This is a brief description of what I have been thinking about and doing. You see, I have this idea. This idea is what has propelled me into a graduate program because I feel it is only in a graduate program I can find the words I need to describe my idea.

In my field of information and library science, scholars like Tefko Saracevic have summed the past decades of information explosion into three ideas: information retrieval, relevance, and interaction. It is in this last idea, interaction, where some of the most fascinating problems -- and soluti

Global Kids, one of the 2008 HASTAC/MacArthur Foundation Digital Media & Learning winners, launched their beta site, RezEd.org, with 230 signing into the new network during the first two weeks.

At the 2009 Digital Media & Learning showcase in Chicago, the 2008 winners Virtual Peace, Sustainable South Bronx: GreenLab, and Black Cloud were featured in this introductory video.

As a sort of follow up to the Youtube tour of virtual worlds I wrote about in March, here is another great resource for learning about the ever-expanding list of virtual environments, and an opportunity to contribute your knowledge about them. Since this press release was disseminated yesterday, the number of virtual worlds represented on the wiki has grown from 74 to 76, and more are certainly on the way as users become aware of the wiki.

Global Kids is very excited about the community of practice that has grown daily and developed into a sustainable network since the launch of RezEd: The Hub for Learning and Virtual Worlds in March of 2008). As members continue to join the site, we have become aware of the real need to create such a dynamic hub. RezEd has allowed for individuals across disciplines and digital media interests to not only become informed of one another’s programs, but also to allow the rich resources and active RezEd network to inform their own research and projects.

A couple of weeks ago, we had an all-team meeting, which marked the mid-point for the development of the project. Now we've got only a little over a month to launch! While there are still many things to do, and many hurdles to overcome, the meeting made it clear that the technical aspects of the project are well under way. Of course, the most visually compelling part of the meeting was the presentation of avatar development by the computer science interns. You can see more of their work here. If you watch this video, it is truly impressive to see how well these guys have been able to make the avs look like the real participants in Hurricane Mitch disaster relief efforts (the video was made by Vanessa Sochat to showcase her work, but it speaks to the quality of work being done by everyone working on that end of the project!)

Lindsey Andrews shares an image of one of the avatars that will populate Virtual Peace, a 2008 HASTAC/MacArthur Foundation Digital Media & Learning winner.

Lindsey Andrews shares updates and images of Virtual Peace, a 2008 HASTAC/MacArthur Foundation Digital Media & Learning awardee.

Virtual Peace, a 2008 Digital Media & Learning winner, announces the launch of their new site.