OSCC Keynote 4

Current virtual environment developers often find it difficult to pick a suitable virtual reality platform to support their application. This panel is an opportunity for developers proficient in current competing platforms to share their experience and discuss future platform evolution trajectories. It will also allow OpenSimulator core developers to differentiate OpenSimulator from its peers.

Join us as we discuss the creation of the AU Metaverse's SurvivalSim, where life teeters on the edge of a chocolate bar. From the frozen perch of a rusted out submarine to the debris left from crash landing in the Antarctic, SurvivalSim presents a challenge that tests the character strengths and wits of the players.

Join Kay McLennan in a fast moving discussion (with handouts!) of how educators can start using engaging and effective virtual world simulations/activities immediately and with little or no cost. Kay will provide tips, tricks, and practical advice for how to: (1) bring students into a virtual world -- for building, exploration, and/or immersive discussions; (2) how to set-up prepacked virtual world simulations; and (3) how to use virtual world simulations as a backdrop for creating unique teaching materials

Conflict resolution is essential to effective team performance. Teams can practice communication and conflict resolution skills using tools deployed in virtual environments. We will discuss a case study for teaching nursing students how to manage conflict and explore strategies for engaging teams and evaluating team performance in virtual settings.

This presentation will highlight how OpenSimulator Virtual Environments can be used for creating art and architecture. Student work and teacher perspectives will be showcased.

Liverpool Crown Street station is frequently identified as the earliest archetype for the railway stations of the present day but its life was short (1830-1836) and no visual record remains apart from general maps and a few sketches invariably made from the same perspective. The OpenSimulator model attempts to recreate a working station compatible with available evidence from other locations as well as Crown Street itself. The presentation reimagines the excitement of a first journey on this revolutionary n

Join us for a tour of Escape where you will find a variety of locations that present authentic language learning opportunities. While strolling through the plaza or investigating the old pyramid, you will encounter NPCs with whom you can casually converse about targeted vocabulary and grammar topics. Learning objects, embedded throughout the environment, take students through the process of attaining knowledge, practicing that knowledge and finally assessing their learning in an engaging and innovative form

Practicing educators featuring projects using NPCs and the spatial environments in OpenSim for interactive and contextual immersive learning. Scenarios include: students tracking down the mechanism of disease communication; contextually understanding the social, environmental and economic factors that impact health; and creating narrative environments for historical or literary lessons.
Speakers: Ghaelen D'Lareh, Evalyn Gossett, Ruby ODegee, Kimberly Rufer-Bach, Rachel Umoren

Opensimulator offers a vast and beautiful landscape for exploration. Until recently including interactive characters in a build was so time-consuming and complicated few builders bothered. A growing set of easy NPC tools make it possible for anyone to add unique characters to their builds without knowing anything about scripting. Nara Malone and Fred Beckhusen will talk about the tools they used in the Immersive Edge Hypergrid Story and how they are used in the Outworldz regions.

Speakers: Ferd Frederix,

This presentation will highlight the work of 6th graders in Western New York. With the help of a NY State Department of Education Grant, the students were taken on a tour of the Darwin Martin House in Buffalo NY to learn about the principles of architecture of Famed Architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. The student then took these design principles into OpenSim and created their own amazing works of architecture and art.

Speakers: Mary Howard, Andrew Wheelock

Avatar Repertory Theater is a theater performance group in virtual worlds, since 2008. Over 200 performances, ranging from full immersive stagings, such as Shakespeare's "The Tempest", Sophocles "Oedipus Rex" and "Alice in Wonderland", to small workshops and original plays. Our troupe consists of professional and community theater performers, programmers, sound engineers, avatar, theater designers, and playwrights.

Thoughtfully created virtual world education simulations are a hit with students and contribute to increased learning outcomes. Until this type of learning simulation becomes more mainstream, educators need to create their own simulations or use the open license content created by others. To focus attention on the available as well as the “wish list” content needed, this panel includes presentations from college, K-12, and workplace instructors using and/or sharing virtual world learning simulation content.

A fundamental concern raised by 3D collaborative virtual training exercises is their direct relevance to real world situations. Trainers require that virtual training exercises match closely their daily practice and expectations in the real world. We demonstrate our approach that allows trainers to mash up Google maps with their customized virtual scenarios in order to facilitate the translation of skills and insights acquired in the virtual world into improved real world competencies.

Using participatory action research methods, questionnaires, daily note taking, and interviewing, this case study reveals 3-D modeling of ecological pests & predator installation, technical problems & ecological solutions, simulated at my ASU Hive OpenSim, sponsored by the UBC.ca. This theme led to correspondence with the ASU website “Ask the Biologist.” It resulted in community learning about the importance of pests in an ecosystem as a complex web of interconnected and dependent ingredients.

Find out the latest data on virtual reality headset numbers and other VR statistics, including the latest data on OpenSimulator statistics and surveys.
Speaker: Maria Korolov

This panel brings together developers of popular Second Life and OpenSimulator viewers and explores the many ways of interfacing with OpenSimulator and virtual worlds, both now, and in the future. The panel will be moderated by Mal Burns.

Panelists: Myron Curtis, Crista Lopes, Jessica Lyon

In this hour, conference attendees are invited to explore the OSCC Grid, including the Expo Zone regions with conference sponsors, community crowdfunder exhibits and exhibits created by speakers, as well as the Shopping Center region.

What are the impacts of blending virtual reality, and real life with both Machine Intelligence and Human Intelligence? We are at a critical juncture in our own evolution. It is time to get out of the toy box! Steve LaVigne and Myron Curtis present a very lively, very short discussion of the future possibilities of Virtual Worlds and Virtual Reality and the impact on all of us. After the presentation we will continue the discussion on OSCC Expo Zone 2 Booth #6. Hope to see you there!

Techland is a hyper grid enabled grid focused on math, statistical science, biology, chemistry and earth science. Educational contents are set as 3D scripted objects, like a 3D paragraph in a 3D immersive book, Student target: 11-14 years old (middle school).

Speaker: Michelina Occhioni

Taking advantage of the affordability, OAR uploads, repurposing, and export features now available with open-simulator-based islands, an emerging-technology graduate program at SUNY Empire State College developed a concentration in virtual-environment design. Here adult students are scaffolded through basic island construction, sharing work with course colleagues as they progress through a theory-and-practice based program where they conceptualize, construct, pilot, and evaluate islands to meet their own pr

Air University's Metaverse incorporates BulletSim physics and the IoT at Squadron Officer College's 3D Campus to fly the P51, a Pod on Mars, a Cable Lift and use the Alexa Echo in OpenSim. Real world objects connect with 5th Generation IoT-supported learning simulations to launch the campus of the future. Join us as we share our discoveries, present our schedule of events, and find out how you can get involved.

Speakers: Michelle Gatchell, Cynthia Calongne, Andrew Stricker, Barbara Truman

VR is becoming mainstream. The community of OpenSim builders and the great builds they have made should be seen by this mainstream. Including the several million people that have Cardboard viewers as well as the soon to be release Oculus consumer version in Q1 2016. Unity3D now includes ability to output to a VR stereoscopic format for use with Oculus Rift headset. We will build on how to move OpenSim builds to Unity, and show how to make these builds view-able with both the Rift and Google Cardboard.

A panel of core developers will discuss the future of the OpenSimulator platform. Expect a lively debate! Topics will include a variety of issues including the future of the Hypergrid, content licensing and permissions, scalability, project maturity, and much more. Find out where the platform is headed and learn more about the developers who make the software happen!
Speakers: Michael Cerquoni, Kevin Cozens, Crista Lopes, Melanie Milland, Ubit Umarov