Virtual Pioneers Dec. 7th

On this occasion I had all of the fun and did none of the work.

Visit with Scot

December first I had a nice visit with Scot, my English friend living in France, at Amethyst's house. He is still wearing the tux he wore to an event we went to together in late October. It's all he has, except for a pair of bathing trunks! It's always nice to talk to Scot. He's an English gentleman and tells me about his life in the country in France. He has three cats, Gris Gris, Tommy, and Kimmy. Amethyst has done an amazing job finding a little house for herself since loosing the house she had on an open sim. Always the gracious hostess she offered us a glass of wine which matched my dress perfectly! Ah, Second Life!

Tour of the Great Wall

Members at the Dec. 8, 2008 VSTE Meeting Galt Jefferson Argus Mircastle Mandie Mimulus Valaina Shepherd WtchyRichy Witherspoon Alfredo Bedrosian Sebastien Lucero Katie Indigo Willoughby Lorefield Ryuko Pobieski Thunder Insippo Mandie took us on a wonderful tour of the Great Wall of China on Sichuan Island. VSTE Tour of The Great Wall of China This is Mandie's wonderful notecard. In preparation for this tour Mandie met the developers of this sim. It's new and we were among the first visiting group. The history and social science standards of learning for second grade students in Virginia include an introduction to the heritage and contributions of the people of ancient China. Come visit a miniature version of the Great Wall of China. Currently the Great Wall of China stretches approximately 6,400 km (4000 miles) and has been built and rebuilt from 6th Century BC to 16Centuray AD to protect the dynasties from conflicts with the people of Mongolia. There are more than 10,000 watchtowers and beacon towers on the Great Wall. They were used to house troops, store weapons and send signals in case enemies were seen approaching. Smoke signals were used in the day and fires were lit at night to communicate with other military outposts along the wall. More SL information on the Great Wall of China can be found at the 7 Wonders of the World Museum Sim 􀀁 and for more information on this particular build visit the sim's blog: http://hosoi-ichiba.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-tourist-attraction-great-wall.html RL Educator Resources: Use your Second Life camera to take photographs of the Great Wall for use in the classroom. For example: I opened a SL photograph in SMART Board Notebook V10, applied the screen shade vertically to half the picture and exported as a jpeg. Students opened the jpeg in a graphics program (we used Tech4Learning’s Pixie) and with drawing tools completed the missing half of the picture with a written description. Or use your SL photographs for backgrounds in Chroma Key or Green Screen skits created by your students. Student Created Website on China: http://www.fi.edu/fellows/fellow1/apr99/ Loogootee Community Schools, Loogootee, Indiana Compare and Contrast ancient China and Egypt SMART Board Notebook activity by Marie Booz, CRS, Virginia Beach (VA) City Public Schools: http://sbrevolutionfiles.wikispaces.com/

DEN Meeting about Online Projects

Macsmom Alcott did a great job of sharing various online projects and resources for finding them tonight at the DEN meeting. I have to say that DEN is the best place for an elementary teacher to meet in Second Life for ideas you can use right away. It's always practical! We got a lot of links that I will explore later. I tagged them all on Delicious: http://delicious.com/kvharris/onlineprojects.

Last Week - the stuff I was too busy to post

I heard Spiff Whitfield, a good friend give a talk at ISTE as part of J Hax's Speaker Series. He was fabulous. As he showed slides of the historical places we have toured, he changed costumes to match the era of history being explored. It was clever and interesting! Early last week I attended a workshop on sim management at the suggestion of my friend Louise, of ISTE. It was partially intended for folks who are planning to buy islands and parcel them to rent out at a profit. There was a lot of useful information to be had about the HUD and tools the land owner has access to that I have never seen. At the end of the course I purchased the entire thing to be able to share with my team. I attended Virtual Pioneers and toured Plymouth Plantation and Red Rock. I attended the Speaker Series and saw the beginning of a PBS scavenger hunt through the PBS online resources for teachers.

Numbakulla Tour - Meant to Be

During a break from preparing for Thanksgiving dinner, (I do not cook any of it, but clean and prepare the table) I went to Numbakulla to prepare for the tour I will do Monday for VSTE members. I happened to notice something out of place, a snowglobe, near the beginning of the adventure. I IMed the owner feeling sure it was not meant to be there. Sure enough it was an accidentally dropped item but the owner turned out to be one of the creators of The Pot Healer Adventure! We had a nice visit for about an hour and she became my friend. We were offering friendship at precisely the same time actually! There is another layer to this story that gives me chills! Being Thanksgiving day the topic of the Mayflower came up and it turns out she is descended from Mayflower children, too! She is fourteenth generation from the Mortens. What a small world! Our ancestors knew each other intimately and we met in a virtual world.

Happy Thanksgiving!

...from the deck of the Mayflower. My family, on my father's side, can trace our ancestors back to Mayflower cooper, John Alden, and passenger, Priscilla Mullins. I think I'm tenth generation. It's not that uncommon. I have actually run into a couple of others also descended from them who are no relation to me otherwise. It's interesting though and has always been a source of pride in my father's family. In fact he was born in Massachusetts and his was the first generation of our branch to leave the state.