song Curriculum”—the first Jewish curriculum to go viral. He has been involved in virtual world technology since 2007 and has also developed many highly acclaimed programs on the Second Life Teen Grid, reaching students in schools and educational programs around the world. Although his background is multi-faceted, he has kept a single vision which has remained the same: to bring technology and education together in a way that opens up boundless opportunities for those that would otherwise remain outside of the know.

Written by: Zinnia Zauber

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“Intellectual Property Respect” with Zinnia Zauber / Renne Emiko Brock-Richmond for June 15 Nonprofit Commons Weekly Meeting

“Intellectual Property Respect – A Virtual Artist’s Perspective” with Zinnia Zauber / Renne Emiko Brock-Richmond of Sequim Humanities and Arts Alliance

This Friday, June 15, we are featuring award-winning Arts Advocate, Artist, and Instructor Renne Emiko Brock-Richmond (Zinnia Zauber in SL) http://uniqueasyou.com and President of the Sequim Humanities and Arts Alliance http://sequimartsalliance.org . To foster expression and professionalism, Renne encourages the recognition of Intellectual Property use, permission, and protection through responsible and respective behavior. Learn and share your new knowledge about how ideas and creative assets become appreciated property this Friday.
Join us on Friday June 15 starting at 8:30 AM SLT / PST at the Plush Nonprofit Commons Amphitheater.

Nonprofit Commons Weekly Meeting
June 15, 2012, 8:30 AM SLT / PST
Plush Nonprofit Commons Amphitheater
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Plush%20Nonprofit%20Commons/88/126/26

AGENDA
• 8:30am Introductions
• 8:40am TechSoup Announcements
• 8:45am Mentors Central
• 8:55am Intellectual Property Respect – A Virtual Artist’s Perspective with Zinnia Zauber / Renne Emiko Brock-Richmond of Sequim Humanities and Arts Alliance
• 9:30am Open Mic/ Announcements

About Renne:

Renne Emiko Brock-Richmond is an artist, instructor, superhero, and advocate for awesomeness who empowers people to be their best virtual and tangible self by advancing excellence, exceptional pursuits, and individualism through creative expression and encouraging instruction with inspired results.

Since 1993, Renne has taught college level art and digital media, including Photoshop before layers. Renne has been teaching virtual world application, collaboration, community building since 2008 with University of Washington, Peninsula College, Arizona State University, Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds Conference, Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conferences, TechSoup Global, Nonprofit Commons, Virtual Ability, Rockcliffe University Consortium, Texas Woman’s University Online Conference, and Second Life Community Conferences.

In 2009, she graduated from the first pioneering class of the University of Washington Certificate in Virtual Worlds Program, was the Educational Mentor for the Classes of 2010 & 2011, and a team leader of the graduate collaborators, Avalumni. Renne earned her Bachelors of Science in Art at Lewis & Clark College and her Masters of Fine Art in Visual Art at Vermont College at Norwich University.

Her company, unique as you, specializes in color perception, intention, and utilization to create motivating, engaging experiences with innovative identity development, marketing, social media, events, and immersive environments for businesses, nonprofits, educational institutions, organizations, and communities.

As a nonprofit establisher, board officer, and volunteer of several Arts organizations, Renne only uses her superpowers for good.

Written by: Zinnia Zauber

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SL and Skype voice troubleshooting

Let’s face it. We all know that SL’s voice isn’t totally stable, but there are a few things you can do to clear up a bad connection on the fly or make a dead mike work.

Dead mike – If your SL client is not recognizing your microphone (most common reason for a dead mike), go into (on viewer 2) ME – PREFERENCES – SOUND AND MEDIA TAB – INPUT DEVICES TAB then select your microphone. It should say something similar to (Microphone (Logitech Voicemaster USB) as one of the selections. Usually the selection labeled “default” is not the one you want. Only try it as a last resort.

