It was truly mindblowing what took place at MachinEVO,  the 5-week Second Life workshop for language educators, which was part of the regular and annual pre-conference activities of the TESOL convention called EVO Sessions.

During MachinEVO we set out to learn how to produce videos of language learning conversations in Second Life. These videos are recorded with a screen-capturing software like Fraps or Camtasia and due to the lean production costs provide a great opportunity for language educators to create blended learning material to supply to their learners additional learning material.

The challenge that producing videos of that nature bring alone are manifold though and really require a lot of technical skills. This is why we asked at the outset for Second Life experience because the video production itself is difficult enough. So, next to Second Life skills we needed to acquire film production skills, how to move the camera, how to set the lighting, voice recording.  Post-production skills included editing, uploading on video hosting sites, adding music, adding voice which at times was dubbed with Skype etc. And then of course the very conversations, story telling techniques, telenovelas, emoting to develop the story, photo story to prepare the actually recordings etc.

Honestly speaking, we expected some 15-20 participants and were BLOWN AWAY by some 128 registering on our MachinEVO NING site. Why expect so few? Well, first of all, because of the pre-requisites of having to have had SL experience, then the trend we have experienced away from 3D worlds into mobile technology. Then, most of the techy language teachers who would have liked to have been a part of this workshop ran other EVO sessions themselves (EVO is the annual pre-conference of the TESOL convention, this year in Phoenix, end March 2012). Look at this most amazing list of EVO moderators. Mindblowing isnt it? On this list you can also see the number of EVO sessions. We are one of 14 (!) sessions. Last but not least, Second Life is rather 'out' and people often ask me 'does Second Life still exist?'

So, realistically, we hoped for about 15-20 particias participants and were amazed and happily suprised by 128 sign-ups. Not only that, we even saw some 71 inworld.  Unbeatable! We didn't even manage this last year with our newbie session EVO VILLAGE 2011. 

What proved ever so valuable was organising this big crowd of eager ones into groups. In the end we had 10 groups, which you can see on this google docs list and we really thank these group leaders to make MachinEVO a success. Some of them had NO experience with creating machinimas and were scared to take over such a role but they were courageous and we made sure each group had an assigned moderator. Notwithstanding even we as moderators had no idea on how to create such recording. What a pioneer work.

The group leaders were...

• Jens Nerido
• Alfonso Pfefferle
• Barbara Novelli
• RosaVioletta
• Almut Brunswick  
• Karelia Kondor
• Wynshel Heir

Due to the technical challenges we were ever so grateful to listen to our expert advisors Gromit Mayo (15 years as executive producer of a commercial company and 5 years SL experience and technical wizzkid), Howdy Colter (media student in RL and main cameraman of treet.tv, the Second Life TV show), Lowri Mills of LanguageLab, Charlie Navarathna (20 year RL video production experience and video producer of First Responder, a 60sec machinima said to be played on CNN) and Jens Nerido (15 years experience teaching film making to school teachers in Denmark) and Giovanni Tweak (20 years of video  production experience, now runs a language school in SL).

Most valuable was Carol Rainbow's contribution to MachinEVO as she busied herself running one workshop after the other to show educators all of the practical skills on how to record. Carol and Marius spent considerable time sharing their know-how and helping language teachers to learn all of the practical skills. Well, everybody helped everybody because truly speaking, this film making business is a total different trade (!), which was the most amazing part of this workshop.

We not only saw many participants, also the level of activities was incredibly high with some AWESOME 17 machinimas as the outcome, and also on our NING site, this session was busy as can be. More than 10 live sessions a week, an amazing 44 blogs, 120 photos, uploaded or produced 86 videos, 221 forum posts speak volumes!!!

A very special highlight was meeting Bente Milton and Rob Gould inworld, who created the fantasy-documentary "My Avatar and Me" which is a Danish documentary-fantasy about Mikkel and Mike in both Second and Real Life. The film premiered on ZDF/ARTE March 2010 and is shown at many festivals. Supported by New Danish Screen, MEDIA, ARTE/ZDF, YLE. It is a creative documentary-fiction film and a film that might expand your sense of reality. It is the story about a man who enters the virtual world Second Life to pursue his personal dreams and ambitions. His journey into cyberspace becomes a magic learning experience, which gradually opens the gates to a much larger reality.

Thanks to Jens Nerido, we were able to meet Bente and Rob inworld and even got the viewing rights for the film (for the trailer click here), which we watched together in our sandbox on EduNation. Very exciting indeed.

This has been the most exciting EVO sessions workshop I have ever experienced and I believe many who were part of this would whole-heartedly agree. Considering the fact, that this was a completely free of charge workshop, there is a truly mindblowing result.

So much so, that we decided to honor the productions with an unforgettable MachinEVO award ceremony. 

MachinEVO Award Ceremony 

4 March 2012 11am slt | 7pm GMT

Here are there fantastic productions

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APRENDIENDO CON LA FAMILIA GOMEZ  (SPANISH)

Alfonso Pfefferle and his team:  Losairam, Tunjuana, Ines, and Bettina

Part 1:  http://youtu.be/pGflnFZatLY

Part 2:  http://youtu.be/L_js8bbbgaE

Part 3:  http://youtu.be/o3liqCfftWA

Part 4:  http://youtu.be/9eP2EiBksG8

Part 5:  http://youtu.be/tolFVpLHJgw

=======================================

ROSE E COERI:  UNA SERATA PARTICOLARE (ITALIAN)

Rosavioletta and her group:  Anette Lionheart, Marius Madrigal, CorDeRosa, and SuNacht

http://youtu.be/UBTldBw-UqQ

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AROUND THE CAMPFIRE:  MOON THEME 

Jens Nerido and his group:  Vicky Hollett, Almut Brunswick, Barbara Novelli, Nany, and Julia 

http://youtu.be/qmpOgVMjP9I

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IF I COULD FLY . . .

Wynshel Heir

http://youtu.be/uxgx9ie1TJ0     OR    http://vimeo.com/35123938

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THE UNTIMELY DEATH OF PETER PROFIT:  A MURDER MYSTERY BY AND FOR ESL STUDENTS

Barbara McQueen (aka Barbara Novelli & Grace Coy) and her group:  Luar, Dai, Shelwyn, and Fatima 

Part 1:  http://youtu.be/1FSWjwK-rYA

Part 2:  http://youtu.be/H5cKrCeEEw0

=======================================

ARCACHON!  (FRENCH)

Karelia Kondor and her group:  DeeSnow, DevLink Garside, Claire Pascale, Amandina, Patch, and the frog

Part 1:  http://youtu.be/vKcgv28TsJY

Part 2:  http://youtu.be/ifJ7JoLTFeI

Part 3:  http://youtu.be/eHQpNAZvO2g

Part 4:  http://youtu.be/XvVK7W8Fni0

========================================

LIVESTREAMING--MORE THAN 20 RECORDINGS OF ALL THE EVENTS

Howdy Colter, Dotcircle, Jens Nerido, and Heike (aka Gwen Gwasi)

http://www.livestream.com/machinevo

Now we are happy to announce the winners of this MachinEVO Awards! Please check out this presentation and feel free to congratulate the winners for their awesome productions, some of which took 100 hours to produce.

Please navigate to our MACHINEVO AWARD PAGE on this wiki where you will also see the videos.

http://machinevo.pbworks.com/w/page/48342681/Week%205%20FILM%20FESTIVAL%206%20Feb%20-%2012%20Feb