Just had a wonder time being a panelist for the first Second Life? pre-conference event for the Learning 2.008 conference in Shanghai (Sept 18-20). This was also my first experience in a speaking roll on Second Life, and it wasn’t half bad. In the picture, moving from left to right, they are Chris Smith (Bangkok), Myself (Raleigh), Jeff Utecht (Bangkok), CogDog Alan Levine (Denver I think he said), and David Gann (Shanghai).
It was great fun with a lot of conversation about RSS, tags, social networks, and new learning. I’m even more excited about the upcoming Shanghai event than before.
I also attended this session this morning and enjoyed the chat between everyone.
I hope that all of you have a grand time in Shanghai and am very happy that we will be able to tag along via ustreams, blogs, wikis, twitter, and more.
RW
I have heard tons about second life. Short sighted school administrators aside, what applications does it have for the classroom assuming that I can get around the content filter?
Jury’s still out, as far as I’m concerned — and unless SL does something pretty dramatic like creating a classroom only service, it likely will not be Second Life.
But some of the presentation I saw at NECC this year were fairly compelling, especially students who were using it to create machinimas.
For me, the value is in the building. SL has a fairly accessisble programming language that can be used to build applications on SL that utilize the mathematics that most middle schoolers are learning. If the programming language could be simplified or in some other way made more appropriate for learners, then that would be the draw for educators.
I may have mentioned that I worked in a school in Minneapolis last week (or week before) that was using OpenSim, an open source virtual worlds application that can be downloaded and installed on local networks. The have been using it for art, but are planning to add physics, since the natural laws of the OpenSim environment can be altered.
But — time will tell…