If this doesn’t work, on windows 7, go into START – CONTROL PANEL – DEVICES AND PRINTERS then look in there and you should see your microphone. If not, make sure you have drivers installed for it. Right click to make it your default device, then close. Restart SL and it should pick up the mike in the previously mentioned input devices tab.

If neither of these work, it may be that your mike is simply damaged (They do break very easily) or not compatible – in this case, replace the mike with another, preferably newer model.

IF YOUR MIKE IS BEING DETECTED BUT DOESN’T WORK, make sure that the SL voice client is enabled. You can easily tell by looking at yourself and seeing if avatars have a white dot. If they don’t, voice is down. Look at the top of your screen in the location bar – if you see a sound symbol with a red hash over it, the sim owner has deliberately turned voice off. If voice is available, the simplest thing to do is to relog SL and see if the Vivox server catches it and starts up voice for you. If this doesn’t work after a couple tries, hit cntrl-alt-delete and then show all processes button. Manually kill the Vivox client which is called SLvoice.exe, then restart SL. It should force the Vivox server to notice you and send a new handshake signal, thus re-enabling SL voice.

Skype —

This is actually quite similar to troubleshooting SL. You get to this setting by using EDIT – TOOLS – OPTIONS and there you will see your hardware settings. Just make sure that your input and output are on the desired device(s) and you should be good to go. The no-go situations from SL also apply here. Damaged mikes wont work any better on Skype than they do on SL

GLOBAL –

In all cases, use USB hardware. Analog headsets may or may not work, and should only be used by advanced users that know how to configure sound card daughterboards (Some people seem to think analog sounds better, but I’ve only known them to be a boatload of hassle when said people can’t get them to work when they need them). USB does all that work for you the moment you plug the device in.

Written by: HydraShaftoe

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Candlelight Vigil for ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease)

Candlelight Vigil for ALS
Sunday, May 16
5 – 7 p.m. SLT
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Plush%20Nonprofit%20Commons/94/128/26

Please join The ALS Association in a candlelight vigil to mark ALS Awareness Month. This virtual vigil will follow the RL vigil in Washington DC, so that people who are not able to attend in DC can still be involved.

It will provide an opportunity for each person to raise a candle in memory of loved ones who passed away from ALS and to honor those who continue to live with the disease.

Many custom designed items will be for sale to help raise funds and awareness for ALS. All proceeds go directly to The ALS Association.

The ALS Association fights Lou Gehrig’s Disease on every front by leading the way in global research, providing assistance for people with ALS through a nationwide network of chapters, coordinating care through certified clinics, and fostering government partnerships.

The ALS Association is an NPC tenant and has a presence on Health Commons. For more information, please contact:
Em Ellsmere (Tina Walker in RL, tina@alsa-national.org)

Written by: DustyArtaud

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Nonprofit Commons Video Premiers on YouTube

TechSoup and the Nonprofit Commons have released a new video created by machinimatographer Draxtor Despres. Filmed both in real life and Second Life, it shows how nonprofits collaborating in the virtual world can make a difference in the real world, one avatar at a time.

Written by: DustyArtaud

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Free Second Life Script Collection

You don’t want to pay for a Visitor Tracker, Chat logger, Power Point Presentation, a video screen, or whatever tool that makes your stay in Second Life more pleasurable?

Or you simply want to learn the Linden Scripting Language? With the free Second Life Script Collection you can have it all. You can make your own SL Welcome Mat, or take apart the scripts, see how they work and learn from it.

Over 150 free SL scripts have already been uploaded for fast retrieval at the NPC http://www.freeSLscripts.com
Share your free scripts too and watch the collection grow.

Have fun,
Adalace

PS: for newcomers, please see the npc toolkit page at
http://npc-toolkits.wikispaces.com/

Written by: Adalace

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Panel speaks about alliance building in Second Life

Nonprofits are finding that one of the major benefits of Second Life work is alliance building. I had the pleasure of attending Monday’s panel on virtual world partnerships and collaborations. Moderated by Glitteractica Cookie of the Nonprofit Commons, the panelists included Gentle Heron and Eme Capalini of Virtual Ability, Buffy Beale and Ozma Malibu of the Transitions Project and Peterpan Slade of OneWorld island and soon to be EcoCommons.The panel was part of “Real World Impacts from the Virtual World”, an afternoon of events giving a sneak preview of MacArthur Foundation’s new island in Second Life and was sponsored by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the USC Network Culture Project and Global Kids.

