Saturday, March 28, 2009

FREE Conference HAPPENING NOW!!


If you have some time this weekend, come join us at Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education. Click here for a schedule of events and SLurl locations:

http://wiki.vwbpe.org/index.php?title=Schedule


In the image above- Rik Riel from Global Kidz speaks about "Aha!" moments in Virtual Worlds, RezEd.org (A social network that acts as glue for the Virtual Ed community) Lots of excellent programming happening throughout today and tomorrow!

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

“I don't know what you could say about a day in which you have seen four beautiful sunsets.”


John Glenn quotes (American Marine and Astronaut, b.1921)

I wonder if John Glenn would change his quote to say “I don't know what you could say about a day in which you have seen six beautiful sunsets.”, if he spent 24 hours in Second Life?

Did you know that it takes three hours in Real Life for Second Life to go from sunrise to sunset and that nighttime only lasts one hour? Every four hours, a new day starts in Second Life

This means that for every 24 hours in real-life you age six days in Second Life and that a new year in second life starts appox. every 60 days in Real Life.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

FREE Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference

Register for free here.

From vwbpe.org:

"he Virtual World Best Practices in Education (VWBPE) conference originated from the 2007 Second Life Best Practices in Education Conference. This grassroots, community-based conference attracts faculty, instructors, trainers, administrators, instructional designers, technical specialists, and members of organizations from around the world. Those who create teaching/learning environments, resources, tools, support services and professional development opportunities internal and external to virtual world environments participate. During the conference, participants have opportunities to ask: What is education?, What is teaching?, What is learning? and How can we provide virtual world educational environments in which today’s learners can become all they can be.

The VWBPE Conference provides opportunities for virtual world communities to showcase projects, courses, events and research that lead to best practices in education. The end result of collaborating, sharing, and co-construction of knowledge during the conference is the creation of innovative and immersive environments in which virtual world residents can learn, work, and play."


This is an incredible opportunity for anyone interested in teaching and learning in Second Life- if you have any time available at all next weekend, I urge you to get registered and attend what you can! Hope to see you there~ :)

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

SL Tip: Create Landmarks (like bookmarks in SL)

Adding a landmark to return to a place once you've found it in Second Life is easy- just go to the "World" menu and click "Create Landmark Here". Once you do this, a landmark is created in your inventory folder that you can then right click on and select "Teleport" to return to that spot anytime its available.

You can drag and drop landmarks onto another avatar or to their drop box on their profile to pass them around, and you can also attach them to a note card in your inventory- this is a great way to build "tours" or guided experiences in Second Life. The next time you're wandering around exploring spaces for your teaching practice, make a note card, and annotate each landmark in the note card to pass off to others. We love trading these to share our Second Life discoveries!

Monday, March 9, 2009

Virtual Theater: Come Watch Media Together!



Up in the clouds on OR Community Colleges Isle you'll find our virtual theater- a space for up to 35 avatars to come and synchronously watch streaming media. This week playing in the theater: The Neuroscience of Emotions"- a talk given by Dr. Phillipe Goldin.

Use this link to get to the Theater

And remember, if you are an Oregon Community College instructor and would like to schedule the theater for streaming video media for a distance course, just use our island scheduling request form here. If you're ever wondering what we've got scheduled or coming up in the theater, you can find out at our island calendar available here.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Welcome JoeC Portland- Our New Student Assistant!

If you come to the island and see JoeC Portland working on tasks or building and scripting in the sandbox, be sure to introduce yourself and add JoeC as your friend. Joe is a Electronics Engineering Technology student at PCC, and is working as our student assistant. He's here to help you find answers to your basic questions and learn right along with us all, so don't be shy about checking for drop in sandbox help time on the island schedule calendar (link in the upper right corner of the blog), and bringing your Second Life questions to us!

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

SL Tip: Ctrl+Shift+F = Friends List

This week's beginner tip suggested by Faolan Young- to quickly access your Friends list to see whose online that you've befriended, or to communicate with someone who isn't in your immediate area, use ctrl+shift+f. Remember, you can also access a person's profile from your friends list, where you can find information about them or send them an item.