Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Oxbridge Opens Very Soon

Desmond says Oxbridge may open for new avatars as early as next week. I am now faculty for the university group -- along with everybody else in Caledon who wants to be.

Reading the Names at 911 Memorial

On Sept. 11, I read the names of the dead at Hope's 911 Memorial. SL was being awful and logins were closed. Somehow I managed to slip in, but most of the other memorial participants didn't arrive until around 10. (It just occurred to me that perhaps being a premium member paid off here.)

Since nobody was there who knew what I was supposed to do, I improvised. Found a list of the names on the web, sat down on the stage (after some hesitation) and waited to do my thing. It was a really long list -- I had forgotten how many people died that day -- over 3000 names.

This was a commemoration of the police and firefighters. Chipmunk Zhang read several poems in memory of her brother, who died in the World Trade Center. Then I got up and started reading the names. Because sit and stand animations weren't working properly for me that day, I flew up and hovered a few feet above the podium.

Long, long list - divided into sections - with people's ages and occupations as well as their names. Names from nearly every ethnic group I could think of. All kinds of occupations. Police. Firefighters. Soldiers from the Pentagon. People on vacation. Many people from one financial organization - that company must have had one of the floors the planes hit in the WTC. Old people. Several students travelling with their teacher. A mother and her children, aged 8 and 3.

I came to the end of the list of Confirmed Dead, and then realized that there was also a list Reported Dead, and it was even longer. Section after section -- think it's finished and then realize there is another one yet to come. It went on and on.

It was an amazingly moving experience to read that list. Turned out I was only supposed to read the names of police and firefighters, but I'm very glad that nobody told me that until after I had finished. I hope they ask me back to do it again next year.

AJCU Virtual Reference

I've started doing virtual reference again for our library consortium. I'm only doing it one hour per week, which is much better than two. Finding it much easier now than before, I think probably because I'm much more comfortable in text chat now.

The first week I got two questions, handled both quite easily, received much gratitude from the patrons. (When I asked one if he'd like me to stay around while he tried using a database for the first time, he was almost pathetically grateful. He was a really nice young man, probably a freshman doing his first ever research project.) Second week was totally dead, no action at all.

It's interesting to remember that the original reason I got into SecondLife was that I wanted to do virtual reference here and compare it with doing it for AJCU. Maybe someday I'll actually do that. :=)

Aug. 30 -- Offline Day

Today was the first Offline Day, a new holiday that was devised by my friend Bucky Barkley. As you might expect, Offline Day is celebrated by not touching a computer on that day. I made it until about 10pm, then succumbed and got online. Withdrawals weren't too severe -- overall it was a nice peaceful day, quiet, a bit boring -- at some point it dawned on me that this was what I typical day was like before I discovered SecondLife. :=-)

Aug. 28 - Inquiry Based Learning in SL

At this week's InfoLit meeting, North Lamar discussed Inquiry Based learning in relation to his teaching in SL (see http://educatorscoop.org/).


In RL, North is Joe Sanchez, a PhD candidate at Universityof Texas Austin. He has a unique teaching style - he uses the principles of Inquiry Based Learning to encourage his students to develop and implement a project that is meaningful to them in sl. Rather than set up exercises to teach things like building, he mainly allows the students to learn whichever skills they feel are necessary to do a good job on their projects.

The class divides itself into project groups, and each group receives some land (I think he said a 1024 parcel) for their project. They are free to do whatever they wish with the land, including terraform it. Some past projects have included holding an "SL Idol" competition (which of course required learning how to build the stage and auditorium, how to stream a live performance, how to publicise and manage an event) building a lasertag facility (required learning about different types of sl ballistics, how to build the course, how to set up a business) and several service learning projects for sl nonprofit groups.

There are common areas on North's island too, including a river (with a supply of innertubes for tubing down it -- he sometimes holds class while everyone is tubing), a carnival (including several rides and a shooting gallery), an auditorium, meeting rooms, a plaza area. He also makes parcels available to other educators at a nominal rent.