Buffy Beale and Ozma Malibu discussed how their partnership of five core groups (Bridges for Women, Floaters, Amoration, the Vesuvius Group, and Community Voicemail) came together to begin working on the Transitions project. These five groups had been attending the Nonprofit Commons Friday meetings for some time, and had grown to know each other, Ozma explained. “We met one day to discuss issues of technology access for homeless and other displaced people. The first time the five of us met as a small group, our ideas flowed like water and we saw that we each had a piece of a larger puzzle.” It was at this first meeting that the Transitions Project was born.

The Transitions project is using a number of social networking tools in addition to Second Life, including Twitter, Facebook, Google applications, and are looking into online worlds such as Lively and Sakai that could have specific uses within the full Transitions program. They are starting to layer these tools with the goal of having all of these tech tools eventually available in Second Life to help further their mission of extending access to opportunities and technology to those in transition. Second Life has allowed them to connect with other like-minded groups and sharing information and resources that translate to real life impact.

Next, Gentle Heron of the Heron Sanctuary and Virtual Ability groups in Second Life spoke about collaborative efforts in the disability resource community. Gentle started off entering the online world with some friend specifically to set up a support community for people with disabilities after not finding many real world support options. She found that there were numerous disability support groups in Second Life already, but none of them focused on helping individuals venture in-world. Virtual Ability seeks to fill this niche by assisting newcomers to Second Life and providing them with additional assistive resources in Second Life.

While Virtual Ability started off as Second Life group, it has spurred all kinds of connections with other disability communities and groups interested in improving the accessibility of Second Life for people with disabilities. The community has grown organically and as membership continues to increase, they’ve found themselves involved with additional related projects in Second Life.

Second Life was a natural fit for OneWorld, PeterSan Slade explained, as their interest lies in tackling climate change – and what better way to meet with folks across the world then “traveling by laptop” without the carbon cost of flying. OneWorld’s in-world presence is closely linked with their online social network oneclimate.net where people can easily find one another by geographic location to see events happening around them. So far the majority of their partnershipa have come from their web presence, but they are quickly creating in-world partnerships, including one with the Nonprofit Commons! The Eco Commons will be a partnership between OneClimate island/OneWorld.net and the Nonprofit Commons specifically geared towards groups involved with environmental issues. This third Nonprofit Commons location is due to launch in mid-December.

PeterSan also let folks know about OneWorld’s December event with live conferencing in Second Life across four islands of the UN Summit in Poland. This event offers multiple options for participation and interaction, as there will be participants at the real life conference, web streaming, and live conferencing in-world with both voice and text chat. While there are still technical challenges of real-time communication between the two worlds, OneWorld is expanding the ways that people and avatars can take get involved.

More and more in-world alliances are popping up in-world so it was interesting and informative to hear from these trailblazing groups paving the way for future alliances and positive real and virtual world impact.

You can check out the complete text chat from the panel here.

Written by: penguin kuhn

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NPC Scavenger Hunt – Grab Your Magnifying Glass and Join the Fun!

Do you consider yourself a modern-day Columbo and LOVE searching for clues? Then please join us for NPC’s Scavenger Hunt! The hunt begins on August 22 @ 7PM SLT and continues through August 24 @ 8PM SLT. This is an awesome opportunity to become more aware of what Nonprofit Commons and its wonderful organizations are all about. And, c’mon, who doesn’t love an excellent hunt for goodies?

The opening ceremonies begin at the Nonprofit Commons 2 Aloft @ 7PM SLT with a fabulous performance by Vincent Merricks. Don’t be left out! Come by and grab your clues!

