Here I am at Danish Visions, an educational island I've discussed before, designed by Tonny Halderman for his business school. I liked the horse so much that Tonny told me where I could buy one of my own - but now I can't find the horse I bought!
(it's a bit harder to misplace a real horse)
Since the surrender of my vocal virginity, I've made only a few other forays into SL since then and I am surprised at how few avatars seem to be using voice chat. It may be that the technology needs a bit of development or it may be our bandwidth limits, but voice has not been as popular as I had expected it would be.
I am preparing to attend the CCCC Convention with Iggy in New Orleans, LA where we will be presenting some of our research about/in Second Life. During our presentation, we will have our avatars meet on the University of Richmond island along with some of the avatars of students who have done some of this exploration with us.
While Iggy has used SL in his "Literature, Technology & Society" course, I've been using it mostly separate from my courses, instead relying on two groups of independent student researchers: high school seniors who attended University of Richmond's Summer Scholars program and university freshmen and sophomores, My Summer Scholars agreed to interview other avatars about their experiences in SL and their thoughts about its educational potential. My university students are exploring educational sites, testing the offerings, interviewing local avatars and taking a few snapshots.
Students then posts their avatar-findings in our research blog and some join us at the convention on April 2 as avatars in Second Life, on the University of Richmond's island.
the symposium of the future?....
