The Chilbo Road Press

Every year the Chilbo Community conducts an annual census of our residents and land owned by the Chilbo Community Building Project group. The census helps us understand how our community has changed in comparison to data from earlier years, and helps guide our decision-making about what to change in the coming year to better meet the needs of our residents.

Comments or questions about the census? Post them here!

In an effort to raise much-needed funds for the victims of the Haiti earthquake, the Chilbo community will host a benefit concert and block party on Saturday, January 16 from 12-4 SLT at the Chilbo Community Sandbox in Madhupak.

The current line up includes Kellee Blaylock, Untolerable Bohemian and Ictus Belford, who will all be playing from 12pm-2pm. From 2pm, the sandbox will turn into a dance floor for the second half of the benefit as DJ Chingy Chun from the Blackhearts Cafe spins the deck.

Please join us for an afternoon of music as we try to raise $100,000L to donate to American Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders.

There will be two donation jars set up at the sandbox for your inworld contributions. However, you can donate directly to the organizations as it is urgently needed.

For more information, please contact Chibi Lexenstar or MS Hawker.

Chilbo Benefit Concert and  Block Party for Haiti
Date: Saturday, 1/16
Time: 12-4 slt
Place: Madhupak Sandbox

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Madhupak/120/216/2

The Chilbo Community welcomes three new members and their businesses to Route 10!

Cinematize, featuring distinctive Southern California Photography on display. Contact Sydney Etoile to purchase some of her works!

Riall’s Emporium has Art, Flowers and Homes for sale, all created by Riall Caproni.

Foxglove’s Finest, where you can find some lovely dresses by Foxglove Foyston,  including stunning gowns in time for all the upcoming holiday parties.

So next time you are looking for some of these items, or just have the urge for some retail therapy, please visit these and the other businesses on Route 10 in Chilbo!

Update & Correction: The original discussion took place on December 29, 2008 instead of January 3rd, as was originally reported.  The article below has been corrected.  In addition, the final report to be submitted to the Obama transition team has been released and is available at the SLHealthy wiki site.

(Chilbo) – SL resident Draxtor Despres reports on a recent gathering of Second Life residents who joined a virtual Health Care Community Discussion on December 29, 2008. Organized by resident Siri Vita, the 3-hour discussion resulted in feedback, ideas, and personal stories from Second Life residents that Ms. Vita will be passing along to the Obama Transition Team.

President-Elect Obama’s planning team is using web-based and social media tools in unprecedented ways to encourage participation and feedback from US citizens. Draxtor reports on how virtual worlds like Second Life might extend their reach beyond the Change.gov website to include citizens who might not be able to attend community discussions in the real world.

Great work Drax, and extra points for spotting Chilbo residents SunQueen Ginsburg, Olando7 Decosta, and Fleep Tuque in the video!

Gann McGann gives seminar to students in Chilbo office (Madhupak)

Chilbo resident Gann McGann was quoted in the UK’s TimesOnline, discussing the educational potential of virtual world platforms like Second Life:

Mark Childs, who is doing a PhD on the effects of using programs such as Second Life for learning at Warwick University, says the real advantage is that it is a 3D environment: “You can recreate scenes from ancient life – such as a theatre – and students can get an idea of what it might have been like to be there.”

Then a few weeks later was a featured speaker at the UKCLE seminar on simulation learning where he created a great resource for educators looking to explore Second Life for the first time.

Congrats to Gann, and this is what happens when you get too far behind on your feed reader – you miss great stuff that Chilbo residents are doing!

Chilbo Town Hall – November 2008

In Attendance: Monarchy Republic, Gem Blue, Fleep Tuque, Leslie Forager, Malburns Writer, Alleara Snoodle, Tara Yeats, Tommy Brouwer, Margarette Fouroux, Economic Mip, Sine Rennahan, Corcosman Voom, Lizzette Zenovka, Emru Rau, Rachel Corleone, Kim Link, Dno Vale, Ra Deemster, Telmea Story

1.  Welcome new members! Please friend new residents and first time Town Hall attendees:  Telmea Story, Sine Rennahan, and Leslie Forager

2.  Reminder – All Chilbo residents should complete the annual Chilbo Resident Census Survey 2008 located at:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pHSojRbSnGxfHtk1IccQ5Jg&hl=en

We will be reclaiming community property currently in use by residents who do not complete the census by December 13, 2008.

3.  Community Resource Management – Committee System

Folks were a little overwhelmed with the graphics from the last meeting, so Fleep broke things down into smaller bite size chunks for easier digestion. 

