Well, this blog’s back from break to share the exciting news that our course video from last semester, “Re-Imagining Boston City Hall Plaza Using Second Life,” just made it onto the front page at Boston.com under the “Your Videos” section. The exposure has generated over 2,500 views of the video on YouTube so far. [...]

The following is my term paper for VM503 - Aesthetics and History of New Media (aka, Hub2). This paper is also available as a PDF download.
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Abstract
Virtual worlds provide architects and engineers with design tools for collaboration across distant locations. These developments present opportunities for non-traditional designers, such as liberal arts students and faculty, [...]

QuickTime Video
Earlier today on a snowy afternoon in downtown Boston, students, faculty, staff, members of the Mayor of Boston’s Office and others convened at Emerson College to watch a deed and virtual key to Boston Island in the virtual world Second Life presented to the City of Boston. The video above features footage from [...]

QuickTime Video
This is our group project video for Hub2, titled “Re-Imagining Boston City Hall Plaza Using Second Life.” See details below.
TIME: 00:03:41, SIZE: 640×480, 45MB, .MP4, H.264 codec
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Hub2 Collaboration Video”, url: “http://colinrhinesmith.com/2007/12/12/hub2-collaboration-video/” });

I’m editing our group final video project for Hub2 in preparation for our meeting with the Boston Mayor’s Office next Thursday (see press release). The video is a mashup of Creative Commons licensed Flickr photos of Boston City Hall Plaza with video captured from our group’s Collaboration space on Boston Island in Second Life. [...]

“IDEA” via Flickr (CC license)
I’ve put together a working abstract and annotated bibliography for my course paper on collaborative design in virtual worlds. It’s public on the Hub2 wiki.
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Collaborative Design in Second Life”, url: “http://colinrhinesmith.com/2007/11/26/collaborative-design-in-second-life/” });

“Engage stage of Hub2 project” (Creative Commons license)
We entered the Engage stage of our collaboration project yesterday with a visit from a number of avatars to our space on Boston Island (SLURL). It was great to have so many avatars, who we didn’t know previously, navigate through the space and give us feedback. While [...]

“Upgrage! Boston” photo by Digital Lyceum
As I mentioned earlier, I’m working on a project at Emerson College to research best practices and propose a sustainable model for creating and facilitating “mixed reality” lecture-style events. We’re interested in connecting with others who have experience in this area, particularly those at colleges and universities who are using [...]

The following is my response to a reading assignment and how it might be applied towards our group project in Second Life:
Taylor’s book talks about the social transfer of skills and knowledge in-between virtual and real worlds and the eroding boundaries between each. She makes problematic the ideas of “work” and “play” in order to [...]

In reviewing T. L. Taylor’s Play Between Worlds for a reading response assignment, I started to think about the language we use to talk about social web tools. Our choice of words can have an enormous impact on whether or not people choose to adopt new technologies. As in any form of persuasive argument, [...]