Several Penn folks from different schools have been meeting every so often to discuss Second Life and other virtual worlds. Here at the Weigle Information Commons, we have rented some space on a library-focused island – this SL space looks much like the real commons with a central conference area suitable for a class or meeting of up to 20 people and two data diner booths with six seats each. Three video screens in the space can play any quicktime video on the web. We welcome interested folks to join the Penn Libraries group and start to hold events in Second Life.
So far, we have held several beginner workshops (how to walk, chat and fly in Second Life) and one building workshop by the builder of our space, Tim Allen. There seems to be broad interest in Second Life as people try to figure out what role it could play at Penn. Our online resource links to some educational resources.
This Halloween, we will try our first SL event – an avatar contest to go with the Penn Reading Project’s Inner Fish activities. Do you have suggestions on how to reach students who may be interested in Second Life avatar building?
Categories: Classroom Activities, New Technologies, Software, Student Projects, Weigle Information Commons
Tags: avatar, inner fish, reading, role-playing, second life, space, virtual, world
I have begun exploring push technologies recently and wanted to share my experiences. Keeping up with new developments in my areas of interest has often been difficult, especially since instructional technology always seems to have new trends. I began by creating an iGoogle page where I added feeds of interest to me including the Penn Calendar and NMC Campus Observer. I explored Google Gadgets such as “Your Daily Al”. I created my own Google Gadget – surprisingly easy. I added RSS feeds from blogs I read occasionally – now my home page has headlines of new posts.
One aspect I love is the creation of customized alerts. You can make your own at Google Alerts (Beta) and put in phrases – topics, names of people, organizations. You will then receive daily or weekly alerts when web content containing your phrase is posted. You may get too many hits with a common phrase, but I have found this effective with targeted search terms. For example, my Google alert for the phrase “Weigle Information Commons” led me to a new architectural website that I may never have learned about otherwise.
