Last Meeting on Austen's Book

We had our last book talk meeting this week. It was a small but devoted crowd. I was happy to see Spiff and Scott there. I don't think they attended any of the other meetings. The discussion was full, with most present participating. I thoroughly enjoyed doing this series. It wasn't entirely as I envisioned it and Austen had to do an awful lot of sharing, but maybe she didn't mind.

 

Austen's book is full of technology and best practices for teaching. I believe this is how I most like to spend my time in Second Life, taking with other educators about things that can make me a better teacher in "real life." I'll have to find another project like this in the winter.

Riding a Stallion

VSTE Island's First Official Teacher Recertification Class

This is a milestone. Here "Hey" and her class of three educators are learning to move and communicate in Second Life. This is our first official class on VSTE Island.  Back when the island was really new a supervising teacher from another Virginia university met here with his student teachers. This time a recertification class from UVA-Wise is using a Moodle to prepare for avatar-to-avatar meetings and using VSTE Island specifically.

A non-member visited and joined in the conversation.

Bee Popstar is a member of the class.

Class portrait!

One class member kept walking into the wall and getting trapped.

Visit to a friend's space after class

Virtual Pioneers' BigD Talks about PBS's upcoming programming

Many of us came to the new location of Virtual Pioneers Headquarters on Eduisland 9 this Sunday to hear BigD talk about teaching children living in poverty. He teaches in a community in Arizona where many families are struggling in today's economic crisis.

 

BigD dispelled some of the many myths associated with poverty.

 

Unfortuneatly there were some griefers. This was one of them. They used voice to interrupt and say rude things. They rezzed prims and obstructed our view of the slide presentation. Used to dealing with teenagers, BigD was undisturbed.

 

BigD's partner, Kimmer, pasted into chat many links BigD had for us to view. This one was a You Tube clip by Ruby Payne, an expert in the hidden rules of class: generational poverty, middle class, and the wealthy.

 

The griefers had interesting and creative personna. 

 

Because VP has a new location we celebreated with this live musician, and dancing. The musician, Harry Frychester, is from Iowa and has a great voice. He sang mostly classical jazz and country. It was very pleasant. I found myself wishing for a dance partner.

 

Serena has decorated the area around VP headquarters with many interesting elements, like these cute bunnies.

Chapter 6

We have been reviewing a chapter a week of Austen Rae's book and I'm pleased that on week six we still have about a dozen dedicated participants. I took this shot because Orange Planer, a dragon, sat beside me most of the time, while an owl, Elphaba Helendale, sat near Austen. You never know what you will see in SL. We had a lively discussion about students writing historical fiction and becoming so excited Austen had two different related multimedia projects going on at once in her classroom!

Chapter 3 Can We Skip Lunch and Keep Writing?

This week we talked about using multimedia. In her book, Julie D. Ramsay talks about how the children attended an ISTE Webinar for teachers about digital storytelling and became so excited they wanted to create digital stories of their own. Students wrote about famous people from history and told how our lives would be different today if those people had not ever lived.

This session was not as well attended. All the other VSTE facilitators were busy with PTA open houses or had no power still from a recent hurricane. It's not our regular meeting night anyway. Attendees felt like a lot of teachers were busy with the beginning of school. We agreed to continue meeting Thursday nights as planned, with additional advertising this week.

MESH

Mesh has come to Second Life. I remember years ago my nephew getting into 3D design and making incredible things to show off his skills. He created a beautiful dragon with multiple points of movement and the most lifelike eyes. It was mesmerizing. Seeing it without skin showed how it was made of multiple angles and lines. It looked like mesh, a complicated net of points, lines, etc. That is what I thought SL was going to be, but it wasn't. Now, it is! Here is my first photo of a mesh created sim.

 

I visited Mesh Mellows with that exploring dynamo, Cyrus Hush. You can barely see me riding a dragon in the center.