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The Archives
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04.15.08Education Conference in SL: April 19, 26, May 3SL'ang Life magazine will hold a conference in SL on the above dates focusing on "Educational Possibilities in Second Life." The magazine strives, on its SL island, to create a knowledgeable community of SL users. But it also is a print magazine based in Poland that explores all things SL-related. For instance, in its recent, third issue, the magazine feature articles on surrealist art, artists who are in both RL and SL, the Giorgio Armani island, and a piece on religion called "To the Glory of God." The magazine holds high hopes about the conference: "We strongly believe in the potential of ...
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04.10.08Librarian Outlines Trends in Online CommunitiesJill Hurst-Wahl, a lifelong information technologist and library scientist, visited the Memorial Library at the SUNY campus in upstate New York recently to offer some keen observations about social networks. Hurst-Wahl said that online communities are the "virtual coffee pot," a place for users to gather around a water cooler and discuss... well, anything. She also noted that the trend towards social networking will not abate any time soon. Here are a few of her observations, pulled from the SUNY Memorial Library blog: - Social Networking Tools (SNTs) will be everywhere. In the course management software, in the library catalog, in ...
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04.07.08Education in Virtual Worlds – Yesterday, Today, and SidewaysA slideshow summarizes past, current and "to the side" uses of virtual worlds and education. The reference slide at the conclusion is particularly useful. Presentation by way of the author's Web site, Learning Games which has a lot of good links, references and blurbs. [slideshare id=311168&doc=before-beyond-and-beside-second-life-120580398112512-2&w=425]
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04.02.08Medical Training and Advocacy In SLTwo posts brought to our attention to the continuing advancements in the medical field that are happening in SL. Mental Health Notes writes about the National Council setting up mental health and addictions awareness and support in SL. The main advantage to this is that the interactions are anonymous, and of course it also increases dramatically the access that people will have to these support and awareness groups. And at Science Roll (our favorite blog about medical learning, written by a real student) Bertalan Meskó describes a case presentation playing itself out in SL. Multiple voices offered medical solutions to a case ...
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03.27.08Forbes Reports on ESL LearningIt's nice to see a mainstream business outfit like Forbes - home of the annual Forbes 500, and a business person's bible - give some column inches (is that the term for it on the Web? Or should it be "scroll depth?") to SL education. This also shows that education in SL may actually be gaining some traction in the business establishment. A co-leader of a school in Germany has set up "Second Life English" and since February, the site has had upwards of 75 visitors per day. The island is an ESL resource center for both students and teachers. "The richness ...
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03.27.08College Prof Turns to SLYou're a post-secondary English prof, and your students are bored stiff with the same old 500-750 word essay assignments. Not to mention, you are bored stiff teaching composition to freshmen. You toss around new ideas: group collaborations? Re-workings of classics of literature? Field trips? What does one do? Well, an enterprising professor at Macon State College in Georgia has decided to add some zing to his first-year composition class by having students write for SL. According to Dr. Gerard Lucas, "Second Life allows us to look at issues like identity, identity building, gender, sexuality and race. It brings all these ideas to ...
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