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Happy Steve blog post chronicling ongoing student work on a Second Life Teen Grid Island. Booralie Island is the virtual extension of a Christian school located in Sydney, Australia. Their island is largely student created and used for many different subjects. Happy Steve is also a great example of a technology infused enthusiastic teacher. This post details students building a war memorial, scripted recording studio, coliseum ... on their own time and after school.

This SLOODLE (Simulation Linked Object Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) blog comments on and gives examples of using the plug-in SLOODLE to interface and integrate SL with Moodle. This is an open source project. The blog provides excellent tutorials explaining how this application works, and as you watch them, you start to imagine all the different ways you might apply these tools to the classroom. This site contains many ideas and examples for the classroom use of a VR as well as other web-based tools. One example of this is the dropbox for leaving notecard assignments. Once dropped, the notecard appears in the teacher's Moodle account. Once graded, the student immediately receives an email. Another paper describes using SL to teach engineering and then using the SLOODLE to track students' in-world laboratory participation and link it to the teacher's moodle. So we are seeing the virtual world integrating with the real world. http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sloodle/126/94/23

NPR always has something great to teach. This was a great story about how virtual environments are used to make the world a safer place.

Awesome sight visually! You HAVE to find the docks and then rent a free jetski. You can cruise all through the canyons, rivers, etc. Tons to see, super fun! You feel like you're really there!

Lengthy, but interesting article on sims and virtual worlds. Reminiscent of Bernie & Karl's game course.

Very comprehensive SL community of Ancient Rome. Very colorful, avatar guide your through for information on Roman history, role-play and archaeology. Listed as one of top 30 SLURL locations from "Second Life: Places to Visit blog" http://slurls.blogspot.com/2007/09/top-30-places-to-visit-in-second-life.html

This one is pretty cool. I like how you can choose a bunch of different roles to play - senator, charioter, etc. This landmark is much like a webquest - lots of adventures and options for all learners to enjoy.

I found this use of virtual reality to be very interesting. At George Mason University, professor Chris Dede has helped create a collection of three virtual worlds that allow students to see the interaction of molecules, gravity and electrostatic fields from an up-close perspective. Students are able to become the ball that gets thrown and see what happens to it when it collides with another object. Students can also become a hydrogen or oxygen molecule and see what happens as they combine to create a drop of water.

At a young age, children believe the earth is flat. The simulation allows students to discover the shape of the earth and its implications. For instance, students can see how movement and the relativity of up and down works on the earths surface.

This is an article on the establishment of an NBA store in Second Life, one of the first of its kind back in 2007 during the NBA Finals. According to the article, you can buy digital shoes and jerseys. I tried to find the store, but was unable to locate it.

This post details possible causes of low performance for those accessing virtual worlds with low end computers. This is just one of many design considerations when designing a virtual environment for a specific learning audience. Short story: The more graphics a computer needs to "see" (ie: load), the slower it is going to run.