Chilbo Executive Committee posters in the Chilbo Town Hall
It was determined that the best way to begin implementing the new committee system for managing community resources is to have members of the community volunteer for the committees they are interested in, and then each committee will meet prior to the December 13, 2008 Town Hall to determine the Committee Chair for that group.   The Committee Chairs will serve a term of 6 months, at which point we will revisit the issue and determine how to proceed.

To volunteer for a committee, visit:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pHSojRbSnGxeW73gUwPzwUw&hl=en

More information will be forthcoming about when the committees will meet for the first time, but the committees should meet and determine who will chair the committee prior to the December 13, 2008 Town Hall meeting.

Also, three other executive positions have been filled to assist with the overall management of the community.  These positions were appointed by Fleep Tuque, and will serve an indefinite term.

- Rachel Corleone, Director of Prim Management & Public Safety
- Malburns Writer, Director of Communications
- Tara Yeats, Director of Technology

These folks are available to assist the committees with planning, publicizing, and organizing their work.  Thank you to Rachel, Malburns, and Tara for volunteering!

Tommy Brouwer will also continue to serve as the European Ambassador for Chilbo, and if anyone is interested in serving as an Asian, South American, or African Ambassador, please contact Fleep Tuque.   The Ambassadors are simply good will agents to help welcome new Chilbo residents from these Real Life geographical areas.  Due to language, time, and cultural differences, we want to ensure that everyone feels welcome in Chilbo.  Please consider volunteering if you live in one of these places!

4.  Announcements/Other Business

- Fleep Tuque will be giving a talk about the “Women of Chilbo” at an upcoming conference on Saturday, November 15, 2008.  Anyone is invited to attend, and more information about the “Virtual Praxis: A Conference on Women’s Community in Second Life” can be found at:  http://events.jvwresearch.org/?p=49

- Gem Blue continues her experiment with the Time Wall in the Soyeonpyeongdo sim.  She has identified a bug in her time graphing tool and is continuing to debug it, and invites anyone who is willing to be a guinea pig for her testing to let her know.  (The Time Wall simply tracks the hours you spend in Second Life, it’s quite interesting to see how often you are logged in!)
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Soyeonpyeongdo/13/240/121

Corcosman Voom curates a new exhibit in the Chilbo Museum Center

- Corcosman Voom invites the community to check out current exhibit in the Chilbo Museum Center.  There are several new artists represented in the exhibit, with a number of gorgeous new pieces.  Check it out!  http://slurl.com/secondlife/Chilbo/128/19/96

- Tara Yeats is about to have several rentals available in the Mangyeong sim, these could be either residential or commercial spaces.  If you know anyone looking for a rental, please contact Tara for more information.

- Lizzette Zenovka announced that she has had over 100 visitors to the SL HIV Education & Prevention Center in the past two months!  Rachel believes the Center might be one of the most active installations in Chilbo.  Congrats to Liz on this terrific milestone!   Liz has also opened a new Annex to the center in another sim, you can find more information about that at the main center in Chilbo (Madhupak sim).  http://slurl.com/secondlife/Madhupak/44/201/90

5.  Additions, Expansions, & New Developments in Chilbo

Following the meeting, we visited two new developments in Chilbo.

Visiting Tommy Brouwer’s new Industrial Area in the Mindulle Sim

- Tommy Brouwer is in the process of creating a new Industrial Area in the Mindulle sim, including a new theatre and bar area, and a new store.   The decor is quite gorgeous and we look forward to hanging out in the new theatre and bar!  http://slurl.com/secondlife/Mindulle/102/24/113

Residents visiting Sine Rennahan’s new Nature Preserve area in Mujigae
- Sine Rennahan has purchased a largish plot in the NE corner of the Mujigae sim to develop a presence for the Arc of Appalachia Nature Preserve – http://www.highlandssanctuary.org/.   They are building a new museum for the center in Real Life and hope to model the facility in Second Life, as well as provide information and resources for those interested in nature and wildlife education, preserving the last temperate broadleaf forrest in North America, and living an ecologically sustainable life.  Congratulations to Sine for this exciting purchase!  http://slurl.com/secondlife/Mujigae/221/185/139

Meeting adjourned.

NEXT TOWN HALL:  Saturday, December 13, 2008 @ 11AM SLT

(A complete transcript of the meeting is available in the Town Hall.)

