Register by March 18th and take advantage of the Early Bird Discount only $150 for two-rewarding days

Immerse yourself in educational technology @ MSET 2011. A dynamic conference developed by educators for educators featuring inspiring education visionaries, classroom applications that work, hands-on learning and sharing with colleagues.

This year we’re excited to welcome Michael Edson, Smithsonian Institution’s Director of Web and New Media Strategy and a team of Smithsonian experts presenting a terrific series of featured sessions highlighting practical and imaginative ways to use Smithsonian resources in the classroom. You’ll learn about interactive video conferences with the Smithsonian American Art Museum; how to use the Smithsonian to visualize, analyze, identify, and observe nature in your classroom;- and much more.

These stimulating sessions and close to 100 more will fill the halls of the Baltimore Convention Center for two jam-packed days of learning, sharing and networking. So register soon and take advantage of the early bird discount.

Of course on of the highlights of this conference will be the Discovery Educators Digital Media Lab. Be sure to come by and tell us your story.

See you @ MSET 2011–promising to be the best conference yet!

Cheers from your colleagues at MSET

The premiere ed tech conference in the state is looking for  inspiring presentations from DEN leaders. Consider joining us on April 11,12 and 13th in Baltimore.  Proposal submissions are due by Feb 1. Get your DEN heads thinking and come on over to B’more, hon.

https://www.msetonline.org/conferences/SpeakerSP

You can follow Max’s music scene by subscribing to his Second Life group, Rhythm Collective and view some images he has posted. Here is another YouTube video featuring Max’s sound. In some of the pics and videos you will see his “tipping cow”. Many artists put out a tip jar to help defray expenses; Max has a tipping cow. Very clever. We hope to have him back some time in the future, and Harper as well.

Stay tuned for more events as we approach Tech or Treat, the DEN Virtual Conference, on October 23.

Emilia Cornwall has also shared her Picasa slideshow of the event. Thanks, Emilia!

Max Kleene will be joining us tomorrow evening (3 p.m. SLT, 5 p.m. CST, and 6 p.m. EST).

You can check out his music beforehand here and here.

So boot up your computer, head on into Second Life, put on your headphones (or crank up the volume) and listen to some great music.  I understand you should consider putting on your ‘dancing shoes’ as well.

This 3-day fiesta comprises a series of exciting events, namely NMiEF 2010 Spotlight Conference, New Media in Education International Conference on Second Life and Innova Film Festival.NMiEF seeks to bring about greater vibrancy to the new media scene in the education context, firstly through fostering enhanced interactions among both local and international educators in a real-time virtual education conference on Second Life and secondly through raising awareness of the potential of new media for community involvement and social action among students through the launch of youthchaNgE 3.0.Check out the previous post with all the session details and times.

Event location http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Media%20PlayLab/233/75/41

September 14 – Have you registered yet for the Streamathon 2010? If not, check out the national blog for the list of awesome sessions!

September 22  – DEN in Second Life kicks off autumn with a Wednesday concert by Harper Messmer who has been performing in SL since 2007. Harper has agreed to present a one hour concert of his music for the DEN. Blending pop, rock, and R&B into his musical arsenal, there is no doubt that you will find Harper Messmer’s music experience fun and entertaining. Come listen to his originals as well as his covers of Dave Matthews, John Mayer, Jason Mraz, Billy Joel, Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson, Maroon 5, James Taylor, One Republic, and many more.

Please note: This concert will take place at an earlier time than our usual events.
SL/Pacific 3 pm, Central 5pm, Eastern 6 pm

Look for additional reminders and in-world notices as the event approaches. Kick back with fellow DEN members, listen to great tunes, and pat yourself on the back for getting another school year underway!  Thanks to GeeGee Zerbino and Telos String for getting this set up with Harper!

Looking ahead to October, the DEN Virtual conference is on the horizon and we are hoping to have an in-person (in-world) venue for that jam-packed Saturday, October 23. If you can’t get to a real world live event, then “go live virtually” in SL. More on that soon. And the end of October will bring…Halloween at DEN in SL. Stay tuned!

See you in-world!

All the time listed are Singapore Time (UTC / GMT +8 hrs).  

Ms. Erin Reilly will be giving the Keynote on Monday, September 6th at 8 p.m. (Singapore Time)
You may wish to use a time zone converter so you don’t miss any of the presentations!

7 September 2010

08 00hr UTC/GMT +8 hrs-

Ms Alicia Poo Peng Peng Economics Teacher, Innova Junior College

Use of Collaborative Tagging Through Diigo to Promote Interdependent Online Research amongst Students.

