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Satirical video promoting real life meetings over virtual meetings. Good video to use to introduce discussion of affordances of virtual meetings.

San Diego State University's Aztlan Island in Second Life even calendar. Please respect other class meetings!

This island is a great way to stay informed about current CDC trends. It is place to meet with those that have similar ailments. Judging by the calendar that is available on the informational walkwayt, it looks as if they hold meetings or conferences with individuals that may be suffering from specific diseases. It is calming and peaceful environment, with sounds of birds chirping and refreshing landscape scenery to enjoy while visiting.

This is an excellent site that would be great for educators or business people who want to improve their virtual skills, expand their virtual contacts, or hold meetings. This site was created and is maintained by a university in the UK. I found a place for educators to make appointments to get help for improving their skills in the virtual world, many educational tools such as interactive slide shows and art exhibits, and a group I could join that connected me with other like-minded educators. The site was easy to navigate, well-designed, and loaded with content. Even though I spent nearly two hours here, I felt as though I barely scratched the surface. The only thing that I still find a bit odd is that I do not know why the title is Sexual Health SIM. I did not find anything related to health care. But again, there is so much more that I did not search.

My design document included an idea of connecting my senior students in Multicultural Literature class to students in another part of the country or even another part of the world. The goal of the class is to learn about other cultures and SL allows teachers to collaborate with other teachers to do this--inexpensively. The link above is to an article entitled "Student Exchange, Without the Jet Lag: Educational Collaboration in a Virtual World." The article details how students in Modesto, California connect with students in Kyoto, Japan -- it's called the Pacific Rim Exchange. They meet in Teen Second Life on a group of private islands. Eventually, these students will meet in person, however, they get to know each other virtually before they do.

Sun Microsystems has done a lot of work in Second Life, and I visited part of their island. It was very interesting, because it showed their approach to moving portions of their business into a virtual world. They have a mix of customer-facing exhibits that include videos and product information, and resources for employees to meet together. Overall, I think they could take advantage of the interactive features of Second Life, but it's good to see companies using virtual worlds in interesting ways. Sun Microsystems was recently purchased by Oracle. It will be interesting to see how it affects Sun's presence in Second Life.

The main reason for inclusion in the top 10 was the impact a game had on the educational gaming field. Some of these are getting rather long in the tooth as far as games go, yet their impact is still being felt in educational research that was foundational or continues to be published.

Great site for kids who want to explore the world and its geography virtually. Kids get to "meet" people from the past and enrich their knowledge of the world around them. For kids ages 7 to 14.

A table (list) of over 100 science related places in Second LIfe. Includes SLURLS. If you are looking for a science related location to visit and report on, this is a super list to check out.

This is excellent. I went to the planetarium and was able to view the night sky from the perspective of Australians. What a great experience for students to have! They put on a presentation that includes history of the telescope, Galileo, current research in space, and ancient views on the stars. The night sky just opens up. It is if you are sitting at the top of the world.

Thank you for sharing. I visited a few differect locations. It was interesting to see how some were more of just a meeting place and some were very interactive and informational.

This is the best site I found. You are greeted by a sign and welcome notecard that describes the origins of the project and how it has grown to over 100 region and explains the vision of the project:"… has been to inspire and influence future development, to expand working knowledge, to showcase creativity and ideas, and to encourage collaboration both inside and outside of Second Life." You can instantly access a map that allows you to teleport to the location of your choice including four different teaching sites, one for the arts a conference center, Learning, and Red Rocks. There are a multitude of resources here for the educator. Everywhere you turn around there are billboard that advertise upcoming events, signs that connect you to groups, and free things to collect. There are many places to hold meetings from small and intimate rooms to large amphitheaters.

I liked the idea of this second life campus created by Free-Ed.net. Free self paced courses are provided for students who are interested in learning a variety of higher level topics. I like this idea because it gives people a taste of study in another major. For example, if you are interested in pursuing a degree in history, the courses through free-ed give you a taste of what work in that degree may entail. There is even content for students preparing to take the GED, AP, or SAT exams. The second life forum also allows students to meet in rooms to study for exams or discuss course content.

One of the greatest challenges we face as high school physical education teachers is getting our students to be motivated. Although it is costly to have this sort of virtual reality equipment at our school, it is something that we can possibly plan for the future and have as an activity for days in which our teaching areas are affected by rainy day, construction, testing, or for students who cannot have long exposure to the sun. Sounds fun ☺

Yeah, I think in PE (or in any content area), finding a way to connect with our students and motivate them is crucial. I envision being able to integrate a Wii game system with a 3D Muve so that our students will actually have to be physically active in order to move their avatar in the virtual world,

Carolina, Does the P.E. curriculum call for daily physical activity? Perhaps one or two days a week students can meet in a computer lab and work in SL. They could build a gym, and post fitness goals on its walls. Also, there are many web sites out there that they could use to calculate calories in and calories out. Just a thought... Great article. ;)

Excellent Ning-based resource for teacher and student cross-collaboration. Its aim is to promote the use of virtual worlds as educators. Blog, video, photo, and SLURL meeting locations make this a great one-stop shop for ideas on incorporating second life into the curriculum.