NSCC Festival of Learning 2008Lorraine Storry Mockford

Nova Scotia Community College

Started in 2003 by Linden Labs in San Francisco; Teen Grid started 2005 for 13-17 year olds

Approximately 600,00 active users, averages 40,000 to 60,000 – from around the world - at any time of the day

Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely created by its residents

It consists of several digital continents (and numerous islands), teeming with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity

Residents retain the rights to their digital creations; they can buy, sell and trade with other residents

The Marketplace currently supports millions of US dollars in monthly transactions. This commerce is handled with the in-world unit-of-trade, the Linden dollar, which can be converted to US dollars at several thriving online Linden Dollar exchanges

http://secondlife.com/

Occasional problems with Second Life connectivity are usually my fault

Learning areasCollaborativeExperientialAuthentic Creative Synchronous

Learning opportunities

Career explorationNetworkingService LearningDisabilities studiesSkills / DrillsInformation / researchPracticumProjectsMeetingsConferences

Our virtual world learning space

A Brief Introduction to SL: Educationhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6D9I36zsec RezEd: The Hub for Learning and Virtual

Worlds http://www.rezed.org New Media Consortium http://sl.nmc.org

Most Thursdays at 8:00 PM Stimulating conversations and

sometimes dancing!

Weekly chats with colleagues from around the world

Relay for Life candle walk

Created by a medical school instructor for anatomy and

physiology

Model at Genome Island

A class field trip to Support for Healing island.

Copyright issues prevented a production of the Vagina Monologues,

so the cast wrote their own play.

Sponsored by New Media Consortium

Entirely in-world

Questions?Comments?