Land for Free Use to Educators!

Yes, land for use for educators. All you have to do is join NYSEiSL (New York State Educators in Second Life) in groups and you can use this land for your classes. It is a nice parcel. In fact you do not even need to be a NYS member, just join the group if you are an educator to use the land. You have to be wearing your NYSEiSL Group to enter the Parcel. The location is slurl.com/secondlife/molesworth/211/97/64.

This is a great piece of land to use as an educator. Victoria has graciously given this land for group members to use for educational purposes.

Regards till my next post,
Dembe

Kathy Schrock Freebies on SL

Yes, Kathy has some freebies on Angel Learning Isle located at the Tools for Educators center. located at slurl.com/secondlife/angel learning isle/153/67/23. Again, the items are free and the place itself is work a look.

The location even offers these neat chairs. However, they are not from Kathy. The following s from the NoteCard:

WHAT DOES IT DO?
Multi Chair always keeps a spare chair rezzed. If the chair is sat on then it will rez another as spare. If someone stands it will automatically remove that chair, leaving one spare.

WHERE CAN I BUY ONE?
Multi Chair can only be obtained by using Multi Gadget by Timeless Prototype. To buy a Multi Gadget you can buy directly from Timeless Prototype's shop - Timeless Gadget Shop (view Timeless Prototype's profile, Picks, Timeless Gadget Shop). Buy cheaper from resellers, choose Find, Places, and search for Multi Gadget.

I tried the chair out and it is pretty neat. It really does create another once I sat and removed it immediately one I decided to stand back up. :-) It can be purchased at slurl.com/secondlife/overdrive island/64/111/36.

Regards till my next posting,
Dembe

Whiteboard - Free Use

A whiteboard on Angel Isle is free for use to others. :-) The catch, when it is not locked by the owner. :-) http://metalab.blogspot.com/2006/06/communal-whiteboard.html is the instructions for using the whiteboard.

The slurl is slurl.com/secondlife/angel learning isle/152/73/27. The board is owned by Intelligirl and part of the ICT Library.

Regards till my next posting,
Dembe

Third World Farmer

Dembe usually keeps her postings to SL, but every once in a while she come across something educationally worth sharing on this blog. Today, Milamber T. showed her Third World Farmer. What a great educational game.

"3rd World Farmer, a game that puts you in the shoes of a family of farmers in one of the poorest areas of the world. This remarkable simulation lets you make the important decisions that will determine if your family will prosper, or starve.

Will you plant corn this year, or peanuts? Will you invest your few dollars in a new tractor, or pay off a local representative? Can you afford to send your children to school, or give them medicine? 3rd World Farmer lets you make the hard decisions!"

Third world farmer can be found at http://www.arcadetown.com/3rdworldfarmer/gameonline.asp.

Regards till my next post,
Dembe

SL ED MetaversEd Ramapo Islands Education Virtual World

Global Kids PSAs on Digital Media, created in Second Life

Tour of Island on Teen Second Life

Suffern Students Talk About Using SL in Class

Institutional Webpages for SL

I have been looking at K-12 and College webpages for SL. As a result, I am adding a new section to my main blog today for College and Schools SL Webpages. I will be posting them as I come across them. If you would like yours added to the list, please send it to me in an attachment in this posting.

Regards,
Dembe ;-)

KitKat in Third Life?

Book - Second Life for Dummies

Yes, the book, Second Life for Dummies will be out this Fall. LOL - I think this is a great idea! It is being co-authored by Sarah Robbins from Ball State University (http://www.secondlife.intellagirl.com/) and her fiance, Mark Bell also from Ball State University (http://www.storygeek.com/). The book is being published by John Wiley & Sons. Both, Sarah and Mark are active members in SL in the educational arena. This book should be a staple of the Survival Guide for all new teachers K-12 and college level teaching in SL.

More information on this book may be obtained at: http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/2105/an-avatar-at-ball-state-explains-second-life-to-dummies

or go to Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Second-Life-Dummies-Sarah-Robbins/dp/0470180250/ref=sr_1_2/104-2075329-9519150?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181143309&sr=8-2
got more information about its publication release.

I know I will be looking for it in December of 2007. :-)

Regards till my next post,
Dembe ;-)

Gartner Says 80 Percent of Active Internet Users Will Have A "Second Life" in the Virtual World by the End of 2011

This is an interesting article that can be read on http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=503861.

