Penn State Dance Marathon

Exciting Things Coming Up

This Wednesday, January 28 we will be hosting the official opening of our Second Life presence at PSU World Campus island in Second Life.  The island will be staffed all day from 8am-5pm Eastern Time so if you’re in Second Life, please stop by and say hello! We’ll have a snazzy World Campus polo shirt for you and you’ll get to spend time exploring our space.

This Friday evening, January 23 we’ll also be hosting a benefit concert at PSU World Campus island in Second Life to raise money for the Penn State Dance Marathon (THON).  Second Life musician, Rich DeSoto will be performing live starting at 8PM Eastern time. Come listen to some fantastic music, dance with us, and help raise money for an amazing cause.

Next Thursday, January 29, our last THON benefit concert in January will be held in Second Life.  Jax Streeter will be performing to help us, once again, raise money for the Penn State Dance Marathon.

Virtual THON Video online!

Many huge thanks to Nate Tobey and the great folks at WPSU here at Penn State for taking some video and audio footage I captured and turning it into this great video about our Virtual THON that was held at Penn State and in Second Life in February.

THON raises over 6.6 million dollars for Four Diamonds Fund

I just got home from the Bryce Jordan Center on Penn State’s University Park campus. I was there to witness the final few hours of The Penn State Dance Marathon (THON).  As a Penn State alum, and a parent, THON is something that I’m incredibly passionate about. Attending THON in person is an amazing experience that I’m really not sure can be described. It’s highs and lows filled with great pride and humility all in one event.

My favorite moments from THON this year were:
1. Meeting Willa in Second Life. Willa is a Penn State grad that read this blog and then showed up for the Second Life version of THON.
2. Watching Orion run all over Second Life to find camping chairs, money trees and whatever else he could find so that he could donate to the Second Life THON. Orion was working in a computer lab on the Penn State campus during the Second Life THON.
3. Dancing with friends and other Second Life residents while listening to amazing musicians at the THON benefit
4. Attending the real-life THON today and seeing a little boy in a wheelchair that I also remember seeing last year.
5. Watching this year’s line dance being done by thousands of people
6. Listening to those same thousands of people sing along to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” in the minutes before THON ended
7. Standing there while this year’s total was revealed and watching those numbers immediately blur as my eyes filled with tears – so amazed.

To everyone that has played a part in raising money and awareness for THON this year, thank you. I look forward to working with the Penn State World Campus students to help them raise money for next year so the overall total exceeds 7 million.

FTK.

Virtual THON a real success (again)

Last year was the first time a ‘virtual’ THON was held in Second Life. Last year’s event lasted 17 solid hours and raised $500 US dollars for the Four Diamonds Fund for Pediatric Cancer as part of the Penn State Dance Marathon.

This year’s event lasted only six hours, and was planned to coincide with the kickoff of the real-world event at the Bryce Jordan Center on Penn State’s University Park campus in State College, Pennsylvania. The Virtual THON took place from 6PM – midnight EST and featured what I feel are the absolute finest and most generous musicians and DJs in Second Life.

I would like to give a most heartfelt ‘thank you‘ to all of the musicians that volunteered their time and talent to be part of this: Tone Uriza, Rich DeSoto, Lyndon Heart, Kafka Dinzeo, and Grace McDunnough. I would also like to thank DJ Cher Harrington for donating her shoutcast stream for this entire event and for kicking off the event and getting us started on the right foot for the night. Also a big “thank you” to the THON technology committee at University Park, especially Nicole – working with you this year was a pleasure and I was very pleased and impressed with everything you made happen. Thank you also to every single person that attended the event and donated to this cause – you are the people that make a difference. I thank you and thousands of children and their families thank you.

Your participation and generosity this year helped us to raise $386.00 US Dollars in just six hours in Second Life. With additional donations after the event, I made a donation to THON today in the amount of $500.00 US Dollars.

There are photos of the event located here, so take a look at those if you get a chance, and also continue to check http://www.thon.org throughout the weekend to watch the live webcast provided by WPSU , Penn State ITS, and the College of Communications at Penn State.

