Serena Visits Channel

One of the things I'm most proud of in my Second Life is making friends with other educators. We meet, get to know each other, and sometimes, when I'm lucky, find ways to collaborate in real life. This is Serena, who is really Mary in Maine visiting me at my house on Channel Island. She teaches third grade and I teach five third grade classes. Sometime this fall we scanned our curricula for similarities and found Animal Adaptations. I worked with my library media specialist and five classroom teachers on a plan to use Web 2.0 tools to share what we know about animal adaptations. The LMS and I are a team. She often does the research with the students in support of the project we are completing in the lab. In this case she created a graphic organizer and helped the students get information about animals. We grouped the third graders into fifteen teams. Each team had an adaptation to find an animal for: long beak, sharp teeth, scales, etc. They came to the lab with this information and wrote what they would say about the animal. They they all drew a picture of their animal in Pixie. One was chosen from each group for the slideshow. Three of the third grade teachers were able to be in the computer lab to help when their students were working. Some of them did some additional work with the students in the classroom without me. I created a Voice Thread with my students and Serena's class listened and responded. Hopefully we will find more to do together in the future. I can tell you that knowing Serena was going to look at our work helped us step it up a notch! It doesn't affect only the students who put their work on the web. The teachers involved want to do their best, too. This was a fun project. The Voice Thread is at http://voicethread.com/share/350978/.

Speech and Hearing Island

I was excited to find this build for Speech Pathologists. The Speech and Hearing group in SL is NMU Speech Pathologists founded by ProfJZ Zeiler. There are displays all over this island with information about speech therapy and theories. http://slurl.com/secondlife/Second%20Earth%207/125/121/44 I created a movie of myself flying through the larynx, watching vocal chords for Jen, the speech teacher at my school and my friend. I'm not very good at filming yet but Jen got to see an animation of something interesting to her for the first time. It's amazing what is available in Second Life for educators.

Plans for May 4th VSTE in SL Meeting

I'm planning the first VSTE meeting in May. It was supposed to be a visit to a Japanese sim for Golden Week but my contact for that is suddenly being vague about whether this will happen. I began to think I need a back up plan. Now, after several evenings thinking while waiting to fall asleep, I think I have a plan I like even better.

May 5th is Cinco de Mayo! Mexico celebrates a victory over the French army at the capital city of Puebla in 1862, 41 years after it's independence was won from Spain. France had invaded Mexico to demand payment on debts owed since Mexico's war of independence. Cinco de Mayo is most fervently celebrated in the state of Puebla.

Plans:

• Use the voter that ScotMerrick Oh had for multiple questions about Mexico while still at VSTE (use the meeting house?)
• Go to Visit Mexico sims (3) get outfits and horses and tour
• Have a checklist of things to find (animals, buildings) Explore. Have notecard with questions to answer. Upload photos to ning.
• Use the Spanish language some? (Mi casa sim?)

Bono of U2 in Real Life

Jaz and I followed one of my roommates to this sim. She heard from someone that it is owned by Bono of U2. Shamefully, I don't know U2 or Bono. Yes, I've heard of U2 but I'm not one to learn the names of songs or bands and therefore don't know who is who. Sad, right? Whatever the story is, there is plenty to do in this sim. The owner welcomes visitors. In this series I pulled Henny Z into this fantasy to see what he thought April 12. We explored many of the free offerings of the sim. There are lot of fun things to do. This sim and everything in it is owned by a female. That female is supposed to actually be Bono. I wonder if it is a myth or truth. I wonder how many famous people we walk among when we explore Second Life. Interesting to think about. Even so we got bored. I donned my dragonfly avatar and Henny's ass rode a flying pig. (You had to be there.)

VSTE Hosts Virtual Pioneers

Tonight we hosted the Virtual Pioneers, a group we all belong to. We met them at Lighthouse Learning Island and brought them to VSTE Island. Jazmemo welcomed them. Mandie pre- sented a slideshow. Alfredo created an amazing video of the historical areas. I talked a little about our group.

The VPs toured VSTE and we were on hand to help them find all the interesting information and things to do. Yosemite helped greet visitors and steer them to the right places. It was a nice show if teamwork. We are all proud of VSTE. Al's video