Mirror World : To round out the creative SL media competitions at UWA we now introduce a Machinima Competition: MachinimUWA. This one is not as open ended as the Imagine Challenge but still leaves a lot of scope for creative input.

WHEN:
Submissions are open 18th December 2009 - 31st January 2010
All entries will be displayed on the University of Western Australia (UWA) Second Life Blog.

MirrorWorld: The winning project was "Work Training for apprentices" lead by Åge Staghøj.

He has developed a 3D working place, which in an interactive way involve apprentices in learning about safety.

"This project is ground breaking. Many apprentices have reading difficulties, and this virtual learning can help them. With my project the apprentices can learn through drawings and models, and understand and discuss the work environment at the workplace without having to write their way to it, "said Åge Staghøj.

With e-learning 2009 price follow 100.000 DKr, which Åge Staghøj will use for further development of the project.

The Danish Ministry of Education: And the prices go to...

MACHINIMA is the latest innovation in user-generated content to gain mainstream prominence. It is a media, film and art form rapidly evolving into a new form of cultural and personal expression online. As part of our interest in understanding virtual worlds, and how people innovate with and in them, we at Roskilde University, are thrilled to announce an international competition to highlight machinima production in Linden Lab’s Second Life. The contest is about filmmaking in Second Life and especially in the Metrotopia City of Superheroes and Superheroines. The theme of your film is entirely open. The only requirement is that one or more scenes in your film take place in the City of Metrotopia, Second Life (SLURL)

ORGANIZERS

The Metrotopia city and research laboratory is one of several subprojects under the Virtual Worlds Research Project. This large collaborative project, running from 2008-2011, joins university researchers at two Danish universities (Roskilde University and Copenhagen Business School) and a range of different partners. The project is funded by the funded by the Danish Strategic Research Council, KINO and explores sense-making and user-driven innovation in virtual worlds – Machinima being one of several research areas in which virtual worlds are used innovatively.

IMPORTANT DATES

Submission deadline – November 22, 2009

Voting period – September 24, 2009 through December 9, 2009

Winners will be announced – December 11, 2009 on worlds.ruc.dk

More info at Roskilde University´s website Metrotopia Machinima Contest 2009

I would really first have brought this article in about 7 days, but I have chosen bring it a bit earlier.

I will share some observations, that I have made myself the last 6 months, about the dying virtual world Second Life.
For example, how many articles Second Life has generated since I started my blog Mirrorworld.

On the 11th July 2008, Danmarks Radio (national TV station) broadcasted the news of Second Life's death.
The reason was the launch of Google Lively. That provoked me to start bringing news and articles about Second Life. But only in Danish.