WordPress

Since I moved my main blog, 4R x T, to WordPress, I've been pretty happy with how it's working. I like the header I created. I also like the fact that my latest del.icio.us bookmarks are posted to my blog automatically every day. Unfortunately, I have to go in and change the category, but at least they get posted. I couldn't figure out how to do that with Blogger. I also don't miss having to type in a verification word--usually twice--every time I wanted to post an entry when I was using Blogger. (I don't have to do that with my other Blogger blogs, so I don't know what the problem is.) I also lost the videos and presentations that were embedded in the blog when I imported it to WordPress, but the links are still there.

Webvolution: From Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 to Web 3Di

4R x T Moved to WordPress

I've moved my main blog, 4R x T, to WordPress. If you want to continue reading about my adventures in educational technology, please go to http://4rxt.wordpress.com/.

Presenting at Conferences

I've been thinking lately that I'd like to try presenting at a conference or two next year. There are a few scheduled that I should be able to attend:

1. Colorado TELECOOP, April 16-18, Breckenridge (proposals due January 26)
2. Colorado Community College Conference on Composition, April 18, Greeley (proposals due January 31)
3. Teaching with Technology Idea Exchange 2008, June 5-6, Orem, Utah (proposals due Feburary 1)

Obviously, I'll have to choose between the TELECOOP Conference and the 5Cs. Why did they have to schedule them at the same time?

Hallelujah!

Our team has finished our presentation for IT 6750. It was great working with Alex and Blake to analyze the trend of using virtual worlds, specifically Second Life, in higher education and corporate training.

Audacity and Trend Analysis

I've been learning how to use Audacity, a free audio editor and recorder. I can record an audio track, cut off the extra time at the beginning and end, and insert the file into a PowerPoint slide. I'm doing this for our trend analysis on Second Life.

I had planned to use this blog as a research journal for the project, but we ended up creating a wiki.

Another Prensentation on SL in Higher Ed

Muve'in On Over

From: intellagirl, 3 weeks ago

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Presentation for the 2007 Serious Games Forum at Purdue University


SlideShare Link

Presentation on Second Life and Education

I have to confess that I haven't watched the presentation yet, but I'm sure that if Laura was involved, it will be very informative.

From: sorry.afk, 1 day ago

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SlideShare Link

CSI: New York and Second Life

I finally got around to watching the episode of CSI: New York from last week that was supposed to portray Second Life. One question kept going through my head: Had anyone involved in producing the episode actually ever been in Second Life? It certainly didn't seem so.

The avatars and sims did look like ones that could exist in Second Life. However, the CSI characters' avatars did things that I've certainly never seen avatars do: find out from a white rabbit (or anyone else) where a particular avatar is currently located, walk off in synch while holding hands, teleport together to a different location, assemble a crowd on the spur of the moment for any kind of activity, pick something up with a hand.

I'm afraid this show is only going to make it harder for educators to convince administrators and students that Second Life is different from violent computer games.

Results of Research on Virtual Worlds

This week, I've found the following blog posts and websites about Second Life:

1. Another review of There
2. A review of Gaia Online
3. Virtual Worlds Review--not updated since Feb. 20, 2006, includes list of virtual worlds by category
4. "The Virtual World That Started It All"
5. OnRez Viewer: "OnRez Viewer, First Impression," "Electric Sheep's OnRez viewer - first impressions"

On Wednesday night, CBS aired an episode of CSI: NY featuring Second Life. I recorded it but haven't had the time to watch it yet.

Twine

I read about Twine in a post on Read/Write Web. It looks very interesting. According to the About page, "Twine is a new service that intelligently helps you share, organize and find information with people you trust." In addition, "Twine uses the Semantic Web, natural language processing, and machine learning to make your information and relationships smarter."

I've requested an invitation to try it in beta, but I haven't heard back yet.

Video: Exploring Virtual Worlds, Part 1

This video was produced by Joe Sanchez and posted on the Sloan-C SL-Net social networking site.


Find more videos like this on Sloan-C SL-NET

Keeping a Research Journal

A couple of my classmates in IT 6750, Alex and Blake, and I are going to analyze the use of virtual worlds, specifically Second Life, in higher ed and corporate training.

Since I read Will Richardson's book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, last year, I've been wanting to try having my students use blogs to keep research journals. Unfortunately, I haven't taught a class since then where that would have worked.

So, I'm going to do it myself. I'm going to use this blog as a research journal for our trend analysis.

