EduGeek Journal

(In response to Matt’s previous post re: the Second Life educational discount…) Actually, the educational discount was pretty good if you consider the amount of space you get on an island and all you can fit there – education, advertisements, meeting spaces, etc. Where the expense really comes in and caused many institutions to balk [...]

When I first heard that Second Life was ending their educator discount program, I knew that there would eventually be some talk about schools leaving. I just didn’t think it would come so swiftly and decisively. Apparently, there was even a session discussing which alternative to move to at Educause this week (Academics Discuss Mass [...]

By now you have possibly heard the news that Second Life is going to end its educator discount.  That discount was a whopping half off land prices.  Is this going to signal the end of Second Life? I can’t count the number of people I have talked to through the years that cited cost as [...]

Okay, so I know that there have been many people working on holodeck-like inventions for quite a while.  But none have been quite as cool as Google’s Liquid Galaxies, and I don’t remember hearing about any of the previous attempts being released as open-source.  Yes – Google released their immersive environment tool as open source.  [...]

Jean-Claude Bradley (e-learning coordinator for the College of Arts and Sciences, and an associate professor of chemistry, at Drexel University): “There’s a misconception out there that students are very tech-savvy and following all these blogs and wikis and Second Life. That’s not true. The vast majority have never been [to Second Life].” I’ve been ranting [...]

The December 2007 edition of Sloan-C View hit my in box this morning. It’s not online yet, so I can’t provide a link to the current issue. But it will probably appear here someday. One of the articles was titled “Second Life: A Viable Teaching Solution, or NOT?” Like most teachers, my tendency is to [...]

Got an interesting letter from the Lindens this morning. Hmm… is this the first step in a move toward a unified Teen+Adult Grid? Let’s hope so. Hello, [My Account Name]. As you may have heard, we’re implementing the first stage of an Identity Verification system beginning with age. Our ultimate goal is to give Second [...]

Never Mind the Technology, Where’s the Learning? posted a very interesting YouTube video recently. It takes a while to figure out what is going on, but I will post it at the end of this post. Just sit through to the end (about 4 minutes), and what I have to say will make sense. One [...]

Although I am a big fan of Second Life, I will readily admit that some of the features aren’t very usable yet. The Search feature is almost useless, and since Landmarks are both private and inaccessible outside Second Life, it’s hard to share interesting places you’ve found with your friends. Frustrated by the unwieldy Search [...]

The University of New Orleans recently joined the ranks of higher education institutions that have established virtual campuses in Second Life. Unlike most participating universities, which primarily use their Second Life islands to recruit new students, promote their school, and experiment with virtual worlds, UNO’s purpose is more essential: to maintain classes in the event [...]