October 6 Week's Blog

This week I completed the following activities:

• SL Class: All about the LindeX @ Insight Virtual College: this class addressed the LindeX, which is Second Life’s market currency. We learned how to earn money and differentiate among the trading levels. I don’t believe I would trade LindeX, but I can see how a finance or economics class could learn a great deal from the LindeX. It’s the best exchange rate in currency.
  
• SL Class: Interactive Role Play: I realized that I already attended this particular class, but this time there was a “griefer.” I’ve only encountered one other griefer who visited one of my other classes, but he didn’t stay long. The griefer in the role play class was booted out by the owner of the island as he was very annoying and used abusive language. Needless to say class was detained. Then when I realized I attended this session previously I teleported home.
  
• SL Class: SL Education Roundtable discussions: I am a member of this group which meets every Tuesday at Montclair State University to talk about a variety of subjects. We site around a “round table.” Some weeks we may have a guest speaker and/or focus on one topic and other weeks we may just talk about what members feel like chatting about. I learned about a tool called “Meeting transcript maker,” which records a session in SL. I also learned about Cool Viewer by Boy Lane, a site meant to publish patches and pre-compiled versions of the Second Life viewer for Linux.
  
• 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.
  
• Attended OBTA and enjoyed a session on Web 2.0 tools. Since working on my sabbatical, I have learned a lot about Web 2.0 tools. However, this session provided additional websites to visit. One especially interesting website is Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies.
• Unfortunately at OBTA, I did not find anyone interested in collaborating with me in SL. Most said they are so busy they don't have the time to learn SL. They have a point. Without this sabatical I would not have had the time to devote to this tool.
  

During my sabbatical I’m learning about other web tools. For example, I downloaded and played with jingproject which allows one to capture photos or videos to share online up to 5 minutes in length. It was developed by TechSmith, who developed Camtasia Studio. Then the presenters at the Web 2.0 session at OBTA included Jing in their presentation.

I’m learning more than just Second Life as a result of my research. For example, I learned a new term “heutagogy.” A heutagogical approach recognizes the need to be flexible in the learning where the teacher provides resources but the learner designs the curriculum, not just the learning process, by negotiating the learning. Thus learners might read around critical issues or questions and determine what is of interest and relevance to them, and then negotiate further reading and assessment tasks. With respect to the latter, assessment becomes more of a learning experience rather than a means to measure attainment.

I connected with someone who developed a simulator of business skills for training. As yet, I have not seen a demo, but I have been invited to do so. Therefore, I will follow up on this invitation.

This week I plan to work on reviewing my collected resources and prepare for the League’s CIT conference. Plus, I have ACBSP 's Region 4 conference this week too. What! Another busy and fun-filled professional week!