The one afternoon plan for SecondLife

In this month's TechProof column for Education world, I committed to compiling a list of "must-see" sights for educators in SecondLife. Of course, it was in May when I wrote this and had the luxury of knowing I had all summer to spend hours and hours in the MUVE as BlueSkunk Johnson.

Ah, but how quickly the summer has passed and how little time I actually got to spend as an avatar. With my limited experience, from reading the blogs of Ryan Bretag and Kevin Jarrett, attending presentations by Lisa Perez and just being a collector of the odd article, I complied the list below. So, if you had but an afternoon to spend in SecondLife, where would you go? How about...?

1. ISTE Skypark Social
2. NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory
3. InfoIsland and InfoIsland 2 (Science Fiction Library)
   
4. Temple of Isis (example of a historical replica)
5. Island of Svarga
6. British Literature Classroom
7. Boracay
8. Teacher Networking Center
9. Ramaposlands Project (In Teen SecondLife)
   
10. ?
    

OK, here's the question: what should be dropped and what should be added? Or just nominate a number 10. Remember the audience for this column is regular educators - classroom teachers, librarians, building administrators - not techies.

Thanks for your ideas.

Just so I have them all in one place, here are my primary resources for Second Life for educators: 

• Chicago Public Schools Department of Libraries and Information Services in Second Life
• ISTE in SecondLife 
  
• Lighthouse Learning Island
  
• Second Life in Education
  
• Sites of interest to educators in Second Life edumuve.com
  
• SLTutorials.net 
• Top 20 Educational Locations in Second Life
  

Thanks to Lisa Linn and Kevin Jarrett for responses to an earlier e-mail on this topic!

 
A map of NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory

Comments

[Doug Johnson]

(Post on behalf of Sean with permission.)

Hi Doug,

I prefer to highlight locations that provide the 'Wow!' factor and showcase what 3D immersive environments are capable of delivering. You can always show them the less impressive (albeit practical) sites where educators hang out once you've got 'em hooked! :-)

I'd certainly include the International Spaceflight Museum and Genome Island. A few great sites that haven't yet made it into our list of Educational Uses of Second Life would be the Dresden Gallery, the Sistine Chapel Re-creation on Vassar Island and Virtual Starry Night - Vincent's Second Life.

Sean FitzGerald