A few days ago, I ran across a reference by Ray Schroeder to an article on MediaShift a PBS-hosted blog that tracks "how new media—from weblogs to podcasts to citizen journalism—are changing society and culture," by Mark Glaser titled "Your Guide to Virtual Worlds." This article looks like it will be a great resources for our project. Glaser has sections on background and history, Second Life, virtual worlds in the media, a glossary, and resources, including a partial list of virtual worlds.

About the same time, Nik Peachey wrote about There.com, what he likes about it, what isn't so good, and how he can use it.

Presentation on Wikis, Blogs, and Social Networks

In a recent post on his blog, Karl Kapp included links to handouts and slides from a presentation he did on wikis, blogs, and social networks. Both can be accessed on a page in the wiki for the book he just had published: Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning: Tools for Transfering Know-How from the Boomers to the Gamers. The wiki includes a glossary for the book.

I'm still trying to decide whether or not to buy the book. I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who's read it.

Web 2.0 Tutorial

I recently ran across a link to a Web 2.0 tutorial for teachers. The author explains what Web 2.0 is and also discusses blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, and social bookmarks. For each of these applications, he includes lists of and/or links to popular tools of that type, educational benefits, classroom applications, concerns and solutions, real-world examples from teachers, further reading, and tutorials (including videos).

Help for Educators in Second Life

Right after I joined Second Life back in May, I learned about SLolar Central, "a place where [educators] can experiment with modes of communication, movement, etc., to enhance their SL experiences, offering free temporary 'homes' for people to use as they explore." Yesterday I checked with KJ Hax, one of the founders, who told me that there are still spots available. Anyone who's interested should go to their Google Group page and download, complete, and submit the Temporary Office Space Residency Application.

My Adventures in Second Life

If you'd like to read more about my adventures in Second Life, please go to my main blog.

Co-Author at Tek Trek Blog

I'm going to be co-authoring the Tek Trek blog with Bethany Bovard. I hope to post my first entry next week.

The Crystal Cave

About a month ago I finally bought some land in Second Life (from a private party not Linden Labs). My property is on an Athurian-themed sim named Logres, which is one of the historical names for Arthur's kingdom in England. I bought a cave with crystals, so, naturally, I had to name my lot The Crystal Cave, after Mary Stewart's novel about Merlin.

Emerging Technology Applications for Online Learning

According to an e-mail message sent to the SLED (Second Life EDucators) listserv this morning, the Sloan Consortium "has embarked on an initiative to help online educators gain a better understanding of how the technologies available today can help make their classrooms better." To accomplish this, Sloan-C has launched a new website. The site was designed to support Sloan-C's upcoming conference on emerging technologies for online education, but the site and its forums are open to anyone interested in this subject, not just people who attend the conference.

List of Podcasting Tools

Thanks to the Savvy Technologist for pointing out this great list of podcasting tools at Mashable.

50 Ways To Tell a Story

Alan Levine is using a wiki to prepare workshops for his cross-country tour of Australia this month. The first workshop is titled "50 Web 2.0 Ways To Tell a Story." Participants in the workshop will use one of 49 Web 2.0 tools to create a story.

In another workshop titled "Precious Web 2.0 Gems," participants will select a tool from the "Web Gems Starter List" or "Web Gems Other Lists" to try. He's used the tag "webgems" to identify these tools on del.icio.us.

His other two workshops are still "on the drawing board," but I intend to check back later to find out more.

Presentation on Using Second Life for Higher Education

An overview of Second Life, how it works for education, and examples of SL uses for a selection of subjects.


SlideShare Link

Free Course Content

Friday morning, I attended the Colorado TELECOOP conference at Arapahoe Community College. The first session I went to was about open course content, specifically that provided at HippoCampus. It looks like a great resource for some subject areas, like math, science, history, government, and religion. Unfortunately, I don't usually teach those subjects. It would be much more helpful if it had content for literature and humanities courses. (I guess I'm going to have to do some research to find such resources for the classes I do teach.)

The presenter also mentioned the NROC Network, which "is a community of educators, adminstrators, technologies, and designers working together to develop high-quality, online content and instruction."

100,000 Ning Social Networks

According to a post on the Ning blog dated September 23, "There are now 100,000 social networks on Ning. 70,000 of these networks have been created in the past seven months alone."

