Identity - What does it mean in second life, well I did the worst tonight I identified a friend by their real name in a in a SL group he was having problems with his speaker and was just trying to help hmmmm. and said $#$#$# this is how you use the voice function doh. The other thing which I have found amusing is my avatar purplegrrl has more of a net presence than my RL identity hmmmm.
Author Archive for purplegrrl
04
Jun
Who are you again
19
May
Why Second Life ?
As you saw from my last post I am currently involved in a group assignment to create an educational community in Second Life. After observing and being a participating in a couple of those community I thought to myself “Wow by the end of my masters I may really be able to create one of these worlds (or islands) and use it for both educational and social networking purposes” I have been playing and using web since 1995 and when I look at Second Life and other multi-user virtual environments and think look how far we come. Anyway I digress (as I often do when writing my blog posts)
Anyway on Saturday I was chatting to a group of students from the E-learning experience class (who is in a another group) and one of them asked me “why Second life I cannot see the educational benefit” and I said there is a perception that places like Second Life are just places where people to cyber date (and other things which I will not go into as I do not want to lose my PG rating on this blog) or social network. I see it so much more than that and 200 educational universities and educational institutions that use Second Life obviously also agree. (Kelton 2007: 3)
I thought why not Second Life as adult educators isn’t it important to use every tool that is available to us provide educational experiences that are both simulating and relevant
” According to metrics data published on July 10 2007, by meta Linden over 26 per cent of those who have Second Life Accounts are between 18 and 24 years old and another 38 per cent are between 25 and 34″ ( Kelton 2007: 3)
As adult educators demographically our students are the group who uses Second Life.
The exciting part of SANJT project is that it demonstrates to non users of Second Life how beneficial this medium can be. A nursing student who lives in a remote area can experience on one level the different scenarios that they will encounter when they are actually in a hospital without them having to make a costly trip to the main university campus (which may be 200km away case in point Southern Cross University).
This is not to say that Second Life is the be all and end all but it should not be discounted because of stereotypes that are promoted by the media (the media has been doing this since the internet has been being used on a mass scale).
References
Kelton, AJ 2007, Second Life: reaching into the virtual world for real-world learning, EDUCAUSE, accessed 7 May 2008, <http://connect.educause.edu/Library/ECAR/SecondLifeReachingintothe/44919>.
17
May
Group work
We are now onto the next assignment we are still in second life but this time we are creating our own community. We are looking using second life to help nurses who remote from their university to participate in clinical practice. Am a bit out of practice writing story boards but am am excited about this project have so much reading to do 
I must admit I thought observing a learning community would be much easier than it really is. The first problem I have found is sometimes when there is an learning event I am unable to attend as I have other commitments (mainly work) as many of you may have read in my previous blog entry I am studying a group in second life. Like most people I can only attend these events in my spare time (which seems less and less these days) as I cannot down load second life on my work computer and have a play/or be part of the learning interaction. the second problem is That I have been easily distracted by the other things on second life namely going to parties have learnt a lot about how people interact on this medium but not really helping with my assignment. Thirdly finding time to read the readings so I can situate my experiences intotheoretical framework. Has anyone else had these problems so I am alone in this dilemma?
Last weekend I attended the Jokaydian April festival. You may think where is Jokaydia I have never heard of this place is it in the south coast some where one of those hippy towns or is it a Star Trek planet But no Jokaydia is a island in Second Life.
“The Islands of jokaydia in Second Life is owned and operated by Jo Kay aka jokay Wollongong. It was launched in September 2007 and aims to provide a space to explore the uses of virtual worlds in education, the arts and social change. The Islands of jokaydia are self-funded and support a range of events, activities and services. We also host a vibrant community of educators and artists as part of our rental community on the Island.
The Island of jokaydia is designed to provide a flexible and dynamic space for educators in Second Life which includes informal and formal meeting spaces, plus a range of interesting objects and tools to explore. Our space is designed to assist new residents to gain competency and confidence in using the Second Life interface - whilst they are having fun! We also support mixed reality events, professional development activities and a number of other projects” http://jokaydia.com/about-jokaydia/
I have been hanging around Jokaydia for a while and chatting with Jokay Wollongong who is the administrator of Jokaydia. Even joined the Facebook group. Anyway after must consideration I decided to change my group for the assignment as my group Teacher Buzz only met once or twice a month and they were in San Francisco it just was not practical. So I have digressed.
Anyway I went to a couple of sessions at the April Festival. The Educator in residence Leroy Goalpost discussed his project creating a living space out of trucking containers and how the simulation in Second Life could be translated into Real Life or First Life. He also talked about home schooling and de-schooling society which to be seems like a model of social learning that may be interesting to investigate.
It was only my second experience in a so called “virtual” classroom so really I did not know how to behave as I am so accustomed to the model of teacher in front of the classroom you sit still be quiet and when it is time to participate then you can. I asked Jo is it okay to get up and look at the project as I did not want to appear rude while the presenter was talking. She said go ahead the etiquette of the virtual classroom is such a different kettle of fish. The one think that has not changed is participants did not speak. They did use the chat function to text questions but the participants did not use the functionality that allows them to speak using their real voice to ask questions of the presenter Like in the RL/FL participants still feel nervous to speak (This includes me). Won the lucky door prize at the festival RL cool tee very happy
Anyway will write more as I get more involved and will post some pictures
09
Apr
Elearning
Well I must admit I have not written as much as I would like on this Blog. Have been using my web “immersion time” in Second Life more than writing on my blog. Which I know it is a danger. About to finish my first assignment forgotten how hard it is to write 750 words not 3000. So hopefully in the next couple of weeks this Blog will be full of my ideas on the nature of social learning and E learning in general.
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