An interesting (and local) conference

I became aware today of a conference being hosted by the University of Otago in June 2008 which I thought might be of interest to a number of people.  It is the International Conference on Computer Mediated Social Networking  (more details here) and in the call for papers they say this (among other things!)….

“An important new platform technology where all these developments come together and which has inspired many expert observers is that of the new virtual environments, such as Second Life and There, which enable people to meet and engage in virtual, three-dimensional social interactions. The future of SNS will certainly be played out on these platforms, and their scalability can only be tested presently on high speed networks.”

Unfortunately paper submission closes on March 9th and I don’t think I will have anything ready in time for that, but nevertheless I am going to try to attend, if only to network with another (mainly university I expect) community that is interested in virtual environments for education.

Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, for a conference in this area there doesn’t appear to be any intention to use Web2.o to broadcast the conference out beyond those who are physically attending! But maybe I’ve missed the information *grins*.

Midwives meeting debrief

A number of people who attended the meeting have blogged about the experience and have photos and even a short screencast from Petal (aka Sarah Stewart).  It is good to see that it is inspiring others to think about how they could potentially use Second Life in their own areas too – and Koru Bracken (aka Merrolee Perriman) has suggested that perhaps people in her own area of  Occupational Therapy might think about its potential for them too.

Great stuff!!