10 00hr UTC/GMT +8 hrs

Mr John Yap Yin Gwee,

Senior Media Producer, NUS Second Life

Learning Through Gaming: The NUS Experience

12 00hr UTC/GMT +8 hrs

Dr Tay Lee Yong,

Head of Department for Research & Information Communication Technology,

Beacon Primary School

Integrating the Technological Dimension into Teaching and Learning –An Activity Theoretical Perspective

8 September 2010

08 00hr UTC/GMT +8 hrs

Ms Yap Chern Kai,

English Literature Teacher, Innova Junior College

Virtual Disgrace: Teaching Literature in Second Life

10 00hr UTC/GMT +8 hrs

Dr Caroline Ho,

Assistant Professor, English Language and Literature, National Institute of Education

Demystifying the mystique of Virtual Museums

12 00hr UTC/GMT +8 hrs

Mr Daryl Koh,

Head Of Department  for Information and Communication Technology,

Ms Tan Chui Min,

Arts Teacher, Yusof Ishak Secondary School

Becoming a Virtual Curator – Using Secondlife in Teaching Art Appreciation

Jokay also told us that the cost of a sim in Reaction Grid is far less expensive than in Second Life. She has also developed her own virtual world called JoKaydiaGrid. You can register for an account on the site. Reaction Grid, Joykadiagrid and others are part of the OpenSim project. Although OpenSim does not have the “web on a prim” capability that the SL Viewer 2 has, there are developers working on it as we speak. (Correction: Reaction Grid is working on web on a prim; Open Sim does have that functionality.Thanks to readers for pointing this out.)I experimented accessing Reaction Grid through the Second Life Viewer (1.23 not viewer 2) and also the Hippo OpenSim Viewer. (Download at http://sourceforge.net/projects/opensim-viewer/) There are others that can be used as well but the interface is basically what you are familiar with in Second Life so there is really no learning curve with the viewer. The support tab at reactiongrid.com gives detailed instructions on using these viewers.

The most difficult thing for me was having to create a new avatar and leave my familiar self behind in SL! I could take the same name and use the same password, however. You can get an account by clicking on “Register” at the bottom of the Reaction Grid home page. The objects and clothing available in Reaction Grid are free (yes, free, though somewhat limited at this time) and there is no cost to upload textures, unlike the 10L per texture we are used to in Second Life. We are planning another excursion in the near future and next time hope to investigate work being done by other educators. I took a sneak peak at (and a photo of) Scott Merrick’s “scottsperiment” on Reaction Grid, but didn’t have time to venture further. We are excited to find out more about what ideas these RG educators are cooking up and how they use the virtual environment with their students.

Info on jokaydia in Reaction Grid and SL Jokaydia blog.

Scott Merrick’s Oh! Virtual Learning blog

Virtual Environments Education Videos

Microsoft Case Study on Reaction Grid from May 2009

See you in-world (any world!)

To encourage new educators into Second Life whilst they have some time on their hands, we are launching a summer promotion.  For the next two months, from now until mid September, we will be offering educators new to SL a limited number of luxury apartments with 250 prim allowances on a first come, first served basis.  The cost?  Free!  Zero!  Zip!  Zilch!

When September arrives, the apartment tenants will have the option of upgrading to a paid presence elsewhere on the Eduislands, with the usual affordable weekly-payment plans available to them.

We have again used the type of luxury apartments that have served the Eduislands so well in the past for this promotion.  An internal image of the apartment:

http://www.squirrelverse.com/catalog/12.jpg

We’ve placed the tower on the edge of Eduisland 3, directly behind Teacher Networking Center, so that new teachers can get the easy access to support that they need.

Here’s a SLurl to a show apartment:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Eduisland%203/151/221/64/

I hope you’ll stop in for Kevin Jarrett’s presentation, ‘Second Life ™ in Education…An Introduction’, which is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. EST (so that would be 4:30 p.m. SLT).  For more information at his presentation, click here.  KJ (as he is fondly known) is a veteran SLifer.  My first encounter with Kevin was via his blog, Welcome to NCS-Tech, where he so generously shares new website finds.  Imagine how thrilled I was when I discovered we were both going to the Google Certified Teacher training in New York back in 2007 (could it really be that long ago?).  I had already ventured in to SL, decided that Orientation Island was waaaaaaaaaaay too scary (you should have seen it back then!) and promptly went back to RL.  It was during the GCT training that KJ convinced me to give SL another shot.  And I did….with KJ waiting for me in-world.  And I’m glad I did.  Thanks KJ!  And best of luck tonight, I know you’ll rock the virtual-sphere!