Tours - YOU are the Key to Retaining Newcomers

College has me busy busy these days, but in my downtime I've been able to read an excellent narrative by Urbane Chaos that detailed an encounter he had with a new user.  Unless you've been in some sort of cave or bomb-shelter, you've heard by now of the really great effort that Urbane Chaos and others have been putting into renovating AWTours; that effort has paid off as AWTours became the setting for U.C. and his tourist acquaintance, and the infrastructure for that tourist to become familiar with the Active Worlds technology as well as its community.

An informative location in the recently renovated AWTours world

By the end of the post we as readers had been challenged to "go the extra mile" for new tourists, many of whom may still be having difficulty achieving flight or leaving AWGate. The whole story was great and is the sort of hands-on experience that new users need to make any sort of word-of-mouth advertising successful.  It especially had me beaming by the end because this story read so much like a similar encounter I had a couple of years ago.  The circumstances were different -- I ended up spending an evening building with a tourist -- but the experience the same.  Read on, as we turn back the clock to the far-distant year... 2009.

Practical Applications of Technology in Education

Hey guys! I'm a little busy today but when I've got some spare time I'd like to write a bit about practical applications of technology in education, and how that can be applied in a 3D environment too.  In the meantime, what brought this on was my recent introduction to the Khan Academy -- an excellent website that is home to thousands of instructional videos and exercises on an array of topics... from math to humanities, and its all free.

I've been using it myself as I'm learning Calculus.  The videos are really top notch, and they're a great idea.  I've posted a video below of a TED Talk concerning Khan Academy, and how it's really a great idea and I hope that it catches on.





But anyway, my experience using Khan Academy got me thinking: could similar intuitive education be done in the 3D environment?  What exactly would you need for that?  Interpersonal interaction?  Manipulating objects on the fly?  We can do some of this already.  As for the rest, well... I'll elaborate more on that later. :)

Back For More

Hey everyone, and welcome to a rather late start to April!  I apologize for my extended absence, but here's to hoping that my Calculus test grade will reflect the time away! (Don't count on it.)  At any rate, that's in the past, so let's see what's been going on lately...

• The forums seem to be going through a pretty dry spell.  Events too.  If I recall correctly things are typically pretty quiet this time of year until late May when the summer crowd comes in, so that's no surprise.
• I did manage to sneak some time in to attend the town hall meeting last Sunday, which was held in SW City.  I was only there for the first 40 minutes, but during that time I got to share and direct some users to SW City Interactive and there was some interest in getting some SWI tours set-up.  That sounds like a good idea to me. :)
• I would like to get a new tutorial up, probably one concerning the ActiveWiki.  I may do that as early as tonight depending on my motivation.  I'm pretty drained from the Calculus test, to be honest.

And that's where I'm at.  Hopefully I'll get back into the swing of things soon.  Later!

The Person Who Doesn't Finish

That'd be me. ;)  A shame too... plenty of excellent, excellent builds in the EBTS this year, though, and good luck to all fellow builders!

I've actually stepped away from AW for the past few days and expect that I'll have a diminished presence for at least the next week.  I've got an important test coming up soon and as many of you know, I'm also gettin' hitched next month.  Lots of planning involved with that, and between the two I'm pretty busy in RL.

I should be back later in the week for a blog, and I'll throw up some 'noticeboard' news updates when I've got a free moment.

Later!