Sunday, May 27, 2007

Best Practice in SL Education 07

I've just attended my first conference in SecondLife - the International SecondLife Best Practices in Education 07

Here is a short clip that shows what it was like to attend one session... Apparently there were over 900 attendees with many venues - and overflow venues - full.

Presentations were simulcast by the SL Cable Network to screens in the overflow venues in SL and on the web.

I managed to get to 5 sessions - all very good.

  • Cynthia Calongne (Lyr Lobo-SL) Colorado Technical University in Second Life: The Amusement and the Maze Game Class Projects
  • John Jamison (Virtual Bacon-SL) Two Years of Introducing Educators to Second Life in 60 Minutes, or:Tips for Dinosaur Wrangling
  • Peggy Sheehy (Maggie Marat-SL), Catherine Parsons (Victoria Gloucster-SL), Kevin Jarrett (KJ Hax-SL) K-12 Panel: "To Affinity and Beyond: Fostering meaningful and productive relationships in a virtual reality environment"
  • Peggy Sheehy (Maggie Marat-SL) Ramapo Islands: A New Dimension in Learning
  • Lindy McKeown (Decka Mah-SL) Action Learning in Second Life


CLIP: SL Best Practices in Education - Click for some snapshots

See also other participant's pics on Flickr.

I made a number of very useful contacts between sessions - some I hope to work with as I pursue the technical, educational and policy challenges of getting access to SecondLife in my school...

The educational benefits to students were made very clear by the above presenters - and the oft repeated advice in many sessions was to get educators and technicians and policy makers in there to see and experience an immersive world for themselves.

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