Regards,
Dembe

User Acceptance of Virtual Worlds: An Explorative Study about Second Life

Research Study: User Acceptance of Virtual Worlds: An Explorative Study about Second Life

"The report assesses the user acceptance of Virtual Worlds, specifically Second Life. By means of a survey with almost 250 respondents this report provides first empirical results of the user acceptance of Second Life. The data has been gathered during spring 2007. Our results show that 90% of respondents have less than a year experience, 70% access Second Life from home and 54% with a desktop. There are 67% of respondents who are not afraid of giving personal information. Almost 60% are very likely to buy virtual goods from Second Life, and 42% are willing to use their credit card to purchase on Second Life. About 70% perceive Second Life improves collaboration and communication, and more than 60% perceive that it improves cooperation between people. 56% of respondents perceive Second life as easy to use. Finally, our results indicate that people are using Second Life not to change their identity, but rather to explore and visit new places and meet people.
If users accept Virtual Worlds as a new way and channel to communicate, collaborate, and cooperation and if institutions arrive to provide value to users, Virtual Worlds might become then next generation platform for Internet users. However, in order to become mainstream, Virtual Worlds like Second Life have many challenges to overcome and where user acceptance is probably the most important one."

Get the report on http://www.secondliferesearch.blogspot.com/

Interesting Blog

Came across this blog today:

http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/2007/05/top-ten-missing-features-of-second-life.html

It had some valid and interesting points.

Regards,
Dembe;-)

Astronomy Exhibit

Wonderful astronomy exhibits in SL are located at:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Primrose/145/18/86

Video - 2007 SL Best Practices Conference

Education in SL: Explore the Possibilities

Memory Garden- Addiction - Fantasy/Reality - Evolution?

Below is a well done Machinima on SL and entering into this exciting new world.

Dembe is Finally BACK!

Okay, it has been six weeks since my surgery and Dembe has finally returned. Wow, a lot of exciting things have been happening educationally in SL over the past few weeks. Here are a few you might be interested in as an educator:

Info for Educational Grand Writers:
http://sledpicayune.blogspot.com/ if you are interested in SL this site offer information necessary to any educational institution - "The Second Life Foundation for Rich Content has just announced a new round of grants to support the creation of rich content in SL. You can read the official press release about the grants on their Google Group. Applications are due July 25."


Educator Teaching in SL:
2007 SL Best Practices in SL occurred on May 25th, 2007! What a wonderful and exciting educational event and conference. And since it was in SL, a 24 hour conference, many events where documented so you can see and view many of these items at http://www.flickr.com/groups/slbestpractices2007/. To visit the actual conference site in SL please visit http://slurl.com/secondlife/chilbo/42/131/119. More about the conference from the conference notecard: "On May 25, 2007, the first 24 hour international conference ever to take place in a virtual world happened here in Second Life. The Second Life Best Practices in Education: Teaching, Learning, and Research 2007 International Conference was a smash hit.

The multi-sim conference hosted over 30 academic presentations from several countries, including Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. Participants received gift bags with over 100 educational items to use in Second Life.

What was expected to be a small event turned large-scale when over 1,000 educators from around the world registered to attend the free conference, and over 50 volunteers and 100+ educational institutions, non-profit organizations, and businesses from both the real world and the Second Life world signed up to take part.

Technology in education blogger Ryan Bretag (known as Existential Paine in Second Life) wrote, "There are those rare occurrences where in the moment, you can feel a change, you can feel a complete shift. The past 24 hours I bore witness to that rare moment where you literally witness the shift happening in front of you and know things are never going to be the same from this point forward."

Financial support from Gold and Silver Sponsors provided real-life quality to a completely virtual event. An Australian company, SLCN.tv, provided live voice streaming capabilities for the presentations and conducted live video and audio streaming to overflow locations and via their website at http://slcn.tv to allow educators from around the world to view the conference proceedings on the web.

The conference proceedings are archived on the the website at http://slbestpractices2007.wikispaces.com/ and a second conference is planned in 2008. For more information, please see the website or contact slbpe-chairs@googlegroups.com."

The Conference Schedule:

Daily Events: http://slbestpractices2007.wikispaces.com/alldayevents

Keynote Speakers: http://slbestpractices2007.wikispaces.com/KeynoteSpeakers

Presentation Schedule: http://slbestpractices2007.wikispaces.com/KeynoteSpeakers

Conference Team: http://slbestpractices2007.wikispaces.com/ConferenceTeam

Venues: http://slbestpractices2007.wikispaces.com/Venues

Vendors and Exhibits: http://slbestpractices2007.wikispaces.com/Exhibitors

Please check back for more exciting news today and in the future. There is always something new and exciting happening in SL that can enhance our classrooms in some way to produce dynamic learning.

Regards till my next post,
Dembe :-)

Australian Flexible Learning Framework

This following blog was shared with me on Learning with social software http://blog.core-ed.net/derek/2007/04/learning_with_social_software.html by SLED. This blog talks about the research done by the Australian Learning Framework http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/. This seems to be must read research for any educator interested in SL as a learning platform.

The group has just published. "The results of this research have now been published, under the title Networks, Connections and Community: Learning with SocialSoftware http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/flx/go/pid/377, and it provides some interesting insights into into how technology is being used for knowledge sharing, capability development, and teaching and learning."

Dembe will be posting briefly over the next few weeks due to illness and recovery in RL.

Regards till my next post,
Dembe ;-)