TCC Online 2011

Here's a bunch of us from the TCC Online Conference on Second Life discussing setting up some SIGs (Special Interest Groups): virtual worlds, mobile technology, augmented reality? Or...? The discussion continues...

Tampa Library on Second Life

We've got a library building up on Harambee, one of University of South Florida's eCampus islands. We kept the design to match the theme of the island. So far my colleague Joe has added some posters with links to the library web site and our special collections, some books, etc. We have plans to do more and I've contacted the School of Information to see if anyone there is interested in helping. Some of the plans we developed last year are here: http://www.box.net/shared/tfe4q8049u

Greg Lastowka Virtual Justice: The New Laws of Online Worlds

Greg Lastowka was on On the Media (September 24, 2010) discussing issues of justice in virtual worlds such as Second Life. More about Greg Lastowka at http://www.chaihana.com/pers.html. His most recent book is Virtual Justice: The New Laws of Online Worlds. (Yale, 2010). It does not appear that the book is available online. Where's the Kindle version?

(The site for On the Media notes that the RMT - real-money trade on virtual worlds could be as much as two billion dollars. See a 2007 entry on the Virtual Economy Research Network.)

PLENK2010 Second Life Wiki

Telmea Story (SL) along with some others have started a PLENK 2010 SL Wiki - and set up a meeting place in Second Life. See more at Conviviality Corners (http://ggatincritped.blogspot.com/) As a Second Life fan, I'm all for that!

Second Life Education microsite

Linden Lab announced a link for information about education in Second Life at http://education.secondlife.com/ including a helpful FAQ at http://education.secondlife.com/whysl/faqs/. They are also requesting help building a directory at http://edudirectory.secondlife.com/.

Sheila Webber's presentation. Information Literate Behaviour in Second Life

Sheila Webber from the Department of Information Studies at the University of Sheffield has put the slides from her Second Life presentation on Information literate behaviour in Second Life. March 18, 2010. Her research indicates that even sophisticated searchers often rely on experts and colleagues to answer their information needs! A couple of snapshots I took view 1; view 2; view 3

Second Life avatar walking around NYC - via Google Street View

Giulio Prisco is working on having his avatar appear in Google Street View - See it on blip.tv at http://giulioprisco.blip.tv/file/3280503/

Two Minute Suvery on What's Happening in Virtual Worlds

Alan Levine reports on a quick and dirty survey on what's happening in virtual worlds. Not surprising to some of us, interest in virtual worlds among educators is strong. See more at http://www.nmc.org/2minute-survey/virtual-worlds

Teaching in Second Life

Joe Essid (University of Richmond) posted a chat with Dan Holt about his advice for instructors new to Second Life. See http://iggyo.blogspot.com/2010/02/dan-holt-advice-for-first-time-sl.html and look for the chat transcript at the end of Joe's blog entry.

Peter May talks about "Virtually Dead" on Info Island

Peter May appeared as his avatar Flick Faulds to discuss his book "Virtually Dead" - a murder mystery where Second Life and real life intersect. Great fun! At one point he was asked to read a passage out of the book and went to get a copy and came back without his glasses. The audience suggested "Check your inventory!" A snapshot here of the event held on Info Island in Second Life: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ilenef/4320678872/

Getting faculty into Second Life

I sat in a real life presentation on educational uses of Second Life for some faculty on the University of South Florida Tampa campus. Bill (Rikki Ninetails on Second Life) from the USF Center for 21st Teaching Excellence ran through some of the features that make Second Life the interesting educational platform that it is - and then got those faculty who already had avatars in-world and toured them around. My colleague Joe and I helped with some questions about getting around, using inventory, changing appearance, etc. Two popular handouts: Quick Start Guide to Second Life and Meg Conklin's 101 Uses for Second Life in the College Classroom. What a great way to spend the afternoon!

Information literacy in Second Life

Sheila Yoshikawa (Second Life name) invited all Second Life to her students' exhibits on information literacy. The students are first year BSc Information Management students at the University of Sheffield The class used the SCONUL Seven Pillars Model for Information Literacy (http://www.sconul.ac.uk/groups/information_literacy/seven_pillars.html ) to look at the way information about the H1N1 flu was conveyed in the British press. (The students had been given a choice of five topics and they themselves selected the topic. ) The class used posters and notecards to display the information at seven stations representing . They developed a mind map , included a list of the newspapers reviewed, posted an analysis of sources quoted in various newspaper articles, assessed whether or not the articles were reliable.

The students started with some metasearch engines, looked at Google searches compared to NHS website searches, etc. They compared government sites noting that some sites had info more fit for physicians and some more fit for consumers. Some sites had basic facts such as the number of people who had gotten the swine flu in a certain amount of time. I was able to talk to a couple of the students: One student had already had the flu. (Original research? ) One student reported their information seeking changed and planned to work harder to find reliable sources of information. They had learning that it is important to review search results and that advanced searching in Google was a help.

The "seven pillars" exhibit is at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit iSchool/135/213/350/ .
For more on Information Literacy week (November 9 - 15) in Second Life, see
http://infolit-week-in-SL.ning.com/

Australian Educational Projects in Second Life

See _In World Presentation: Showcasing Australasian Educational Projects in Second Life_ http://sleducation.wikispaces.com/enetworksjune07documentation.

Second Life - activities

I'm (obviously) having a difficult time trying to figure out where to keep everything. Joe Floyd and Drew Smith and I did some workshops from the TLT Group about Second Life which resulted in a blog to post informaton for the participants in the workshop.... See http://tltgslworkshop.blogspot.com.

Starting a new fresh blog

It's 2007 and time to start a new blog. There's new incentive to find a place to stash things of interest, etc. There's some confusion at our library about how difficult or easy for library faculty to use web space at will. Might as well try out some environments outside of the university and see how it goes. The first thing to save is Pamela Slim's 12 ways to feel free more free in 2007blog entry pointed out by Stephen Downes. Perfect ideas to help start out a new year!

Along with this new blog, I set up a Flickr account to post some snapshots of some of us USF librarians and library science faculty on Second Life. See
ilenefrnk's photos. (That's already too many variations on my name for me to remember. I hope I don't lose this piece of paper where I wrote down the latest accounts.)

Second Life... A couple of us at USF are engaged in exploring Second Life and participating in the librarian activities there. Though I originally logged on in June, I was not initially captivated. I didn't have anyone to talk to and felt that I was just wandering around and expected to fuss more over my appearance than I ever have in Real Life. However, after reading postings by Lori Bell about the work being done by the Alliance County Libraries on Second Life, I had to go give it another try - and this time I'm having fun. Even though I'm still stumbling around and flying into trees and wearing the wrong clothes - or sometimes no clothes (!), I'm exicted about the creative, pioneering spirit of librarians who are setting up library spaces, figuring out how to give reference service to avatars, developing continuing education for librarians, organizing book talks, musical performances, and art openings. I have been attending staff meetings and going to events - and hope to find a way to make some contributions in that environment.