At the conclusion of the hunt, we’ll hold the closing ceremonies at Nonprofit Commons 1 Plush @ 8PM SLT with a stunning performance by Kim Siefert along with the prize awards ceremony.

Prizes include:

1st Prize – 25,000 Lindens
2nd Prize – 2 Kiva Gift Certificates
***and many other fabulous prizes to be awarded***

Seriously, you can pass up this rockin’ good time and these great prizes. Come out and learn more about Nonprofit Commons, meet new folks and have a wonderful time! WOOT!

Written by: Beth J. Bates

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Why Second Life?

Today I attended the Avatar on Duty session at the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership office on Aloft Nonprofit Commons. 2020Vision (Ashima Saigal) moderated the session and she was joined by several other Johnson Center staff, along with a sizeable crowd of interested avatars. We were all there to discuss a key question for those involved with working with nonprofits in Second Life: How can nonprofits find long-term sustainability in Second Life and better translate into real-world action towards achieving their missions?

The session gave us opportunity to brainstorm and discuss this topic in an open forum. One of the first issues we discussed was what nonprofits hoped to gain by having a presence in Second Life. Many avatars saw Second Life as a way to engage a wider audience and bring awareness of their organization’s work. Others mentioned the benefit of having a common meeting space and a way to network and collaborate with other nonprofits doing similar work, as well as connecting with organizations they might never have had the opportunity to meet. Jarhead Euler of Uptown Shelter gave the example of how his organization only heard about Community Voicemail through Second Life and now is meeting with several other organizations to discuss implementing this tool for their real-life work.

However, we wondered what’s advantageous about using Second Life versus other Web 2.0 tools (i.e. Facebook, instant messaging, web conferencing, etc.)? Some said they treated Second Life just like any other online community, but one that served a different purposes, reaching a different audience that though smaller creates greater affinity among its members. Others felt the 3D, immersive experience of a virtual world creates a more powerful and personal interaction. There’s definitely an added layer of fun that potentially makes it an appealing medium for users to engage. Another point raised was that Second Life reaches an early adopter audience, and can propagate experiential learning in a way that other web-based applications cannot. Virtual worlds are seen by many as being the future of the Web, which puts organizations already in Second Life ahead of the curve for future expansion into virtual worlds as they become more prevalent.

This raised the question of what audience nonprofits are trying to reach in Second Life? Although there are many newcomers interested in learning more about the platform, it’s important to keep in mind that nonprofits are not necessarily trying to bring people into Second Life, but rather, seeking to tap into an already established audience in Second Life, who is looking to find ways to use the tool for social benefit. The audience is likely to vary depending on the organization, but determining the demographics is important when it comes to thinking about approach and gaining support for funding Second Life work.

Greater interaction and connection kept commonly coming up as an argument for the value of Second Life. Yet these two aspects are challenging, if not impossible to measure, especially in comparison to the benefit of other tools. When thinking about sustainability, it’s important for nonprofits to think about pinpointing unique benefits that a virtual platform offers. Several people pointed out that Second Life can often save time and money, but so can other less technology-intensive tools. Others pointed out the ability for Second Life to be used for mixed reality events provides a unique experiential way of interaction with multiple simultaneous communication channels (text, voice, chat, video, etc.). There have been some case studies how this is beneficial to some groups, such as people with disabilities or different learning styles. What’s needed, we all seemed to agree, is more such studies and ways to document impact of Second Life work in furthering the missions of organizations.

We discussed other challenges of the virtual world, including the high learning curve. Second Life is not accessible for many with its technical requirements. Nonprofits will need to justify that in spite of such obstacles, the potential gains of Second Life are worth the time and resource investment.

Today’s discussion sparked more questions, but also got me thinking creatively about tangible ways nonprofits can articulate the “experience” of virtual worlds and the myriad of ways it can be used towards social change. While that challenge can be daunting it is exciting to think about nonprofits pioneering the virtual world for the benefit of the real one.

Written by: penguin kuhn