In a post yesterday, Gina Bianchini explained the differences between a Ning social network and a Facebook group. I joined Facebook a few weeks ago, and I'm not really impressed with it--especially when compared to Ning. In fact, I've only logged in two or three times since I joined.

The first thing I noticed is that when I receive a message in Facebook, the e-mail notification I receive doesn't include the message. I have to log in to actually read it. Also, my profile is the same no matter what group I join. In Ning, the creator of the network can change what profile information is requested for that particular network. Also, in Ning, people can't see what other social networks I belong to. In Facebook, apparently, every time I join a new group, my "friends" are notified--at least I'm informed when they do it.

SL-NET's First Professional Development Session

On Friday, SL-NET held its first professional development activity. Shaun and the other committee members did a great job pulling it together. CDB Barkley and Max Chatnoir talked about what educators are currently doing in Secondlife. At one point, we had about 35 "people" present.

There are more pictures available at the SL-NET website.

Also posted at 4R x T.

Blog vs. Wiki

Since last January, I've been using a blog for my classes at Red Rocks Community College. I post what we've done in class, so the students don't have to try to get in touch with me if they miss class or forget. I also have links for each class.

It finally occurred to me this week that a wiki might suit my needs better, so I've started one at PBwiki, though I don't have anything in it yet.

I guess it seemed logical to use a blog because I was making regular chronological posts about the classes. However, the students aren't commenting on the posts--at least no one has to date--so I don't really need that feature. Another problem with the blog is that during times when I'm not teaching a particular I can't save the related links in the sidebar except by leaving that element on the page. In the wiki, I can just hide (or not link to) a page I don't need during a semester, but the content is still there. With the wiki, I can also embed a widget from Box.net for the folder with the files for the class rather than just linking to the page.

Also posted at 4R x T.

Too Little Too Late for Wikipedia

I just read in a post on the Socialtext blog about an article in the Telegraph, which states that Wikipedia "is to stop people from editing entries after a series of questionable updates cast a shadow over its accuracy and reliability." Does anyone really believe that Wikipedia has ever been accurate and reliable? This is certainly a case of too little too late. I won't let my students cite an article from Wikipedia in any papers they submit. I know of some faculty members who require their students to use Wikipedia but only to demonstrate how inaccuate and unreliable it is.

Citizendium, an encyclopedia project that aims "at credibility and quality, not just quantity," and Scholarpedia, a "free peer reviewed encyclopedia written by scholars from all around the world" are already traveling on the path that Wikipedia seems to want to take.

Also posted at 4R x T.

Innovation Adoption

Sue Waters' latest post, This Is CRAP!!!, was the first reference I remember seeing to Rogers' "Innovation Adoption Curve." Obviously it takes some people longer than it does others to accept something new. Rogers divided people into five categories from the most to the least eager to adopt an innovation:

1. innovators (2.5 %)
2. early adopters (13.5 %)
3. early majority (34 %)
4. late majority (34 %)
5. laggards (16 %)

Sue has a couple of great graphics in her post.

In a class of 18 students, which is the number I have in my hybrid technical writing class at Red Rocks this fall, that would break down to (rounding, of course, even the .2 student in the innovator category)

1. 1 innovator
2. 2 early adopters
3. 6 early majority
4. 6 late majority
5. 3 laggards

It will be interesting to see how accurate this is.

Blogging and Ning

In response to questions from Kirsten Morton, who is a classmate of mine at CU-Denver, Tony Karrer, eLearning Technology, wrote about blogging as part of a classroom experience. I commented on his blog to point him to Brent's blog so he could see that there were more students in the class than the four linked in Kirsten's blog.

From his blog, Sue Waters, Mobile Technology in TAFE, found mine and read my most recent post about Ning. From reading Sue's blog, I discovered that she has a Ning social network for people interested in eTools and Tips for Educators. According to the site,

This group has been set up for the Video in e-learning session for e-Tools and Tips September series of How To Session for 2007 E-learning Networks Community Forum.

Initially we'll be discussing video good practices however we plan to keep this site going and expand it to include other cool tools for e-learning for education and training.

On her blog, Sue also refers to a 31 Day Blog Project that she participated in. (A scaled-down version of this could work for a class where students are required to blog.) One participant in the project started a Ning social network for members of the group.

My del.icio.us Tags

I just discovered how to show the tags for my del.icio.us bookmarks on this blog. Now, if I could just figure out how to center the lines, so it looks more like my label cloud for the blog.

