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Second Classroom is a project to explore ways in which educators can create projects for students using immersive media such as Second Life, MMORPG and social networks to create authentic learning.

This fall TSTC will be offering a Digital Media certificate which focuses on virtual world technology and they will be using Second Life as the primary way to deliver the course content. They plan for this certificate program to lead into an associate degree (AAS) in Digital Media starting in spring 2009.

A very basic, gentle intro to virtual worlds given to academic staff (newcomers) during learning and teaching week. Sets out the affordances and social drivers that are seeing increasing use of Second Life in education

"ITSE is one of many academic organizations that is using the virtual world of Second Life to make it possible for global participants to share their knowledge. This brief tour of ITSE island and a snippet from a recent presentation, gives viewers some idea of how educators might leverage this virtual world for learning."

"What Makes a Great Teacher? Image credit: Veronika Lukasova Also in our Special Report: National: "How America Can Rise Again" Is the nation in terminal decline? Not necessarily. But securing the future will require fixing a system that has become a joke. Video: "One Nation, On Edge" James Fallows talks to Atlantic editor James Bennet about a uniquely American tradition-cycles of despair followed by triumphant rebirths. Interactive Graphic: "The State of the Union Is ..." ... thrifty, overextended, admired, twitchy, filthy, and clean: the nation in numbers. By Rachael Brown Chart: "The Happiness Index" Times were tough in 2009. But according to a cool Facebook app, people were happier. By Justin Miller On August 25, 2008, two little boys walked into public elementary schools in Southeast Washington, D.C. Both boys were African American fifth-graders. The previous spring, both had tested below grade level in math. One walked into Kimball Elementary School and climbed the stairs to Mr. William Taylor's math classroom, a tidy, powder-blue space in which neither the clocks nor most of the electrical outlets worked. The other walked into a very similar classroom a mile away at Plummer Elementary School. In both schools, more than 80 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches. At night, all the children went home to the same urban ecosystem, a zip code in which almost a quarter of the families lived below the poverty line and a police district in which somebody was murdered every week or so. Video: Four teachers in Four different classrooms demonstrate methods that work (Courtesy of Teach for America's video archive, available in February at teachingasleadership.org) At the end of the school year, both little boys took the same standardized test given at all D.C. public schools-not a perfect test of their learning, to be sure, but a relatively objective one (and, it's worth noting, not a very hard one). After a year in Mr. Taylo

"The life span of a Google query is less then 1/2 second, and involves quite a few steps before you see the most relevant results. Here's how it all works."

Similar to Second Life for primary/elementary students

Curriculum related to the use of Second Life with 9 different levels of attainment and different modules in each one. Available under a CC license. 

"Join Literature Alive! as we embark on a new project to help provide Second Life with edifying and rich literary content. "

Just coming down from the Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education conference. Held Friday, Saturday, Sunday Second Life time there was a great range of sessions, largely in traditional conference settings over several sims. What a helluva lot of planning and effort went into this. Even more impressive considering they had 16 weeks to pull it off.

THE backpacks at Albert Park College look a little small. But then everything at the school, which is entering its second year, is a little different. Students helped design the bags and point out that they do not need many books. Nor any calculators, notebooks, atlases and diaries. Instead each student has what the principal calls an "electronic pencil box": an iPad.

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

The Australian Virtual Worlds Workshop 2008 aims to present a balanced overview of online virtual worlds for educators, professionals and academics. Important Dates * Submissions Open: June 2nd 2008 * Submission Deadline: August 1st 2008 * Email Notification: September 15th 2008 * Workshop Dates: 28th and 29th November 2008