It is nearly time for our August edition of Virtual Worlds Expeditions (VWEx), which will take place on Wednesday, August 5th at 10:00 AM Pacific Time (check local time). In case you missed it last month, NMC VWEx is a casual group of virtual explorers and educators meeting to discuss the impact of virtual worlds on education and vice versa through the scope of a single project. With our first expedition to Yale’s Elihu Island last month, we saw an outstanding turnout of over 70 avatars.
This time, we are going to be exploring the use of virtual worlds for research and literacy skills on Know How Island, the brainchild of Austin Community College. Know How Island engages learners in complex literary matter with gaming style interactivity and is a must see for anyone planning or thinking about a Second Life project revolving around Library Services or Educational Gaming. The serious gaming principals brought to life on Know How Island make paper writing a literal literary day at the beach!
We are honored to be joined by Martha Meacham, Ph.D, Instructional Design Specialist at Austin Community College, to discuss her experiences on designing this exciting project.
Please meet us on Know How Island at 10:00 AM Pacific Time (check local time) at the following URL:
Now that we are bringing you our second edition, there are a few tips and pointers we can give you to make your experience even more delightful:
- You’ll need a Second Life avatar account to join us. If you do not have one already, please feel free to use our customized registration portal at http://sl.nmc.org/join/. Once you register, you’ll log in at our NMC Orientation sim which will have lots of information to get you started.
- Make sure that you have voice chat enabled and are able to hear before the event starts. Voice will be the preferred method for our speakers, though you are more than welcome to discuss and ask questions directly in the chat channel. If you are new to SL voice, please see these handy guides to get you started.
- Be an early bird! The expedition “sets sail” promptly at 10:00 AM Pacific Time (check local time) and we’d hate to have anyone miss the boat due to avoidable technical issues.
- Share your photos! If you are planning to take pictures, tag them in flickr with “VWEx” so that we can all find them easily!
- It is a shame to end the discussion simply because time runs out! Please feel free to continue sharing, learning, and teaching via the comments on this blog entry and the follow-up summary, in case you miss the session.