Technology on Campus

Through a post on a blog I regularly read, I learned about Campus Technology magazine, which "is the only monthly publication focusing exclusively on the use of technology across all areas of higher education." Naturally, I subscribed to its RSS feed.

One two-part article featured on the main page caught my attention. It's titled "Teaching with Technology: Facilitating the Process." Part 1 is about "Strategies for Adopting Instructional Technology." The authors, Ric Keaster, Leroy Metza, and Angela Hillegass, start by pointing out that P-12 teachers must learn to use technology in order to incorporate it into their classrooms. "Likewise, instructors in colleges of education cannot teach prospective teachers to use technology unless the faculty, themselves, use technology in the college of education classrooms as a part of their instruction. There is something about 'modeling' that goes a long way in education, regardless of the level of education under consideration."

(This certainly sounds familiar given what we're doing in IT 6750.)

Obviously, as the authors point out, this will involve "two primary areas of new knowledge where faculty members need professional development: online instruction and face to face instruction." The article "deals with . . . the need to provide faculty not only with the technological tools for enhancing instruction, but also with the knowledge of how to best use these materials to maximize the time faculty spend with students in physical college and university classrooms." It then examines how this was accomplished in the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences at Western Kentucky University.

The process included the following steps:

1. Creating an atmosphere and culture for change
2. Developing and communicating the vision
3. Planning and providing resources
4. Providing training and development
5. Monitoring and checking progress
6. Continuing to give assistance

Steps 4 through 6 were presented in the Part 2 of the article: "The Means to Bring about Change."

More on Ning

As I mentioned before, I'm using a Ning social network for my hybrid technical writing class at Red Rocks. Each week the students have to do an online assignment, most of which will be in site, where they can post in forums or on their own blogs.

Their first assignment was to join the site, post an introduction, and respond two at least two other people's instroductions.

In class yesterday, we talked about tools for technical writing, primarily rhetoric and technology. Here is their second assignment, to be done this week:

On the web, find a free or trial version of a software program or web-based service that may be used for creating documents, communicating, and/or collaborating (as discussed in Chapter 3 of the textbook). Test the program or service. On your "My Page" create a blog entry in which you tell where you found it (be sure to include a working link to the website), explain what it does, and discuss its strengths and weaknesses. Use the name of the program or service as the title of your blog post.

I've also joined another Ning social network. This one is called College 2.0, and it's for people in higher ed who are interested in online education and Web 2.0.

Also posted at 4R x T.

Virtual Communities

Just lately I've run across references to virtual communities and communities of practice (CoPs). In a post (June 10, 2006) on the The Learning Circuits Blog, Dave Lee presented his 4L Model for the "types of roles in an online community," which includes the following four roles:

1. Linking (explorers)
2. Lurking (occasional participants)
3. Learning (regular contributors)
4. Leading (committed, consistent contributors)

Derek Wenmoth, in his blog, on November 10, 2006, posted a diagram and explanation of the phases "many participants in the online environment move through . . . as they gain understanding and confidence":

1. Consumer (not-yet-visible but active participants who "read and explor the posts of others")
2. Commentor (now-visible participants who post comments in response to other people's posts)
3. Contributor (active participants "who have started their own blogs or . . . initiate new threads on discussion forums")
4. Commentator (leader who takes a broader view)

The parallels between the two schemes are obvious.

Here are some links for further reading on the subject: "The Art of Building Virtual Communities," "Cliff Figallo and the Evolution of Virtual Community," "Building Virtual Communities."

Training in Second Life

In an article published in the August issue of T + D magazine by the American Society of Training & Development (ASTD) and online at Learning Circuits, Anders Gronstedt discussed the use of Second Life (SL) in corporate training. After briefly covering what SL is and how to communicate there, Gronstedt explains how tools in SL "can be used by training professionals to illustrate technical concepts in powerful new ways."

He quotes Chuck Hamilton from IBM, who said: "One of the advantages of Second Life is that you can manipulate the sense of scale and perspective. . . . You can crawl around a big oil rig or fly around a network diagram."

Gronstedt also points out one of the problems with training in SL: "Second Life is creating more virtual classrooms. Unfortunately, most e-learning still looks like a classroom lecture. It takes time for a new medium to develop its own character and unique vernacular."

However, as he points out, there "are signs that some learning organizations are pushing the envelope. IBM has balloons flying in the air that you can enter to explore 360-degree images—a virtual reality within the virtual reality."

