Second Life Best Practices in Education

Friday I "attended" some sessions of the Second Life Best Practices in Education International Conference:

• Beth Ritter-Guth (Desideria Stockston-SL) on "Monsters to Monarchs: Teaching Literature Using SL"
• Catherine Dutton & Lillian Chenoweth (Catherine Soderstrom & Prof Kuhn - SL) on "Asynchronous Student Orientation to Second Life"
• Cynthia Calongne (Lyr Lobo-SL) on "Colorado Technical University in Second Life: The Amusement and the Maze Game Class Projects"

All of the sessions were in Second Life.

I also wanted to "go to" one of the keynote presentations (by Sarah Robbins (RL)/Intellagirl Tully (SL)), but I couldn't see or hear anything in the overflow areas I tried.

I can see some potential for using Second Life in my classes, but I want to work into it slowly. I've found several "in-world" groups that should prove helpful.

My SL name is Floria Beaumont. I'm still trying to decide whether or not to pay for a premium membership. It might be nice to own some land and build my own place. I probably won't have time for that until later this summer unless one of my classes is cancelled.

Wikinomics

This week I finally finished reading Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams. There's a companion web site for the book. If I had known that the book was more about economics than wikis, I probably wouldn't have bought it. However, it was in this book that I first heard about Second Life, which I joined this last week (more later). In addition, reading about the Geek Squad and Best Buy in the book convinced me to go to Best Buy yesterday to get a new video card and additional RAM for my computer. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble with the video card, so I may need to use the Geek Squad as well.

Use of Blog and Box.net in RRCC Classes

For the Spring semester at Red Rocks, I created a blog where I posted what we did in class so that students who were absent (and present) could keep up. I also created folders, which could be reached through links on the blog, at Box.net so the students could download handouts I created.

I did a survey at the end of the semester to see how many students actually accessed the blog and the files. I've posted the results on a page on my website. (The website is still under construction.)

Since 61% of the students checked the blog, I think it was definitely worth creating. Fewer students (34%) downloaded files from Box.net. I didn't find out until just recently that some students didn't know how to download the files, even though I went over that in class at least a couple of times.

Sloan-C Workshop

I joined the Sloan Consortium as an individual member so I could get a discount on a workshop they're offering this summer. The title of the workshop is Learning 2.0: 20 Engaging, Interacting and Syndicating Applications. I've been interested in Web 2.0 applications, and this sounds really interesting. In addition to the workshop content, I'll be using Elluminate Live! and Moodle, so I'll have a good opportunity to become familiar with them.

Spring Semester at Red Rocks Ending

My classes at Red Rocks end tomorrow and Tuesday. Final grades are due by May 15, but I hope to get mine done sooner than that. I'll have to grade narrative essays for my ENG 090 classes and formal reports for ENG 131.

It's a Wiki Wacky World

I recently read Managing Virtual Teams: Getting the Most from Wikis, Blogs, and Other Collaborative Tools by M. Katherine Brown, Brenda Huettner, and Char James-Tanny. I learned about the book when I read an article on "Using Wikis" by Huetter and James-Tanny in the January 2007 issue of intercom. Part II, "Evaluating the Tools," was particularly useful, but I was disappointed by their companion wiki, It's a Wiki Wacky World.

I'm currently reading Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything.