Day: August 31, 2019

Made in SL: education and CNDG in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
The CNDG FutureWork Institute, as 2-region setting within CNDG’s spread of some 42 regions for education, training and showcasing

On Thursday, August 29th, 2019, the Lab launched the first segment of the new Made in SL series of videos. Carrying the  banner name Learning In SL, it would appear to be the first of a series (likely interspersed with segments covering other subject matter, as indicated by the original Made In SL series announcement) looking at the use of Second Life for educational / learning / training opportunities. Specifically for this piece, the work of the international and very successful Chant Newall Development Group, LLC (CNDG) is peviewed.

CNDG is a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) developer. We specialise in creating tailored, user-friendly VLEs, offering a fully supported service on all major virtual reality platforms.

We provide our clients with networked environments where instruction, learning activities, assignments, and synchronous and asynchronous exercises are available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

– From the CNDG website

Students on CNDG’s Environmental Studies course (run with Florida State University) take to the water in SL simulating studies in climate change and ocean acidification. Credit: CNDG

CNDG is deserving of being surfaced in this series as their track record is impressive – but perhaps largely unknown to Second Life users. The organisation operates an impressive 42 regions within Second Life, which are split between what might be considered “core” regions, together with sets of “demo” and “live” regions and a series of specialised study regions – including sea / undersea settings. Not all of these are open to the public, being focused on servicing clients and students.

The organisation was founded in 2006, and has grown into one of the most respected providers of VLEs for clients – universities and other educational organisations, working in partnership with Pearson, the largest education company and book publisher in the world. This success also includes working with a number of commercial clients, including the likes of US Department of Veterans Affairs, Honeywell Corporation and Pfizer, the pharmaceutical conglomerate, to provide various specialised environments and facilities in Second Life.

We are not interested in building completely automated, run-on-their-own, no-contact systems: we build environments that help educators communicate their expertise and their knowledge to students in a direct, impactful way … We have the technology needed to create more opportunities for all students at all levels and all over to enter into relationships with mentors and teachers as needed. Virtual Learning Environments which are live and networked give us the ability to break down those barriers, and bring people together across boundaries.

– CNDG CEO and founder, William Prensky

Scotty’s Castle, a recreation of the idiosyncratic villa in Death Valley, was at the time, both CNDG’s first project and most elaborate and realistic buildings in Second Life. With the help of Linden Lab, it brought CNDG to the attention of their first commercial client, America’s Public Broadcast Service. Credit: CNDG LLC

Within SL, CNDG has developed and provided courses in biology, chemistry, economics and environmental science, working particularly with Florida State University and the University of Central Florida, which have seen in excess of 2,000 students participate in activities – with around 25,000 students having participated in programme developed by CNDG as a whole over the past 12 years.

A key part of the courses and units supplied is that students can access the in-world environments through the CNG gateway. This, like SL Community Gateways, provides sign-up, avatar selection and log-in at the main CNDG campus, where tutorial-style guides familiarise them with the viewer and their initial assignments. For clients – universities, collages, and so on – CNDG can provide tailored courses based on a client’s own materials, while Pearson can provide supporting printed material for CNDG’s broader courses (including access codes to sign-in to the CDNG virtual environments), which can be made available to students through the likes of university bookshops.

Within the video itself – running to just under 2.5 minutes, we are introduced to CNDG and its work, touching on some of the successes and partnerships that have arisen from 12+ years of supplying networked educational solutions within Second Life. It’s a fascinating glimpse and well worth taking the time to watch – hence embedding it below for ease of reference.

Given the sheer breadth of educational uses SL is put to, I certainly hope that Learning in SL will  – as seems to be implied by the title itself, as noted at the top of this piece – continue to be a theme within Made in SL as the series continues to evolve.

The Stolen Child in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Itakos Project, The Stolen Child – CybeleMoon

CybeleMoon (Hana Hoobinoo) is renowned for her fabulous mixed-media art. It carries within it a richness of tone, a mixing and balance of light and shade, a depth of symbolism and – most poignantly – a wonderful framing of narrative that makes any exhibition of her work in Second Life utterly unmissable.

All of this richness, depth and framing is on display in full force at The Itakos Project, curated by Akin Alonzo, where Cybele presents The Stolen Child, a series of 15 images presented within a glade-like setting caught in the enfolding arms of ancient ruins, which has been specially built for the exhibit by Akim. Reached via the teleport door in the main foyer of the gallery, this setting is not merely a backdrop for Cybele’s art, it is part of the overall theme of the exhibition, designed through its form and lighting to increase the feeling of immersion in in the story the exhibition presents.

The Itakos Project, The Stolen Child – CybeleMoon

This story is not offered as a linear tale; rather, there is a central strand of theme running through both setting and images. This strand leads us through Cybele’s images, linking them indirectly and without necessary order (although one is suggested, somewhat by the circular placement of the pieces) as they form windows, if you will, into the underlying proposition of the exhibition; a proposition a proposition Cybele explains thus:

Fairies are not benevolent creatures at all, attracted by the strength and vitality of mankind, they kidnap children and especially newborns, or seduce (for the purpose of kidnapping) beautiful girls and boys.

She continues by noting the myth of the fairy lies routed in a times past need to rationalise the death of a child, be it at birth or with a short span of months or years thereafter: that the fairies had stolen the child away from a otherwise sad destiny. Within this weaving of fable, there was also menace: children with autism, depression, or other mental health issues were at times considered to have lost their souls as a result of eating fairy food.

The Itakos Project, The Stolen Child – CybeleMoon

Thus through Cybele’s art were are presented with a series of poignant scene sit within the framework of the dome of a night’s sky – the time when fairies might be abroad more than during the hours of daylight – and within a symbolic ring of ancient walls and arches. The latter carries with it a echo of the fairy ring of mushrooms that act as doorways to the fairy realms, or the idea of the faery castle hidden from mortal eyes by the form of a hill, and into which abducted children might be taken should they not take care.

That central strand running through the images – and the exhibition as a whole – takes the form of The Stolen Child, written in 1886 by by William Butler Yeats, who was also captivated by the entire mythology of faeries in Irish mythology. Through the words of his poem, we witness the bewitching song of the faerie folk, calling to children, tempting them away…

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

The Itakos Project, The Stolen Child – CybeleMoon

Cybele takes lines and words contained within the poem as titles for each of her pieces. Thus, each image forms that window I mentioned above, a glimpse into a scene, one that is often double-edged. On the one hand, it may seem innocent and rich in joy or tranquillity: young folk running through a meadow; a view across rolling hills at twilight while sheep graze; the innocence of blowing into a dandelion. On the other, the titles of the pieces hint at the darker element of fae intent: the stealing away of children, of leaving mothers bereft, to deny the young that chance to see sheep grazing at twilight or know the comforts of home and hearth, their young lives having been swept away with the promise of dances by moonlight in places forbidden by their ever-anxious parents.

To further accompany the exhibition, Cybele also provides a short story, together with additional images, that can be found on her (always enchanting) website. Also presented with the story and images is an audio recording of the marvellous Loreena McKennitt, who put the words of The Stolen Child to music. I’ll leave you with a video of the song from one of Ms. McKennitt’s live performances, and the note that this is a truly engaging and evocative exhibition; rich in narrative and atmosphere, and absolutely not to be missed.

SLurl Details

  • The Itakos Project (ATL, rated Moderate) – remember to take the teleport door in the gallery’s foyer to reach the exhibition!