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.

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

I've been really impressed with Ning social networks since I started using one for Sloan-C SL-NET. The primary advantages over Blackboard or 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.

New Blog for IT 6750

For the class I'm taking, IT 6750, each student has to have a blog (or a blog page) dedicated to the class. I've created one titled Issues and Trends in IDT (i.e., instructional design and technology) at http://itidt.blogspot.com/. My plan is to copy any interesting posts to this blog, too.

Gloriana

The ship on Renaissance Island has been completed. The managers held a contest to name it. I submitted three entries, and one of them was the winner: Gloriana. The other two names I suggested were Ariel and The Golden Dragon.

Sloan-C SL-NET First Activity

SL-NET had our first activity Friday night, a dance party at the Sloan-C site in Second Life. The picture gives a good idea of the set up and shows one of the avatars the chair of the Social Networking Committee wore during the evening.

IT 6750

I've registered for IT 6750, Current Trends and Issues in Instructional Technology, at CU-Denver this fall. It will be taught as a hybrid class. Here's the description: "Seminar examining definitions, history and current trends and issues in the practice of instructional technology. (Topics vary.)"

I'm looking forward to it. It's starts this Tuesday evening, which is coming up fast.

Progress with Sloan-C SL-NET

After the meeting on Aug. 3, it was clear that some people were interested in organizing groups based on topics of mutual interest in addition to committees for organizing events.

It seemed logical, then, to divide groups within SL-NET into two categories: committees, which are responsible for organizing and facilitating the group and its activities, and research or study groups, which people can set up to pursue their interests.

We have three committees already:

• Social Networking--to plan and organize strictly social activities
• Professional Development--to plan and organize discussions, classes, etc., related to the use of technology in higher education
• SL Skills Workshops (name TBD)--to plan and organize workshops to train members in SL skills like building, scripting, and so on

I'd like to have one more committee that would be responsible for communication, outreach, scheduling, etc.

At the meeting a lot of people were interested in a group to research effective practices. I expect to see some interesting things come from them.

As a result of the meeting, it was also evident that we needed some way of facilitating our organization and discussion in real life beyond the mailing list. It was suggested that we use Moodle forums on the Sloan-C web site, but another member of the group recommended that we look at a Ning social network. The Ning network has advantages over Moodle because it's publicly visible, and members can create their own groups and forums as well as customizing individual pages.

Because a couple of people had trouble with the SL-NET social network the day I set it up, we're doing a "beta test" by anyone who is interested to see if it there are any problems using it. So far, it seems to be okay.

As of this morning, we have 30 people in the Ning-based social network, 44 in the SL-NET group in SL, and 67 in the mailing list. I expect that we will be using the social network, and I'd like to move all discussions to it, leaving the mailing list for announcing events and any urgent situations like the one Friday where a member of the group was doing a presentation on SL and education to a group of legislators in the afternoon and requested suggestions for sites in SL to show them.

SL-NET Communication

To facilitate communication within SL-NET and with people outside it, I set up a mailing list hosted by FreeLists, started an SL-NET group in Second Life, and created a Google calendar for scheduling our events.

Anyone can subscribe to the mailing list by sending an email to sl-net-request@freelists.org with 'subscribe' in the Subject field.

Someone can join the SL-NET group in Second Life by using the Search function to find the group, and then clicking on the Join button.

The Google calendar is public. Anyone interested in our events may open it in a browser or subscribe to the feed.

We're also looking into ways to provide forums for RL discussion.

SL-NET Meetings

I think both meetings of SL-NET (Second Life - Networking Education and Technology) this last week went pretty well. I took the snapshot at the brainstorming session Wednesday night. People had a chance to meet and discuss topics of interest. One thing that came out of the meetings was an enthusiastic group of members interested in effective practices using SL and other technology. I hope to see some interesting things come from them.

Nearly twice as many people as I expected showed up for the organizing committee meeting on Friday. I think we got a lot done, but it's really hit home how different holding a meeting is in SL compared to RL. I'm waiting for reports from some of the committee chairs before I send out a report.

I wasn't able to take any snapshots at the meeting Friday. However, Topher Zwiers did, and he's posted about the meeting on his blog. There's a link to more pictures near the end of his post.