The 4^th annual workshop on Learning and Research  in Second Life aims to improve the understanding of Second Life as a Learning and Research environment by inviting researchers and educators to share experiences, discuss and develop research and education in and about Second Life and virtual worlds. This year the workshop invites discussion on the aspects of the main conference topics of sustainability, participation and action in addition to other current issues of research and education in Second Life. The workshop will consist of networking, group work and short keynote presentations.

ORGANIZERS

• Kim Holmberg (Åbo Akademi University, Finland) Ph.D. (Kim Zwiers in SL)
• Isto Huvila (Uppsala University, Sweden and AVO-project at Åbo Akademi University, Finland) Ph.D. (Ab Marvin in SL)
• Professor Terry Beaubois (Montana State University, US) Director, Creative Research Lab (Tab Scott in SL)

FEES & LOGISTICS

• Date: Wednesday, October 20, 2010.
• Time: 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
• Location: Chalmers student union building, room TBA and in Second Life.
• Fee: 330 SEK (~35 EUR) for onsite participation.
• Lunch and coffee included.

SUBMISSION & PARTICIPATION

To apply to the workshop, you are expected to send your CV and a short Letter of interest (1 page) describing your interest and experience in Second Life and virtual worlds, and topic(s) and/or questions you would especially like to discuss during the workshop. Indicate clearly in your application whether you intend to participate in Gothenburg or via Second Life. Submissions are open from this date onwards and should be sent as soon as possible by email to isto.huvila(a)abm.uu.se.  Invitations will be sent to selected applicants starting from 15 August, 2010. The final deadline for applications is September 15, 2010 or when 35 invitations have been sent.

Applicants from organizations that require an accepted refereed paper to participate in the workshop, may submit a full paper that will be formally peer-reviewed on request.

Submissions are encouraged from professionals, faculty and graduates.

CONTACT

Isto Huvila, isto.huvila(a)abm.uu.se  or by IM (Ab Marvin) in SL.

I had no time to blog in July. My time was consumed by this:

Some time ago I was invited to a Virtual Worlds -workshop in Denmark, to which I in fact attended a couple of weeks ago. The workshop was organized by the Virtual Worlds research group at Roskilde University (http://worlds.ruc.dk/) and the workshop gathered experts on virtual worlds from all over the world. It was a very productive and interesting workshop. Great opportunity for meeting old friends, networking and meeting others interested in virtual worlds. There were also some very interesting keynotes (that are available at http://nordicworlds.net/?p=437).

What was interesting and almost surprising was to realize how much is being done in Scandinavia. A lot of interesting research projects are being done or are about to start in especially Denmark, Sweden and Finland. The problem (as often with research in general) is that we really don’t know what the others are doing. We should have more collaboration and joined meetings to discuss research and to get to know each other.

This problem, or this challenge, led to the idea that we should and we will organize meetings in world and take turns in organizing. The first meeting will be organized by myself on EduFinland islands at the end of summer. The goal is to gather researchers from Scandinavia to meet, network and learn more about what we all are doing. More information about the meeting will be posted here and on http://edufinland.fi in good time before the meeting.

I was invited to Lisbon, Portugal, to give a talk about Library 2.0 and virtual worlds at the “Videojogos e Web 2.0: Desafios para a formação dos bibliotecários” conference that was arranged by the Goethe-institute in Lisbon on May 20th. It was a very interesting conference with some international speakers (and simultanous translation ). It was also very interesting to hear about Library 2.0 in Portugal. It seems that there is great interest towards the “phenomenon” but that not much has been done yet, as was the situation in Finland a very short time ago. Currently in Finland it seems that there are many pilots on the way, however, it may be too early to say anything about the experiences and results from these first attempts to enter the world of Library 2.0. I also have a feeling that we are in Finland moving from Library 2.0 back to “Library”, as tools on the social web are becoming well-known tools, part of the every-day work.

While in Lisbon I also managed to have a quick stroll around the beautiful city of Lisbon.

You’ll find more photos here.

PS. More about Realidades Virtuais (the project/initiative at Goethe institut that organized the conference) at: http://virtual-realidade.jogos.sapo.pt/

Sosiaalisen median merkitys politiikassa tuli varsin selväksi jo Yhdysvaltain presidentinvaalien aikaan kun vaalit voittanutkin nykyinen presidentti Barack Obama käytti sosiaalista mediaa erittäin tehokkaasti. Obama keräsi muun muassa suurimman osan vaalirahoituksestaan nimenomaan sosiaalisen median avulla. Sosiaalisen median avulla Obaman vaalikoneisto pystyi näyttämään miten jo pienetkin, tavallisten ihmisten tekemät lahjoitukset olivat tärkeitä. Vaalien aikaan kampanjan blogissa esiteltiin useita erilaisia ihmisiä jotka olivat tehneet lahjoituksen tai useampia lahjoituksia kampanjalle. Blogilla kerrottiin muun muassa opiskelijasta joka oli päättänyt yhtenä iltana olla menemästä pubiin ja lahjoittaa näin säästämänsä rahat Obaman kampanjalle, sijoittaen näin omaan tulevaisuuteensa. Nyt on Ison-Britannian vuoro.

Suurilla puolueilla, konservatiiveilla (Conservatives, http://www.conservatives.com/), työväenpuolueella (Labour, http://www2.labour.org.uk/) ja liberaalidemokraateilla (Liberal Democrats, http://www.libdems.org.uk/), kaikilla on hyvin “sosiaaliset” verkkopalvelut. Konservatiivit kutsuvat osallistumaan ja ovat ottaneet oppia Obaman kampanjalta avatessaan muun muassa avanneet oman sosiaalisen verkoston osoitteessa http://www.myconservatives.com/. Täällä esitellään “tavallisia” kansalaisia jotka ovat osallistuneet jotenkin kampanjaan, esimerkiksi lahjoittamalla rahaa. Näin ihmiset voivat helposti samaistua kampanjaan ja puolueeseen, ja kynnys osallistua itsekin madaltuu. Ihmiset saavat tuntea että hekin voivat vaikuttaa ja että heidänkin panoksella on merkitystä. Konservatiiveista pitää (LIKE) 68,400 ihmistä Facebookissa ja Twitterissä puolueella on 28,846 seuraajaa. Konservatiivien blogiin on myös liitetty kuvia Flickr-palvelusta, videoita YouTubesta ja suosikkisivuja Delicious-palvelusta.

Labour kutsuu myös osallistumaan. Tämän lisäksi Labour tuo myös esille Facebook ja Twitter tilinsä. Tällä hetkellä Labourista on pitänyt 30,829 ihmistä Facebookissa ja Twitterissä puolueella on 15,507 seuraajaa. Puolue muun muassa kutsuu kaikkia lähettämään viestin Twitteriin kertoakseen kaikille ketä äänestää: Tweet your support. Twitter-hakukone Topsyn mukaan tätä mahdollisuutta ei ole kovin tehokkaasti käytetty.

Liberaalidemokraatit ovat samoilla linjoilla. Facebookissa puolueesta pitää 68,678 ihmistä ja Twitterissä puolueella on 17,795 seuraajaa. Liberaalidemokraateilla on myös oma sosiaalisen median palveluista NINGiin koottu sivustonsa osoitteessa: http://act.libdems.org.uk/. Näillä eväillä puolueet käyvät taistoon parin viikon kuluttua.

Verkosta löytyy myös työkaluja puolueiden suosion tai näkyvyyden mittaamiseen. Esimerkiksi Google Insigths palvelulla voidaan verrata miten ihmiset Isossa-Britanniassa ovat hakeneet tietoa eri puolueista esimerkiksi viimeisen kuukauden aikana. Näiden tulosten mukaan Labour olisi herättänyt eniten kiinnostusta, tosin emme tiedä onko se herättänyt positiivista tai negatiivista mielenkiintoa. Tähän voimme tosin saada vastauksen tutkimalla mitä puolueista kirjoitetaan blogeissa.

Blogeja pääsemme tutkimaan esimerkiksi Blogpulse palvelulla. Tässäkin näemme Labour-puolueen herättäneen eniten keskustelua blogeissa. Käymällä läpi blogikirjoituksia saisimme jonkinlaisen kuvan siitä ovatko blogeissa esitetyt mielipiteet positiivisia vai negatiivisia.

Myös Twitterissä käytyihin keskusteluihin pääsemme käsiksi ja voimme käyttää niitä analysoidessamme puolueiden suosiota tai miten paljon ne ovat herättäneet keskusteluja. Tätä tarkoitusta varten on itse asiassa jopa perustettu aivan oma palvelu osoitteeseen: http://tweetminster.co.uk/. Tweetminsterin mukaan konservatiivit ja Labour ovat kärjessä, ainakin mitä tulee keskustelujen herättämiseen. Lisätietoja miten Tweetminster tulee tuloksiinsa löytyy täältä: http://tweetminster.co.uk/posts/view/483770118. Voidaanko sosiaalisella medialla ennustaa vaalien voittaja? Siihen saamme vastauksen parin viikon kuluttua.

