Updated ArtRoll

I’ve been adding some updated links to my ArtRoll or list of artist friends and websites (on the right hand column on my blog here). Here’s a list as well. If you’re a friend of mine and would like your artist site listed… please let me know!

• Amy Sacksteder
• Anna Kell
• Christi Nielsen
• Christopher Wood
• Erin Hoffman
• Graham Turner
• Inter.Sect Art Collective
• Jason Nelson
• Jen Bock-Nelson
• Jen Locke
• Jeremy Bastion
• Jesse Payne
• Joe LoPresti
• Joe Meiser
• Kelly Mueller
• Matt King
• Michael Arrigo
• Michael Reedy
• Shaurya Kumar
• Stacy Isenbarger
• Thomas Roese
• Tyler Hennings
• Valerie Wallace
• Yasmin Kackar-Demirel

Art 101: Critique in Second Life

Over the last week my students have been working on an assignment in which they were to find an inspirational work of art and create a work in repsonse to it (read assignment here). The first meeting class of this week, we held in-progress critiques of the work. The set-up for this included teaching students to upload images into Second Life (my tutorial here), build a primitive or object to put them on (tutorial), and then how to put the image on the prim (tutorial).

Here are some image of both critiques. View more here.

The most exciting thing was the amount of feedback each students received from other students. In a studio classroom the comments usually come from only a handful of students. An Instructor often times has to play a significant moderator role to coax quiet students into speaking. I’m not sure if it was because this is NOT a studio art class with non-art majors OR if the text chat mode of communications allowed students to speak more freely, but the amount of feedback per image was really wonderful!

Twitter + Live Broadcasting

I have written about a log of new streaming video tools on my previous blogs which can now be found under the category live broadcasting.

Two new sites launched this week taking that “conversational” approach to the next level using Twitter. Camtweet and Twitcam. Read more here.

The Justin.tv app Camtweet requires invites to participate in early testing, has a really ugly UI, and when has a chat room viewers sign into with thier Twitter ID/Password. When someone Tweets from your page, it includes a link to your show. Good idea! The rest of the site lacks any other bells or whistles.

TwitCam is powered by LiveStream (formerly Mogulus.com, I talked about in the Live Broadcasting 2.0 post) and works about the same. Log in with your Twitter cred, links and more… Plus a very pretty UI. I’m surprised however that LiveStream does not supply users with more tools or features that are in the full LiveStream accounts. For instance, the ability to play YouTube videos or show a ticker at the bottom of your screen (regular features on LiveStream). I am guessing that LiveStream is just trying to get users to broadcast first, but pulling in Twitter users and will move forward from there.

If there’s one think I’m surprised about… it’s that the TwitCam name isn’t already owned by King TWIT (This Week In Tech) Leo Laporte.

Facebook Pics Used for Ads

Spreading like a virus thru Facebook:

When you follow those directions it looks like this:

Most likely in response to such bad press as last week’s Mashable article.

Art101: Artist Roleplay Assignment

This summer I am teaching Art 101: Intro to Art online in Second Life. It took about a week to get the students up to speed on how to use Second Life. I am using some of the info at the main SL wiki, but mostly my own tutorials at the BGSU SL Help Wiki. My students are keeping blogs to reflect on what they see/do in class, document what they discover on the web and in Second Life, and also as a place to display what they create. Our second week, most of them blogged about our trip to the Sistine Chapel re-creation on Vassar Island (SLURL).

Last week the students were given an assignment to research an artist from a list I had presented them with. Then, they were asked to modify their avatar to look like that artist or one of the artworks that person had created. Finally, the students roleplayed those artists in a conversation in front of the class to present their findings. Click here to read the assignment. Watch two example videos below or see more examples here.

Jackson Pollock & M.C. Escher

Sol LeWitt & Henry Moore

Overall, I would say that the assignment was a success! Some students were able to modify their avatars better than others but the creative choices was easy to spot. Some students were unable to use voice chat and therefore held conversation in voice chat. This made the exchange between the two avatars move much slower and the immersion felt by the audience less present. However, students were still able to present their information in a timely manner.

Bugs in Wordpress

I’ve been battling a few of the bugs in WordPress including the RSS feed for this new blog. One of the solutions? Make a new post and publish. Let’s see if it works…

Nope, not working.

It might be this blank line bug:

http://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/error/WPBlankLine.html

Metaplace sticks with a good idea

Early on in Second Life, you could find a “Gate System” that used replica’s of the Stargate to link one location to another. You never knew where you were going to end up when you stepped thru a gate and it was a great way to explore (plus, I’m just a big Stargate fan!).

Over the past few months I’ve noticed users in the virtual world Metaplace had started the same trend.

From Vitrual Worlds

It turns out that Metaplace is “officially” making this feature part of their virtual experience. I think link worlds is a great idea and another way to connect communities!

This will be the one true…

Anthony Fontana blog.

I have kept blogs at:

http://themultichronicclassroom.blogspot.com/

https://blogs.bgsu.edu/anthonyfontana/

and

http://anthonyfontana.vox.com/

From this moment on… this will be the one place I blog. If I do keep another blog (like the one for The Net Jockey at http://thenetjockey.com/) I will repost those things here. Soon, this page will look like the rest of AnthonyFontana.com and be equipped with my Tweeters, 12secs, and more. Stay tuned.