[conf] Getting Started in Second Life @NMC2008
I have recently returned from my first NMC (New Media Consortium) conference, held this year at Princeton University. Besides such highlights such as hearing Henry Jenkins speak and learning a little more about the Wonderland project, I was able to speak to a packed room about Global Kids’ Best Practices for getting started in Second Life.
My goals, or takeaways, for the audience were:
1. to have a better picture of how an educational experience could look in Second Life
2. resources needed for becoming part of the community of educators in SL and information on processes and procedures
3. to be aware and armed for some of the pitfalls of using SL in education
I thought this group would be a perfect audience to introduce to RezEd.org - so I organized a list of resources on my blog page there, a Second Life Toolbox, hoping the community would add more!
I was surprised to have a packed room of about 25 folks - with seating for only 20! When polling the audience I found that most of the audience (all but about 3-4) described themselves as higher ed. There was a good mix of educators, administrators and media specialist types. Surprisingly, at least 75% were new to Second Life (did not yet have an avatar of their own). My assumption had been that many at the NMC conference would already have a good feel for Second Life.
The audience had some expected questions - such as SL systems requirements, and where to find land for their project. One question I found interesting was around the topic of gender - and if we found the interaction of males and females different in the virtual world than we do in a ‘real’ classroom. This led to an interesting tangent on gender selection in avatars (including non-human choices).
My slides can be viewed on Slideshare here but of course they are a lot less interesting without me :)