Suomessakin on pian vaalit tulossa ja tämä onkin hyvä tilaisuus seurata Ison-Britannian esimerkkiä ja oppia miten sosiaalista mediaa tulisi käyttää vaalikampanjoissa ja varsinkin miten sitä ei tulisi käyttää.

Facebook is responsible for a great deal of traffic on the web. Facebook share buttons appear on more and more websites and people can use them to recommend their FB network about the page or site. Just look to the left of this text and you’ll see a Facebook Share-button. This buttons generate huge amounts of traffic as we rely more and more on recommendations from our “friends” than looking for content with search engines. ReadWriteWeb in fact reports that Facebook accounts for half of social traffic on the web, and that’s a lot. This is also the reason why Google (so desperately) tries to get in on the social traffic with Google Buzz.

Now Facebook wants to know what we like. FB offers the opportunity (?) for everyone to put a LIKE-button on their website or page and apparently they are expecting massive use of the LIKE-button: 1 billion Likes within the first 24 hours of the launch of the service! But what does a LIKE-button do then? Not much. It could be seen as the least effort of participating as it doesn’t take a lot of time to just click on a button. Commenting blog entries is hard work compared to a click on a Like-button. Now why should this be so popular? Why does the Like button, or more specifically the absence of a Dislike-button raise so much discussion? Why is it so much “fun” to show others that you like something? Is it just that people are lazy, but they still want to participate somehow?

What this results in is that Facebook gathers even more data about what we do on the web, not just on Facebook but anywhere on the web. Facebook uses our clicks to show our network what we have liked, using this to generate even more social traffic to sites using the Like-button. There’s not much we can do online anymore without Facebook or Google knowing about it. They own the web and with that, they own us.

More ways to give Facebook even more information about us and those that visit our websites can be found at http://developers.facebook.com/docs/guides/web.

If you like this entry then you should click on the LIKE -button below. Don’t bother to comment, that’s too hard work and time consuming.

NB. Instructions and code on how to get a dynamic Like-button to your WordPress powered blog can be found at http://cordobo.com/1608-facebook-like-plugin-wordpress/.

I could be, or I should be, in Wolverhampton now, maybe having a full english breakfast perhaps with a proper cider in Wetherspoons, but instead I’m at work, in Finland. I also have to break the bad news to my students: we will have lectures this week after all. I’m not in Wolverhampton due to the volcanic ash that is covering Europe. My fligth should have taken off on friday. That got cancelled. I booked another ticket for monday morning. That got cancelled. I may have to postpone my trip for a couple of weeks or months even.

However, it has been interesting to see how people are using the web to make alternative travel arrangements to get back home from where ever they are. A nice overview of different sites that have been used can be read at Teemu Arina’s blog. Facebook is filling with groups somehow related to ash clouds or arranging travels or accomodation. On Twitter there are thousands of tweets with a hashtag #ashtag, like in the image below.

And carpooling sites are filling with more or less desperate cries. There are stories about people taking taxis from Madrid to Sweden and buying used cars in France to drive to Finland. People are sharing cabins with strangers on ferries and opening their homes to strangers stranded in foreign countries. These examples and others are great examples how we today can access information that wasn’t available before. We can take part of other peoples’ stories and maybe help them, suggest some solutions to their problems. This shows how people are increasingly using easy-to-use services to share their stories and how others can take part of them, join in the discussions. Call it citizen journalism if you want, or “social media in action”.

Huvila, I., Holmberg, K., Ek, S. & Widén-Wulff, G. (2010). Social capital in Second Life. Online Information Review, vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 295-316 (full text).

“Kanske du redan använder ett, två eller flera sociala medier utan att du har tänkt på saken. De virtuella möjligheterna är på frammarsch och är du webbsmart nog kan du och din kommun dra stor nytta av dem.”

Artikel i Finlands kommuntidning: http://www.kommunerna.net/k_perussivu.asp?path=255;264;76738;77733;161272

A couple of weeks ago I was on teacher exchange and a network meeting in Windhoek, Namibia. The network meeting was for planning an intensive course that will be held later this year. The teacher exchange was very interesting. I gave lectures at University of Namibia to four different groups of students. It was very interesting and fun too. I also had a weekend off and managed to visit Etosha National Park. Slept in a tent for two nigths, while listening to lions roar and hyenas… well, whatever it is that hyenas do. I wonder a bit why our guides slept on the roof of our truck, but I still managed to get a good nigths sleep.

More photos from Etosha can be viewed at: http://kimholmberg.fi/index.php/photography/travel-photography/windhoek-etosha-2010.