Some of the barriers to extensive use of SL in corporate training are

1. consumer focus
2. firewall and security issues
3. system requirements
4. people's time commitment

Gronstedt concludes, "Virtual worlds provide learning organizations with a powerful, unique ability to engage and empower employees in ways that accommodate their digital and mobile lifestyles, adapt to their individual learning needs, and encourage collaboration."

I agree.

This Is SOOOO Cool!

TouchGraph Google Browser (also available for Amazon.com and Facebook) shows connections between websites listed in Google's database. You can graph connections based on URLs or keywords. Here's part of the graph I got when I put in "instructional technology" with the quotation marks. I focused on the section with CU-Denver because that's where I'm taking an instructional technology class.



I read about it on TechCrunch.

Read/Write Web Poll on Top Web Technology

Richard MacManus at Read/Write Web has a poll up today asking with of the following technologies readers "think will have the most impact over the next 10 years":

1. Ajax / browser-based apps
2. Artificial Intelligence
3. Attention data
4. Gaming
5. Mobile
6. Online Video / Internet TV
7. Rich Internet Apps
8. Search
9. Semantic Web / structured data
10. Virtual Worlds
11. Web services / APIs
12. Other

As I commented in response to his post: "I voted for 'Virtual Worlds,' but I think the real answer will be a 'mashup' of several of the web technologies. As an educator, I think being able to access web-based applications and search functions from within a virtual world will have a huge impact on education."

Sad but True

According to an article linked at Ray Schroeder's Educational Technology News blog, "University students may be encouraged to be critical but they don't seem to question Google's ranking system, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication."

This is disheartening but hardly surprising considering that people are using the word google as a verb to mean "using a search engine to search the web." I cringe every time I hear someone use it that way.

As I understand it, Google ranks results based on popularity: how many people click on the link and how many other pages link to it. Popularity does not equal relevance.

Top 100 Tools for Learning?

The Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies has prepared a list of the "Top 100 Tools for Learning" based on responses from 109 "learning professionals." I ran across the list while I was searching for references to AECT and Second Life together and got a hit that took me to the Centre's page for Second Life. I was excited until I looked at it more carefully.

It's hard to take the list seriously when Tool #4 with 37 mentions is Google's search engine. The next "search engine" listed is Dogpile (#98), which is a metasearch engine or metacrawler not a regular search engine, anyway.

Ask.com and Exalead are much better search engines than Google, but I always advise my students to use metacrawlers (like Dogpile, Kartoo, Clusty, and Ixquick) or directories instead. They get much more relevant results that way.

Article on Work-Embedded E-Learning

I finally got around to reading the July/August issue of Intercom, which is published by the Society for Technical Communication. In an article titled "Work-embedded E-Learning: Wherever You Are, Whenever You Need It," Harry Calhoun, Kristine Berry, and Christopher Dawson discuss what work-embedded e-learning is, how it's different from "help screens and other forms of user assistance," how it's accessed, how satisfied users are with it, what its benefits are, and what some best practices for creating it are.

The article is available through EBSCO's Business Source Premier database, which can be accessed through the Auraria Library and a lot of others.

Controversy Close to Home

One of the first people I met in Second Life was Jeff Corbin (his name in real life), a research associate in physics and astronomy at DU. He has built the Science School in Second Life, which DU will be using for classes.

Andy Guess, in an article titled "In Second Life, There's No Fallout" at InsideHigherEd.com, describes Jeff's Island: "Science School is nestled behind a three-dimensional, real-time weather map with pixellated clouds hovering above the ground, near a telescope that can be used to view constellations during the winter, when its real-life counterpart at the University of Denver is inaccessible due to snow-covered mountain roads."

With grant money from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Robert C. Amme, a professor of physics at DU, and some colleagues are going to build a nuclear reactor in Second Life as part of a master's program "in applied science with an emphasis on environmental impact assessment that will feature classes held in Second Life."

The comments on the article indicate what we face in using this technology (Second Life and other MUVEs) for educational purposes.

Slideshow: Blogging as Professional Learning

Thanks to Nancy White at Full Circle Online Interaction Blog for mentioning Graham Wegner's presentation titled "Blogging as Professional Learning." (I tried a couple of times to embed the slideshow in a post, but I couldn't get it to work.) He explains why and how blogging is important for teachers' professional development.

He even referred to two edubloggers I regularly read: Will Richardson and David Warlick.

