iPad & iDevices Exhibition & Meeting Area in Second Life

More information at http://shambles.titanpad.com/ipadapps

Web 2.0 Workshop in SL

I co-ordinated another of the ISTE Thursday workshops today (21 or 22 May09 depending on timezone) ... in Second Life with a theme of Web 2.0.

The session was a blend of whole-group presentation and small-group work ... and also a blend of communicating by voice and chat.

Also experimented with using Google Docs as an organisational, communication and archiving tool during the session, see http://tr.im/lv5L.

The public session was preceeded with a session just for the small group facilitators ... who I am really grateful to, it would not have worked so well without these volunteers.

Death by PowerPoint was minimal and individual sharing was high ! ... thank goodness.

Picture can be seen at http://tr.im/m43P
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"Team Building" Workshop 16April09

Just finished a workshop today with the focus on team building and collaboration; the task of each group was to build an avatar out of a given set of  individual prims.
It was really 2 professional development events ... yesterday I met with six volunteers to be the individual team facilitators and one volunteer who was to be the judge for the best build (there were definite criteria)
Our meeting yesterday ended up being over two hours of sharing of suggestions, skills, strategies and tools to consider when running today's public session.
We had around 40 avatars attend the 90 min session, after a brief intro with the whole group we then split into the six teams with it's facilitator for 45 mins and the collaboration and building began.

For the last 20 mins we all reconvened and each of the facilitators reported back on their sessions and finally Judge Louise nominated teams 1 and 4 as the joint winners.
There was so much learning that happened in these two session for me that there is just not room to list specifics here .... suffice to say that we all survived better equipped to support future teaching and learning in a virtual world environment.
I'm most grateful to all who contributed.

ISTE events are listed at: http://secondlife.iste.wikispaces.net/events

Photographs can be seen at my Flickr account

Workshop : Free Edu Tools on isi

I ran another workshop today for ISTE in S.L. showcasing more of the free resources hosted on International Schools Island.
This time I choose the "Library on a Stick" .. object and concept by JJ Drinkwater.
The session reconfirmed that the facilitators are often the 'Master Learners'  .. again I learnt so much myself about running workshops in virtual worlds.
The turnout was brilliant with 40 avatars from locations including Japan, Australia, Europe, USA, Hong Kong with me in Thailand.
S.L. behaved brilliantly (technically) as I expected so many avatars to cause 'lag' ... very encouraging. My preferred medium for communication was (is) voice but many avatars did not have microphones or could not use them because of their local R.L. environment ... most seemed to have loudspeakers or headsets.
I still feel uncomfortable not having real life eye contact with participants and uneasy with silences ... but am coming to accept that audio silence does not mean participants are not being active .. reading notecards, building, communicating with IM ....
This learning journey continues and I'm grateful again for the constructive feedback from participants ...and the privilege to be able to work with such a professional group of educators.

Data Visualisation Workshop

Every Thursday evening (SL time) ISTE have a social event or show & tell session ... usually by the beach campfires.
This week I was fortunate enough to be able to share some of my data visualisation tools ... and more importantly .. to listen to feedback and suggestions about how they might be useful in teaching and learning.

Enjoyable and productive session ....

ISTE Presentation to Director (EdTech,US Dept.of Edu)

One of the sessions I try and attend each week is the ISTE Speakers Series on a Tuesday evening (SL time) .. Wed morning Thai time.
Recently I was asked to be one of several to present to Tim Mangner, Director, Office of Educational Technology, US Dept.of Education.

We were asked to talk for 10 mins  about our experiences in SL, how we use VWs and how we thought VWs can change education.

It was a real pleasure to be given this opportunity ... and encouraging to see the USA DoE taking such an interest in Virtual Worlds.

First Presentation in S.L. (Super Tuesday)

My first 'proper' presentation in S.L. ... venue ISTE Island ... 6:00pm S.L. time = 9:00am Thai time ... and the topic was about ... i.s.i. of course.
I gave the presentation using voice and not written chat.
I'm usually very comfortable standing up in front of other educators ... but this was the first time I could not make eye contact, and that is not an easy transition to make ... the audience were very supportive with chat comments which was, for me, essential. (thanks guys)
I did end up enjoying it and it was a very positive learning experience for me on technical issues, presentation style and management in a virtual world ... hopefully it was also informative for those who attended.
.... and don't laugh, but I actually physically stood up for the talk and moved around rather than sit at the desk ... isn't that strange?
More pics at http://flickr.com/photos/kjarrett/sets/72157603860728917 ... thanks to KJ Hax for taking these.