November 10 Week's Blog

Observed Brian’s African American Literature class in SL. Brian teaches at University of Central Missouri, and he was the instructor for the Continuing Ed. Class I took “Managing a Class in Second Life.” Today Brian was in Paris, France, while a conference he attended was ending so he conducted his class from Paris. Today’s topic was a discussion of Ann Petrey’s The Street.

At the beginning of the class we met in a room with circular seating (Abyssian Library) , looking at the backs of everyone, and while waiting for the class to begin, a PowerPoint on their Research Project was playing. Brian spends a lot of time building rapport at each class session. This does allow students to resolve computer and audio issues. Plus his class has an embedded librarian assigned to it to assist with the research component. He also asks students if they have any information on the status of other students in the class. After responding to students’ questions, the class moved downstairs in a more casual, circular environment. We sat around a piano. Then two students portrayed historic African American authors and gave a presentation. They were excellent. The presentations gave us valuable information in an entertaining and engaging way on the authors, their works, lives, etc. This is one benefit of Second Life—the ability to portray historic characters. They have some interesting assignments one of which requires them to post three voice threads on their readings. They can post these to the course blog and to their personal blogs. They use a lot of technological tools.

I was glad I teleported to the site early because my audio wasn’t working probably. My computer acquired a virus and my operating system was reinstalled and I had to reinstall all my programs. My settings weren’t right with the Hardware tab under Sounds, Speech, and Audio Devices. I had voice chat enabled in SL so I knew my problem was with the hardware.

Continued to read daily the Educator’s Digest (SLED) and Slrl Digest (Research). As I peruse these digests, I normally take away something valuable whether it’s a contact, website, slrl, or just ideas.

Off to New York City so until next week!