Naturum Island

TP to Naturum Island

Orientation Island

Orientation Island

Paris 1900 in SL

Teleport to Paris 1900 in SL

Africa in SL


Teleport to Africa

The West Of Ireland in SL

Teleport to the West of Ireland in SL

The West of Ireland promotes Irish and Celtic culture within Second Life, while raising funds for Project Children and providing an entertaining environment for guests. These estates are owned by the South Texas Celtic Music Association (STCMA) which is a recognised 501(c)3 nonprofit organisation with both the US government and Linden Labs.

Project Children was started in 1975 as a way to bring Catholic and Protestant children from Northern Ireland together. At the time the organization was founded, Northern Ireland was strewn with political strife and violence. Denis Mulcahy and his brother Pat, originally from County Cork and then New York, took action and founded Project Children. Each summer since its inception, Project Children has brought children that show promising futures to the United States to live with host families. These children get to know each other and see that there is little difference between them. They learn that they can live together even with their differences and not only that, but actually become friends. So far Project Children has brought over 14,000 children from Northern Ireland to the United States for summer vacations with more than 600 children per year now participating. Your donation will help cover the cost of flights for these well deserving children.

Development Education in SL

One of the outcomes of our research has been the creation of the Second Life group - "Development Education in SL"; the ideas supporting this initiative were presented in a recent paper:

"Project Murias: Making a Second Life difference to the Real Life Development Education Community in Ireland".

This paper was presented, in-world, at the recent conference SLEDcc08 in September (See the wiki and the Social Network, RezEd) and the slides for the presentation can be found on SlideShare.net. There is also a supporting wiki for the in-world group "Development Education in SL".

Development Education Groups and Places in Second Life

"ONE SL"

The SL Group - "ONE SL" is a virtual affiliation of The ONE Campaign--an effort to rally Americans and human beings from all over the globe to fight the emergency of global AIDS and extreme poverty. Visit www.one.org for more information.

"Better World"

From Development Education in SL

Better World: Displays on water habitats, Peace Tiles, Camp Dafur, and Peaceful Tomorrows; learn how we can make the world a better place

Second Life Basics - Cool Places to Visit

Second Life Basics - Cool Places to Visit Notecard is provided by the NCI/New Citizens Incorporated on Help Island at the Info Centre:



The "Cool Places to Visit" Notecard contains Embedded Notecards which include Notecards, Pictures (Textures) and Objects, you may need to save the Notecard and reopen from your Inventory to access these additional items.

This Notecard is edited by Blu Laszlo and contributions by Natalia Zelmanov (See Blog) and supplemented by Carl Metropolitan, Dylan Rickenbacker, Deyanira Yalin and Blu Laszlo.

This Notecard is structured into the following sections:

• HELP AND EDUCATION
• FREE (OR NEARLY FREE) STUFF
• BEAUTIFUL PLACES AND SOCIAL HANGOUTS
• REAL WORLD
• REAL LIFE BUSINESSES WITH A PRESENCE IN SL
• ROLE-PLAYING
• THINGS TO SEE AND DO
• CULTURE AND ART
• THEME-BASED SIMS

In total this Notecard lists over a hundred places to visit.

As an academic and personal advocate of Second Life I can list a dozen places which I recommend as must see:

For learning more about Second Life:

• NCI
• Info Island
• Academy of Second Learning: Free classes about Second Life

For Freebies

• The Free Dove
• Yadni's Junkyard

General Beauty and Interesting Places to go:

• Dublin - A replica of Dublin in SL, complete with many of the popular tourist spots

• Paris 1900: Paris with Eiffel Tower, Moulin Rouge, French cafe, shopping, and real French people
  

• West of Ireland: An Irish-themed residential sim, complete with an Irish pub, art galleries, and the best surfing (yes, surfing) this side or Ireland

• NASA - NASA CoLab Headquarters on Nasa CoLab island in the Scilands.

• NOAA: U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

• Second Louvre Museum

• Lost Garden of Apollo

Other Web Resources

Second Seeker - Unofficial Second Life Reviews
http://secondseeker.com/

Mermaid Diaries
http://www.mermaiddiaries.com/

Lane's List
http://laneslist.blogspot.com/

Dublin Second Life (SL)

On the Cool Places to visit notecard, one area of interest is Dublin SL this place is a mini recreation of Trinity College Dublin and the surrounding areas.

Please click on the following link to log into Second Life at Dublin SL at the start of the Walkway:

Dublin SL - Walkway Introduction to SL

The walkway provides simple step by step introduction to the basics of Second Life.

Creating Learning Spaces in SL

I found a the following link to

50 Tips and Tricks to Create a Learning Space in Second Life.

and also blogged by Karl Kapp; who also identifies that it is really a listing of great SL resources and ideas broken down by different categories such as:

• Training Purposes--Employers and educators who want to train new hires or test their students can use Second Life in a number of ways.
  
  
• Blogs and Websites--Turn to these blogs for tips, services and tools when setting up a learning space in Second Life.
  
  
• Examples of Second Life in Education--Follow these real-life Second Life projects from Stanford, Harvard Law School and even a New York middle school to start your own studies or get students of all ages involved in Second Life.
  
  
• More Tips and Ideas--From Campus: Second Life to designing your own planetarium to creating games for history class, this list features even more tips and fun ideas.
  
  
• Resources--These tutorials and guides are designed especially for educators who want to create an effective learning space in Second Life.
  
  
• Second Life Tools for Teaching--Learn how to create your own prims, make use of virtual camera tools and discover SL features to make the most of your virtual classroom.
  
  
• Communication Tools--These teaching tools to help distance learning educators, college professors and other teachers communicate with students through Second Life more easily and effectively.

Virtual Solutions to Real World Problems

I do have the "wow" factor when it comes to using "Second Life" as a social game, and as an educational tool, obviously I am part of the converted and speaking from the position of the converted.

I do realize, accept, however, that as convinced as I am, others are not and the arguments do need to be made for adoption and experimentation, and if not "Second Life" its equivalent, but thats for another day and another blog!

I saw this article about "Virtual Solutions to Real Problems", from the "Serious Games Initiative" and I was "wow"ed again!

This virtual video tour, see below for the actually video, looks at:

• Eolus One, where a virtual world energy management system is reducing energy consumption in real-world buildings;
• Etopia Eco-village which showcases sustainable architecture and sustainable living;
• the Avatar Action Center that seeks to educate Second Life residents about sustainability issues and empower them to take action in their real lives; and
• Second Chance Trees where residents plant virtual trees that trigger the planting of endangered tree species worldwide.

Please do follow the link and read the article and of course take the tour !

Murias Slide Show

Creating a MUVE for Development Education

Murias is an Island created for Teachers to explore Second Life for use in their teaching practice for Development Education.

Funded by Irish Aid
Three Year Project
Principle Investigator: Tim Savage
Supported from Education by Ann Fitzgibbon

The strategic aims of this programme of work are:

• to create a MUVE with rich resources, artefacts, and experiential learning experiences.
• to promote and disseminate the work and ethos of the agencies concerned.
• to provide inputs and artefacts from global and local communities perspectives.

To achieve these strategic aims the programme of work is broken down into three phases for Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3 and a number of streams of work:

• the creation of two islands: Teachers Island and Student Island populated with rich content from Development Education resources and provide areas for exploratory and structured learning experiences.

• the pursuit of a rigorous research programme to establish best practice, identify gaps in the peer reviewed literature and publish our own findings from the MUVE teaching and learning implementations.

MUVE = Multi User Virtual Environment