Meeting Summary for October 18, 2008

In Attendance:  Fleep Tuque, Foxnsane Ceawlin, Tara Yeats, Gem Blue, Malburns Writer, Babel Ballinger, Corcosman Voom, Alleara Snoodle, Economic Mip, Rachel Corleone, Oronoque Westland, Jez Braveheart, Birdie Newcomb, Tommy Brouwer, Krystale Bailey, Emru Rau, Gann McGann, Dno Vale, Valentino Tendaze, Lizzette Zenovka

Fleep Tuque gave a speech on the 2nd Anniversary of the beginning of Chilbo. In the speech, she discussed the tremendous progress Chilbo has made in the last year, nearly doubling the land holdings of the CCBP group, doubling the number of members, added a large public meeting space and a number of public resources and infrastructure projects like the sidewalk megaprims, increased tier contributions,  increased the number of community events and synchronous meetings, and held more Town Halls this year than we did in the first year.

Given this tremendous growth, Fleep laid out a vision for the community and suggests that in 2009, growth should not be the top priority, but rather we should focus on capitalizing on the resources Chilbo already has – great people, generous land and prim resources, and the capacity to work together to do good things, for ourselves, for the people who visit us, for Second Life, and for the real world.

To that end, she shared the results of the Chilbo Community Building Project 2008 Annual Land Census. The total square meters of land owned by the group nearly doubled to 80,448.  In terms of prim use, 23% is Residential, 19% is educational, 16% is Community Service, 13% is Art, Music, or Entertainment, 11% is Parkland or Unused, 9% is Commercial, and 9% is Public Infrastructure.  She also shared comparison charts with 2007 data showing the growth and allocation of prims and land.

In addition, the rapid growth of the community – both in terms of land and people – has resulted in an increasingly complex workload to manage all of the resources of the community.  Fleep proposed a committee structure to help engage more residents in the decision making processes and resource management tasks associated with running the Chilbo community. She provided a proposed organization structure and a workflow process diagram to delineate areas of responsibility and tasks associated with several key components of running Chilbo.

These documents are all available on the Chilbo wiki at http://chilbo.wikispaces.com and the community is asked to provide comments and suggestions prior to the next Town Hall Meeting scheduled for November 8, 2008 @ 11AM SLT.

Fleep has a draft prepared for the Chilbo Community Building Project 2008 Resident Census located at http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pHSojRbSnGxfHtk1IccQ5Jg&hl=en – please review and send any suggestions or comments to Fleep.  Survey will go out in a few weeks, anyone who doesn’t respond in a reasonable time period will be removed from any community property they are using.  Exceptions for folks on vacation, having health issues, etc. will of course be considered.

Gem Blue announced the creation of her Time Wall beta project, in which she has created boards that track a person’s time spent in Second Life in a visual form.  Anyone interested in participating in the beta should contact her, and you can visit the Time Wall at: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Soyeonpyeongdo/20/244/86

Full transcript and meeting notes have been sent to the group and are archived in the Chilbo Town Hall.

Following the end of the very successful Chilbo Summer Fair, we said goodbye to the Ferris Wheel and fabulous rides, artworks, and projects and made way for a new three month project in Chilbo.

Connectivism Village in Chilbo

The Main Gate of the Connectivism Village down in the south Madhupak area of Chilbo.

This month marks the start of the Connectivism & Connective Knowledge course, a Massively Online Open Course.  From the course info:

Connectivism and Connective Knowledge is a twelve week course that will explore the concepts of connectivism and connective knowledge and explore their application as a framework for theories of teaching and learning. It will outline a connectivist understanding of educational systems of the future. George Siemens (SL: Whatever Russel) and Stephen Downes – the two leading figures on connectivism and connective knowledge – will co-facilitate this innovative and timely course. The course will run from September 7, 2008 to November 29, 2008 and will be fully delivered online.

Over 2000 participants from around the world have signed on to take part, and several members of the Chilbo community are fellow students, including Gann McGann,  Olando7 Decosta, Samuel Sputnik, Sine Rennahan, Tara Yeats, and Wainbrave Bernal.  The Chilbo Community is hosting the Second Life cohort of the class, and Cosimo Urbanowicz has also joined some of the early discussions and helped with the construction of the Connectivism Village down in Madhupak.

SL Cohort Wiki: http://chilbo.wikispaces.com/Connectivism+Course+in+Chilbo
SL Cohort Googlegroup: http://groups.google.com/group/connectivismSL
SL Cohort Tag: CCK08SL

Second Life Cohort Weekly Meeting Times:
Tuesdays at 11AM SLT (-7GMT)
Thursdays at 6PM SLT (-7GMT)
Sundays at 5PM SLT (-7GMT)

Purpose of the Connectivism Village

Initially, the impulse was simply to see if other students in the course who also had Second Life accounts were interested in meeting weekly in-world to discuss the Connectivism course.  Though there are many communications tools used as part of the course structure, I’ve begun to feel I haven’t really “met” someone until I’ve “seen” them – even if that meeting and seeing takes place in avatar form.  Psychologically, it seems as if I don’t feel the same level of engagement with another person through their blogs, tweets, or discussion board posts unless I’ve “met” them first, and I was interested in meeting other students in the class.