Educational Uses of Second Life

I saw this video at http://elearndev.blogspot.com/ and thought it did a good job of presenting Second Life's educational potential. It also showed the Globe Theatre on Renaissance Island, where I live in SL.

Ning in Education

On August 3, we held an organizing meeting for Sloan-C SL-NET (Second Life - Networking Education and Technology). The suggestion was made that we should have some place on the web where we could have asynchronous discussions.

Sloan-C's Moodle-based community pages seems the obvious choice until a friend I met through Second Life suggested I look at Ning, which provide free (and premium) social-networking sites. He pointed me to the Classroom 2.0 social network, which has 2408 members right now.

This seemed ideal, so I created the Sloan-C SL-NET social network. The primary advantages over Moodle are its public visibility, the ability of members to start forums and form groups, and the accessibility of RSS feeds. I'm using a Ning site for a hybrid technical writing class I'm teaching this fall. (It's private for the obvious reasons.) I've also joined a social network for educators who are using Ning in education.

Economy of Attention

In class Tuesday night, Professor Wilson mentioned having read an article on the "economy of attention." I'd never heard the phrase before, and I was surprised to see a post on that topic in a blog I read regularly, Read/Write Web.

According to Richard MacManus, "The Attention Economy is a marketplace where consumers agree to receive services in exchange for their attention. Examples include personalized news, personalized search, alerts and recommendations to buy. Note that the Attention Economy is different from the tradional meaning of an economy, because it isn't about buying and selling - although ultimately those things may occur."

This certainly applies in education. Our students, particularly in higher ed, "agree to receive services [i.e., knowledge and skills] in exchange for their attention." They are paying not only in money but in time and energy. As faculty, we need to make sure they are receiving what they paid for.

At the end of his post, MacManus links to four other articles on this topic that were published by Read/Write Web.

Education and Second Life

I've been trying to comment on a post by another student in the class, but my comment hasn't shown up. I thought I'd post it here as well:

Second Life (SL) has a lot of potential for education, as many people have recognized, and probably even more for professional development as we figure out how we can use it.

I joined SL last May just in time to attend sessions at the Second Life Best Practices in Education 2007 Conference. Videos of some of the addresses are still available in the video archive.

Last week, the New Media Consortium held a Symposium on Creativity with an education track in SL. I heard some very positive feedback from a friend who attended.

The SLED (Second Life EDucators) listserv has over 3500 subscribers. In addition, a lot of colleges and universities, libraries, and professional organizations have bought sims or created groups in SL, including ISTE, AECT, and the Sloan Consortium.

Even though K-12 teachers can't actually use SL for their classes because of the age limit (though there is a teen grid for 13 to 18 year olds), ISTE is extremely active in SL. They have an island and weekly activities.

AECT has a group in SL, but I haven't found out any more.

The last couple of months, I've been working with the Sloan Consortium to organize networking and professional development activities for college and university educators in SL.

In using SL for educational purposes, we just need to be careful not to try to do things with it that can be done better with other tools.

Blogging for IT 6750

I'm starting this blog to meet the requirements for a class I'm taking at UCD: IT 6750, Current Trends and Issues in Instructional Technology. Lately I've been thinking that I'd like to move into instructional technology and out of teaching because I have the most fun with the technology, so I registered for this class to see if that's what I really want to do.

In January I started my first blog, 4R x T, to record my experiences using technology in my classes. I have a second blog that I use for my classes at Red Rocks Community College.

This summer I've been exploring Second Life trying to figure out how it can be used for education. (I've chronicled my adventures there in my main blog.) Using Second Life and other MUVEs (multi-user virtual environments) is definitely a current issue in instructional technology. For me, the best use of Second Life is networking and professional development.

A couple of months ago, I ran into the executive director of the Sloan Consortium at their site in Second Life. I mentioned to him that it would be nice if Sloan-C had networking events for folks in higher ed the way ISTE was doing for K-12. He told me to go ahead with that idea, and I have.

First we put a questionnaire on the web to find out what people were interested in. Its presence was announced to the Sloan-C and SLED listserves. I created a listserv for the people who responded, gave the group a name (SL-NET, which stands for Second Life - Networking Education and Technology), held an organizing meeting, and set up a social network site. Last Friday night, we had our first activity: a dance. We also have plans for other activities: social, professional development, and training in SL skills. It's a lot of fun, and I've met some great people!