SLCC 2007 Education Track

Last week the Buffalo News Link published an article “ Second Life Attendees Gather in Real World,” (9/3/07) about The recent Second Life Community Convention (SLCC2007)  August 24-26th, 2007 that was recently held in Chicago. I was disappointed to see that the primary focus of the article was on the “work hard – play hard,”  “large attendance,” and the “masquerade ball.” It was obvious to me that the article (and many articles articles on Second Life) are written by writers that appear only to have a narrowly focused real life (RL) perspective of what Second Life (SL) is about. There was no real mention of involvement of the SLCC2007 Business Track, the Machinima track or the Education tracks in the article.

As representatives from Buffalo State College, I went to the convention with the Associate VP of Library and Instructional Technology. I am the coordinator of the Fashion Textile Technology Program.  The presentation room was overflowing with interested educators; it was standing room only for the presentations. The atmosphere was open, sharing, and collaborative from educators working in a variety of disciplines from around the world. As an educator it inspired hope for the future of education on a global level. There was no sign of educational quagmire anywhere in the room! All educational disciplines were eager to explore linking possibilities or share information.We both presented there and links to the Proceedings to the entire Educational Workshop as well as individual links to our presentations are posted below. The preface as well as the varied educational projects in the proceedings puts the rapid growth and potential for building international educational communities Second Life in perspective.

• Here is a link to the: SLCC 2007 Educators Proceedings: Second Life Education Workshop 
• Here is a link to my presentation Web Page:
  Educational Simulations in Real Life for Fashion Technology Students
• Here is a link to a large number of the SLCC 2007 Educational Slide Presentations on Slideshare

  

One last note about the SLCC convention, the Sunday morning general meeting included a preview of Douglas Gayeton’s new documentary, “My Second Life: The Video Diaries of Molotov Alva.” The Machinima clip was really good and they announced that HBO picked up several episodes.