FTK.

working the late shift tonight and catching up..

My co-worker is taking a much deserved vacation this week and he typically works 12-9 so we’ve all been taking turns covering his shift this week. Today’s my turn.  Although it’s a bit weird to be here this late, it’s wondrously peaceful and a really great time to be able to catch up on work uninterrupted.

I’ve spent a lot of time tonight catching up on some blogs.  Second Life in Education, Second Life Education Events, Massively, TechCrunch and several others always have really great information and it’s a fantastic way to know what’s going on quickly.   Google reader is my friend.

I also found out today that my poster “Social Networking and Community Building for Online Students” has been accepted for the TLT Symposium that will be held at the Penn Stater on March 29.  This is great news, but also now means that I have to actually DO a poster about that.  It’ll be fun and another opportunity to meet people from all over Penn State.

I also have a meeting scheduled for this coming Monday with Brett Bixler from ITS here at Penn State to discuss PSU’s overall presence in Second Life and brainstorm about what we can do to better organize what we’re presenting in that space.  As I’ve mentioned before, Penn State’s presence in Second Life right now…. not so great.  I’m hoping we can change that.

SL THON is also coming up on Friday, Feb 22 and I’m in the process of lining up musicians in Second Life to play for that event.

Virtual THON – update

I’m in the process of pulling together live musicians for our virtual THON benefit. For those that aren’t familiar with Second Life or how live music works in this virtual environment let me explain.  With the use of software like SAM broadcaster, Nicecast, Simplecast, etc.. a live musician can perform in their living room, basement, kitchen, bathroom (don’t laugh, it’s been done) and broadcast that music live into Second Life via a Shoutcast or icecast stream that’s hosted on a server somewhere.  So, a person in Second Life could wander into a coffee shop, for example, and sit down to have a cup of virtual coffee while listening to an amazing acoustic guitar player and vocalist.

I actually sing in Second Life. I’ve done this, and I’ve seen how much people enjoy this. So, just like at the real THON, we’ll be having live music and live performers at the virtual THON as well. I’ve booked two of Second Life’s most popular and talented live musicians and I’m working on booking about 5 more.

I received two emails yesterday from the THON Technology overall chair today, and I just want to say how impressed and pleased I am to be working with her.  She is really on top of things and is very excited about the virtual THON/Second Life project this year.  It’s a good thing.

Starting this weekend I’ll be working on setting up the actual area where THON will be held in Second Life and finishing the booking of performers.  At that point we’ll start getting the word out and gearing up for the event.

For the kids.

collaboration. it’s a *good* thing.

I met today with a colleague from WPSU to talk about ways they could use social networking. Great guy, great conversation and it led to some great ideas for collaboration.

WPSU will develop a short video about THON and Virtual THON. We’ll be able to post the video on  YouTube, link it on the World Campus website and post it on Facebook as well.  I’ll be using my avatar to talk about what Second Life is, what the ‘Virtual THON’ is and why Second Life is good for communities and collaboration.

We also talked about ways to incorporate WPSU’s content into Second Life and I think that’ll lead to some exciting ways to educate and inform not only our World Campus students, but the public as well.  Sweet.

virtual thon

I met yesterday with the technology captain for THON as well as with Brett Bixler from Penn State ITS to discuss this year’s virtual THON in Second Life.

Last year was the first time virtual THON was held in Second Life and it took place on my island of Mill Pond, but with ITS help this year we’ll be having it on the Penn State Isle which is a better choice and makes more sense.

We’ll have the virtual THON event on Friday, February 22 from 6PM – midnight EST. I will be working to coordinate the talent and overall running of the event. In the meeting with the THON captains, they promised they would work on the PR for the event and sending notices to listservs, etc. I’m hopeful that we’ll get more PR than we did last year and we’ll have an even more successful event.

I also plan to capture some video footage of THON both in and outside of Second Life that we can then use to create a short video clip about THON and Second Life to display on YouTube and promote to our World Campus students.

I’m also really excited about the implications for World Campus students and Second Life participation in THON for next year. It has potential to be a really wonderful experience.