Monday, October 26
1:30 PM-5:00 PM
UTC

What You Need to Know about Second Life (Bring Your Own Laptop advised)

Workshop ID: 26520
  1. aaa
    Kevin Feenan
    Rockcliffe University Consortium

Abstract: This workshop is a tour and examination of Second Life for educators that explores the various possibilities of the platform including its strengths and limitations through a guided demonstration. Attendees can following along either in the conference facilities or within Second Life. The tour will include interviews with some of the key players within Second Life that enable and promote education including members on staff with Linden Research, the makers of the Second Life platform.

Objectives

The objectives of this workshop are to introduce new and existing educators to the various technologies that make up Second Life and then to engage people in a dialogue both in Second Life and at the conference in terms of the advantages and disadvantages of each and how they can be applied to classroom settings and research. By the end of this tutorial participants should be able to describe to their administrations the advantages and disadvantages of using Second Life as one is an a series of tools to augment the learning process.

Topical Outline

The general outline of the workshop will be broken into six parts. 1) General introduction to the environment and its constructs, 2) Establishing the context of the teaching environment, 3) How dialogues and literary spaces develop, 4) Engaging students through practices, 5) defining knowledge assets and resources for educators and researchers, and 6) discussion of lived experiences from those actually doing education and research within Second Life today.

Prerequisites

The intended audience is fairly broad in that the workshop will cover topics at various levels which will provide the beginning researcher or instructor to Second Life a grounded base in which to make appropriate use of the environment quickly. The workshop will also appeal to more advanced users of the Second Life environment as the environment itself is constantly evolving and new ideas / mechanisms for best practices are being identified on almost a daily basis. Participants wishing to follow along inside Second Life must bring their own laptops with them however a laptop will not be a prerequisite for participation for those following along in the conference room.

Experience Level

Beginner

Qualifications

Kevin Feenan, (SL: Phelan Corrimal) is the President of Rockcliffe University Consortium, a completely virtual organization which has been teaching and conducting research into virtual environments since 2006. Kevin has co-presented several papers on student and organizational accountability at past conferences and authored the paper "crossing the real-life/second-life divide" presented at the 2008 eLearn World Conference. Kevin has served as the general conference chair of the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 2009 SL Conference held in Second Life which drew over 70 academic papers and a participant base of some 4500 people in March, 2009. Kevin received an MBA from the University of Toronto in 2001 with specialization in international business strategy and is also working towards a Doctorate in Organizational Design and Leadership through the University of Phoenix.
Conference attendees are able to comment on papers, view the full text and slides, and attend live presentations. If you are an attendee, please login to get full access.
x