Request for Participation from Sloan Consortium

Members of SL-NET and other educators using Second Life (SL) have been invited by the Sloan Consortium to participate in planning and developing their two new islands in SL.

The intial meeting is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. SLT on Tues., Aug. 26, on Sloan Consortium 1 in SL.

For more information, go to the main page of SL-NET’s Ning social network.

SL-NET also has a mailing list and a group in SL:

Mailing List:

• To subscribe or unsubscribe and turn digest or vacation modes on and off, go to http://www.freelists.org/list/sl-net.
• To post on the mailing list, send an email to sl-net@freelists.org from the e-mail address you used when you subscribed.

SL Group:

• To join the SL-NET group in Second Life, use the Search function in SL to find the group, and then click on the Join button. There is no cost for joining.

Emerging Technology Applications for Online Learning

According to an e-mail message sent to the SLED (Second Life EDucators) listserv this morning, the Sloan Consortium “has embarked on an initiative to help online educators gain a better understanding of how the technologies available today can help make their classrooms better.” To accomplish this, Sloan-C has launched a new website. The site was designed to support Sloan-C’s upcoming conference on emerging technologies for online education, but the site and its forums are open to anyone interested in this subject, not just people who attend the conference.

SL-NET’s First Professional Development Session

On Friday, SL-NET held its first professional development activity. Shaun and the other committee members did a great job pulling it together. CDB Barkley and Max Chatnoir talked about what educators are currently doing in Secondlife. At one point, we had about 35 “people” present.

There are more pictures available at the SL-NET website.

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.

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.

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.

Sloan-C SL Activities: Committee Meeting Date and Time

Based on the responses I received, I’ve decided to hold the organizing committee meeting on Fri., Aug. 3, and a preliminary brainstorming session on Wed., Aug. 1.

Location

Both sessions will be held at the Sloan-C SL site (Teaching 48, 213, 22). Here’s the SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Teaching/48/213/22 .

Committee Meeting

The committee meeting will be held on Fri., Aug. 3, at 12 noon SLT/PDT (1 p.m. MDT, 2 p.m. CDT, 3 p.m. EDT). I plan to end the meeting after one hour.

At this meeting, I hope we can determine what type(s) of events to hold and when to hold them, schedule the first one or two events, and plan for others. If enough people are willing to help with the organizing and there is enough interest in different types of activities, we may form subcommittees to streamline the organizing process. We will also schedule the next committee meeting(s).

Brainstorming Session

People who can’t (or can) attend the committee meeting on Fri., can stop by to see me, and anyone else who’s there, to discuss any ideas on Wed., Aug.1 between 6 p.m. SLT/PDT (7 p.m. MDT, 8 p.m. CDT, 9 p.m. EDT) and 7 p.m. If enough people come, we can hold an informal brainstorming session.

Sloan-C SL Activities

We’ve had 56 responses to the questionnaire about holding events for higher-ed folks in SL. I had no idea how many to expect, but I think we’ll be able to plan and hold some interesting activities with that number.

I e-mailed everyone who completed the questionnaire to find out who would like to participate on an organizing committee and when they could meet this coming week. So far 27 people have responded, and most could make it on Friday afternoon. I scheduled the meeting then with a brainstorming session on Wednesday night for people who can’t make the meeting but want to offer suggestions.

Sloan-C Second Life Initiative

I’ve with working with the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) on a new initiative to hold networking sessions in Second Life so folks in higher ed can get to know each other better, exchange information and, at the same time, discuss some of the issues that have been raised in the SLED listserv.

Anyone who would like to participate should complete the questionnaire at http://www.sloanconsortium.org/networking_discussion/.