We’ve seen a lot of Second Life content on TV recently (crime-solving in SL on CSI: New York, broken dreams on The Office, etc.). I read an article on Reuters Second Life today about TV moving into SL. For some time there’s been a version of Big Brother in Second Life. It wasn’t new, but [...]

As a relatively new community member of Second Life, I have been grappling with the idea of social norms and how they are applied “Inworld.” Is real life actually that separate from Second Life when it comes to social norms? Should it be? How is etiquette defined? We are dealing with avatars from around the [...]

On Thursday night, The Office (the best show on TV) had a hysterical scene about Second Life. Its amazing to see so many TV connections with Second Life. It makes me wonder if these connections were always there and I never noticed it, and now its more evident because of this class?One of the funniest [...]

SceneCaster is a space in which people can build a variety of 3-D environments and avatars, and then share their spaces with one another via Flickr and Facebook. While I explored SceneCaster’s website, I have not played with it yet, but I think that there are definitely educational/instructional possibilities here!

San Diego, California Fires – See Smoke in Google Earth While learning about the fires that are affecting my friends and fellow classmates in California, I found some very useful information provided by Google Maps*. The NOAA has provided many satellite images (events, web site). CNN has also been using Google Earth to show maps [...]

CSI:NY is integrating into the world of Second Life on Wednesday, October 24! According to an article by TechCrunch author, Duncan Riley, the upcoming episode of this already popular show should persuade millions of new people to check out Second Life. CBS has set up several inworld activities allowing users to play forensic games, win [...]

October 11, 2007 | Second Life + Google + IBM = Open Source Avatars? By David Cassel It’s like a science fiction story. Your avatar escapes Second Life, and prowls the internet, exploring new worlds and splurging its Second Life Linden currency on other online products. It hits the other virtual worlds — World of [...]

Online worlds to be AI incubators By Mark Ward Technology Correspondent, BBC News website Artificial environments could be great places for AI’s to learn Online worlds such as Second Life will soon become training grounds for artificial intelligences. Researchers at US firm Novamente have created software that learns by controlling avatars in virtual worlds. Initially [...]

Online worlds to be AI incubators By Mark Ward Technology Correspondent, BBC News website Artificial environments could be great places for AI’s to learn Online worlds such as Second Life will soon become training grounds for artificial intelligences. Researchers at US firm Novamente have created software that learns by controlling avatars in virtual worlds. Initially [...]

Online worlds to be AI incubators By Mark Ward Technology Correspondent, BBC News website Artificial environments could be great places for AI’s to learn Online worlds such as Second Life will soon become training grounds for artificial intelligences. Researchers at US firm Novamente have created software that learns by controlling avatars in virtual worlds. Initially [...]

Just wanted to post some interesting sites I found that show a growing trend of gaming as a learning tool. Games and exampleshttp://ww.acmi.net.au/games_lab.aspx http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/games/ http://www.gamequarium.com/ Companieshttp://www.kinection.com/index.html http://www.muzzylane.com Articles/Blogshttp://blogoehlert.typepad.com/eclippings/gaming_learning/index.html http://popcosmo.org http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showstoryts.cfm?Articleid=6799

Arctic Transect 2004, an Educational Exploration of Nunavut (AT2004), is an adventure-learning program that connected 3,000,000 students around the world.College of Education and Human Development in University of Minnesota and Nomads Adventure and Education supported the learning program. A team of six educators and explorers traveled by dogsled from Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada across the [...]

Over the summer I had a great experience with Cathy Arreguin in her EDTEC 700 course on Multi-User Virtual Environments. During that class we had to find and attend an instructional class or session presented in Second Life. The learning event I attended was led by Anders Gronstedt, the owner of the Gronstedt Group which [...]

Janet and I are Instructional Designers at TIAA-CREF. Each year we are engaged in training hundreds of financial consultants and advisors. Many companies are facing the same challenges as TIAA-CREF: training the gamer generation. This article is an eye opener. It came out around the same time as “Teaching Facts With Fun, Online Games”. “The [...]

Janet and I are Instructional Designers at TIAA-CREF. Each year we are engaged in training hundreds of financial consultants and advisors. Many companies are facing the same challenges as TIAA-CREF: training the gamer generation. This article is an eye opener. It came out around the same time as “Teaching Facts With Fun, Online Games”. “The [...]

Early 2006, Karl M. Kapp wrote an article titled “Teaching Facts With Fun.” He talked about using simple online games to help new employees in corporate American and the government learn the fundamental facts about the company, the products, and services. Read more here http://www.learningcircuits.org/2006/February/kapp.htm Recently, Karl wrote “Defining and Understanding Virtual Worlds” where he [...]

Well, I decided to check out some music, but apparently 3:00 in the afternoon isn’t the time to do that. I’ll have to check it out later in the evening… I also tried to go to a bunch of the sites listed in the beginner’s guide, but I couldn’t get into the Second Louvre…not sure [...]

One of my eighth grade students showed me this website. I checked it out and found some very fascinating learning opportunities. There are some violent games there and some games that seemed to be of an adult theme. Most of the games however, seemed safe enough. I played this game called ‘Revenge of the Stick’. [...]

Hi folks, Wired Magazine’s website has a great article about “therapy tiles” which provide patients with a game-like method for conducting their physical therapy. The article describes common physical therapy activites as “tedious” and “monotonous,” but describes these therapy tiles as a method for engaging patients which actually achieves flow, thus speeding the patient’s recovery [...]