Fall Term Prep- Next Meeting, 9/29- 2PM

Welcome to the 2008-09 school year everyone! Prepping for fall term is one of our busiest times at our individual institutions, so the island group is focusing on our campus needs for the next week- a new date and time has been set this year for our meetings- we're in the Cascades on Mondays at 2PM. Come join us for some virtual coffee, real camaraderie, island development and instructional planning!

SLCC 08 Poster Session Followup

In Tampa while we were giving our presentation, a number of questions came up during our session that we didn't get a chance to address- there were many interested people asking questions at once, which was awesome! It made for a bit of a chaotic session, though, and I wanted to make sure that everyone's questions about our project were addressed.

First, the SLURL for our island:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/OR%20Community%20Colleges/111/83/29
If you have Second Life on your machine, you can click this SLurl, and Second Life will launch and you will be transported to OR Community Colleges Island.

-How did we approach administration with our project? As a group! :) Group support for such a new and unique technology has really helped us bind together to create a salient justification for exploration of Second Life. I have a Masters of Arts in Learning and Technology focusing on Avatars, Cognition and Community in Second Life, which makes my physical administration of the island a good fit (though I will say I am just a conduit to organize everyone's incredible efforts- Second Life takes a village more than any other technology I've worked with.)

-How do we overcome security issues? We take advantage of system affordances that allow us to secure the space technically, like group permissions levels and land controls that don't allow pushing for instance- but in the end, we approach the space with the open hearts and minds of pioneer explorers, and know that if things go awry, well. Time is expensive, but pixels can be regenerated, and humans usually learn more poignant lessons from mistakes- great teaching moments can arise from strife. We all also realize that we can guide the space, but we can't really control it.

- What about our build or train priorities? We believe it is most important to train as many people as we can to think of this space with their higher order hats on- and that there is already a TON of incredible content in Second Life to utilize for teaching and learning. We will be putting the vast majority of our project funds into preparing folks to use the environment, rather than building out an elaborate build on OR CC Isle. Now, that's not to say we don't want to have a nice island that people want to visit- but we recognize that the success of this project is found in the human efforts atop the pixels. "The sauce", so to speak.

Whew! I think that's all that got missed, but remember, if anyone has questions about our project, please contact us in world, or come to the island. We're meeting this term on Mondays at 2PM. We'll be taking a small break for the next two weeks to get Fall term up and running, so our next meeting is September 29th- come on by and join us!

SLCC2008 ROCKS!

I'm here in Tampa, and Regulus and I just got through with presenting an in-world poster session for the conference proceedings that are happening in world. There were a few technical challenges, which I could expect in a hotel full of people using Second Life at the same time (incredible lag!)- and I was happily overwhelmed by the curiosity that seems to exist around our project. A HUGE shout out to Regulus who is an incredible presenting partner, without him I think the chaos of so many questions at once would have buried me! :) And THANK YOU to everyone who came to Rockcliffe to hear us speak about the project today- as I said at the end of the presentation, it may be that amidst all of those questions flying about, Regulus and I may have missed yours - I will be posting the transcript from our presentation at our site at http://sites.google.com/site/orcommunitycollegesisland - and will get to any questions that we missed during the presentation when I get home from Tampa on Monday - trying to take in as much as I can and meet you all while I'm 'here' is my primary priority this weekend.

I will say I was also excited to hear shout outs about others who are attempting similar projects, and very much look forward to continuing this dialog with you all as we grow forward!

Funny thing- that may have been the quickest half hour of my life! And, I meant to get a picture of the event to post, but was so involved in presenting, I didn't take a shot. Anyone got an image of our presentation? Please send it our way. :)

As we say in Hawaii where I grew up, Mahalo nui loa!! (Thank you very much)