ITC eLearning Conference in St. Petersburg, FL on February 16-19

This is the first of several entries on the workshops and presentations I attended at the ITC Conference

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Feb. 16^th Saturday afternoon

Note: the first event I attended at the conference was an afternoon workshop on Second Life

Workshop: Second Life

The presenter gave us a link to his Second Life links: Blu Baraka. Some good stuff here.

Notes:

- Look into the Ivory Tower of primitive objects—ready made objects.

- Look into Notecards . . . as a way to drop off assignments in a writing class.

- Check out freebie warehouse—another place to get objects for your in-world space.

- There is the problem of a steep learning curve with Second Life. One suggestion: Have a free class for students who want to learn Second Life. The objective: personalization and community.

Ideas for teaching writing in Second Life:

- Since online students are at a distance in respect to each other, Second Life could provide a place where they can discuss a topic in real time and “see” one another.

- In a writing class students could do research in-world on identity and other cultural aspects of Second Life. Then they could come back to the relative safety of the Second Life classroom (see below) to discuss what they found and to drop off papers for their classmates to read and review and for the teacher to grade.

A small teaching space (a room) can be purchased in Second Life for $9 with additional maintenance fee. I'm going to look into it.

We were told about a listserv for Second Life. Here is an announcement of an interesting up coming event from that second life listserv: .

April 22 - 6PM - Newbie Q&A - Teaching Tips - OLN Island
Location: http://slurl.com/secondlife/OLN%20Island/126/126/27

So you want to teach a class using Second Life? Get advice from seasoned veterans about bringing students in-world for the first time!

• Avoid common pitfalls and misconceptions

• Learn tips and tricks to make the course session successful

• How to bring existing course materials (websites, PPTs, videos) in-world

• How to track student activity in your virtual classroom

• Discuss appropriate language for your syllabus regarding expectations and behavior