Getting Started in Second Life: This week, I’ve introduced several new people around my office and around the state to Second Life and helped them to get oriented to using it. I made several mental notes while doing this about some of the comments my learners made, the troubles they had and the misconceptions they held. I thought it might be beneficial to share.
- First, Second Life is free for the most part. Sure, you can spend real money if you’d like, but you certainly do not have to spend a dime or even put your credit card info into your profile. Unless you want to own land or purchase fancy clothes, etc., you don’t need to spend any money at all.
- When you’re first “born” into Second Life, you end up in this place called “Help Island,” which is just not the best place to start out in my opinion. There’s lots of good information there, but there are also other avatars from around the world, all who are likely new and have no personal stake in their Second Life experience or obligations to uphold. So, in my opinion, as an educator the best thing you can do to improve your initial Second Life experience is to immediately teleport somewhere other than “Help Island” as soon as you’re “born!” So, I’ve listed a few great places to immediately teleport to, when you enter Second Life:
- ISTE in Second Life currently has about 4500 members and 123 Volunteers helping to run the professional development on the island, greet new educators to the island and help keep the island safe and secure. They also have an orientation walk-through, which is great for newbies! The slurl to teleport here is: http://slurl.com/secondlife/ISTE%20Island/100/74/30
- NMC (New Media Consortium) is considered by many to be one of the very best orientations to Second Life. http://slurl.com/secondlife/NMC%20Orientation/109/113/39
- Discovery Educators Network: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Eduisland%20II/73/101/22
- Scilands: …is another great orientation spot to learn about Second Life. http://slurl.com/secondlife/SciLands/196/17/23
So, I would highly recommend you pick one or more of the above slurls and teleport directly there when you first create your avatar rather than remaining on the “Help Island.” Also, contact me when you have an avatar created and I’ll be happy to show you around!
Virtual Worlds in HS Education: Additionally, I came across this article recently about Virtual Worlds in High School Education. It’s an undergraduate paper and not a peer-reviewed journal piece, but I think it offers some very beneficial information nonetheless. I also think we’ll see a flood of articles on similar topics very soon: http://www.trinity.edu/adelwich/worlds/articles/trinity.manny.alvarez.pdf
Limitations of Textbooks (Funny Video):
Blooms Taxonomy in the Digital Age: This idea is certainly not a new one, but I was reminded of these models this week and thought I’d share:
On Discovery Educator’s Network Island in Second Life is a 3D model:
Additionally: Check out the Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy on the Educational Origami Wiki: http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/Bloom%27s+Digital+Taxonomy. You can also download here as a pdf file among MANY other great resources on this wiki.
There are some autism-related events coming up that you should certainly know about especially if you are in the mid to northeast regions of Indiana:
- Autism Fair: The Grant County Autism Family Support Group is hosting a vendor fair. This will be a unique opportunity for vendors to explains the services they provide for families living with autism. April 9, 5:30-7:30pm, Mississinewa Community Schools.
- All Star Saturdays Movie! April 25, 10:00am. Kerasotes Theaters and Grant County Autism Family Support Group have teamed up to bring families affected by autism a special opportunity to enjoy their favorite films in a safe and accepting environment. Kerasotes Showplace 12 Marion will be showing a sensory friendly family film. The film will be made sensory friendly by bringing up the lights in the theater
and bringing down the sound. In addition, the sensory friendly showing will allow for loud outbursts or behaviors that can be common in autistic children who do not understand theater etiquette.
- Please contact me for more information and flyers on either of these two events. I’ll be happy to put you in touch with the events organizers.
Why Let Our Students Blog: Cool little video. I’m planning to talk more about young students blogging in the next few weeks and thought this was a nice intro to the topic!
Creating Blogs Using Edublogs (slideshare tutorial):
Uploaded on authorSTREAM by Travis