Thursday is ladies night?  Members of the Connectivism course discuss the first week in Chilbo’s Shrubbery Amphitheatre.

But as I began to read more about Connectivism, I started to think that it might contain concepts that could be better visualized in 3D, and for SL building, the Second Life cohort would need land and prims.  After talking with folks in the community, we cleared up the Fairgrounds area and made room for a temporary Connectivism Village project that would last three months and house members of the course who needed a home base in Second Life.

Small mini-homes and offices are available for members of the Second Life Cohort of the Connectivism course for the duration of the class time.  Some students are interested in finding roomates!

The Fairgrounds area is also large enough to host some central facilities and resources for the course, to help make sense of the plethora of web based feeds, tools, readings, and course media.  The Connectivism Second Life Cohort Office will simplify the process of folks joining the cohort, and the Connectivism Reading Room contains all of the assigned weekly readings and some introductory materials for the course.

The Connectivism Reading Room can help students visualize course readings and discussion archives, as well as provide a place to discuss readings ad hoc through the week.

The Connectivism Course Tools Sundae Shop is a whimsical take on the somewhat overwhelming nature of the course structure.  With several websites, communication mediums, RSS feeds, and course emails, Moodle forums, Facebook, and on and on, it’s a little rough trying to figure out which tools will work for your particular needs.  The Sundae Shop is a metaphor for taking the flavors you like and sampling some of the others, not putting every choice on the sundae!

The “Menu” of various course tools in the Connectivism Sundae Shop.

Beyond the few buildings near the plaza, however, I think it will be the Connectivism Sandbox that will hold the most interesting content of the course.  Here we can play with models, particles, sets, artwork, media.. whatever strikes our fancy as we play with the concepts of the course and learn more about Connectivism.  For those who are new to building in Second Life, visit the Ivory Tower of Primitives for a walk through, self-paced building tutorial.  The Ivory Tower is a cultural institution of Second Life and shouldn’t be missed even if you’ve learned on your own!

An overhead view of the Connectivism Village in the Chilbo Community (Madhupak sim).

I look forward to seeing how the Second Life cohort of the course progresses, and I encourage anyone from Chilbo to participate or check it out!   If you have time to wander down, please say hi to any students you see too!   They are members of the Chilbo Community Building Project group and have the group tag “Chilbo Connect!”   ~  Fleep

Great crowd and exceptional panelists!  Here’s the transcript for the Saturday August 23 session on community-building in SL:

Chilbo Community – Summer Faire panel on Second Life Community-Building: What we’ve learned

This panel discussion focuses on what can make–or break–communities in Second Life. What’s the “glue” that holds virtual communities together? What helps people get involved? What Second Life tools and features help or hinder the process? Today’s panelists are Sophrosyne Stenvaag of Extropia Core, and Fleet Goldenberg of Eduislands talking about the island sim  perspective. Panel moderator: Tara Yeats

—————————————————————-

Tara Yeats: Welcome to the first of two panel discussions about Second Life community-building.

Tara Yeats: We’ll be talking about what holds virtual world communities together, what helps people get involved, what Second Life tools and features help or hinder the process. Today’s session focuses on Island-based communities. There’s a second session tomorrow focusing on mainland communities.

Sophrosyne Stenvaag: wow, you’d think that’d be a fairly popular name…

Tara Yeats: I’ll start off with some brief introductions and we’ll hear from our panelists, then move to questions. For now, if you have a question for our panelists, please send it to me in IM – we’ll open this up for general discussion a bit later.

Tara Yeats: BTW, this will all be in text so you won’t need to toggle anything

Tara Yeats: First, to my left…. Sophrosyne Stenvaag is Director of Extropia Core, which describes itself as an exemplar of the future we want, today, where technology is used exuberantly in the service of beauty and fun. Residents are encouraged to govern their own affairs to the greatest extent possible. Extropia started in 2007.

Tara Yeats: Welcome Soph! To get things rolling, tell us a bit about Extropia – how did it get started?

(more…)

Despite the “gremlindens” striking with log-in failures and our moderator, Fleep Tuque, not making it, the VW Day panel was a seeming success. The panelists, Malburns Writer, Tara Yeats & Orlando7 DeCosta, ad-libbed while discussing the future of the metaverse with an enthusiastic audience in both the Shrubbery and live on the webcast.

These three clips contain most of the proceedings as filmed by Stuart Warf of SLPN so we have a permanent record. Only part of the start and the cuts between sequences are missing. So for those of you that didn’t make it on Wednesday, enjoy!

Part One

Part Two

Part Three