Re-posted from the UCSB Transcriptions Center Blog:

Mark your calendars for this exciting event showcasing the UCSB Second Life project, an experimental classroom space in the online world of Second Life. Discussion will be led by Professor Rita Raley along with project members Robin Chin (English), Clayton Childress (Sociology), Rob Robinson (Sociology), and lead designer Haru Ji (MAT). A lesson in new forms of pedagogy as well as an exhibit of the amazing art project designed by Haru Ji, this event is not to be missed!

The event begins at 2:00 PM in South Hall 2635.

October 18, 2007

This was on the Chronicle of Higher Education blog today:

Facebook Makes Friends With Second Life

More than 70 percent of active residents of the virtual world Second Life are 25 or older. But two new Facebook applications could tilt the demographics to favor a younger audience. The applications allow people using Facebook to show their avatar’s name and picture and to include other Second Life avatars among their “friends.” In an application called Second Life Link, users can set up the new Facebook features from Second Life, and they can invite friends to register for a Second Life account via Facebook. —Andrea L. Foster

<!– –> Posted on Thursday October 18, 2007 | Permalink |

Due to some geographical expansion issues on the Duke ISIS Oasis Island, Victoria Szabo has kindly moved our land plot to the following (coastal) location on the “Duke Metaverse” Island:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Duke%20Metaverse/202/64/31

The land is currently editable for members of our group.

Good news from UCSB Lane ~ yesterday we purchased an additional 512 square meters of land to the East of our previous Kerlingarfjoll property!

This brings the plot’s area up to 1536 square meters, or the maximum land use allotment for our current account payment option.

I’m adding the following websites to the “Links” page of the blog:

* “Best Practices For Organizing SL/Real World Events” (Sim Teach)

* “The Global Kids’ Guide to Presenting in Teen SL” Site/PDF (Global Kids)

* “101 Uses for Second Life in the College Classroom” Site/PDF (Elon University)

Since we’re working with Duke University and their “Duke ISIS Oasis” Island in Second Life, I thought I’d post Duke’s Information Studies + Information Science (ISIS) website for everyone to peruse.

The main website: http://isis.duke.edu/

The ISIS research website: http://isis.duke.edu/secondlife/index.html

FYI: you may want to check out Victoria Szabo’s 11 May 2007 Powerpoint presentation on Second Life (PDF link, located at the bottom of the ISIS research page).

Here’s an example from Duke of their first 5 SL class assignments:

This is meant to be a list of things to do when you first log in, and after you have done a basic avatar and exited Help. We want this to be specific to our Duke ISIS Oasis to reduce confusion. Like:

Assignment 1 (at home)

Just an update on the prim limitation problem on the UCSB Lane property. I’ll post the same document on the “Downloads” tab of the blog.  Download

A 1024 sq. m. parcel of land tentatively called “UCSB Lane” has been successfully purchased for project use. You can find it at the following SLURL location: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Kerlingarfjoll/179/245/46. 

Furthermore, please check to see that your avatars have been invited to become members of the “UCSB Transcriptions” Second Life group. I’ve set it up so that this group collectively owns the land parcel above.

Once everyone has joined the group, I’ll reset the preferences so that all group members can edit the terrain. In the meantime, I believe only the “UCSB Lane” account can edit the land.

The Wired Campus blog (Chronicle of Higher Education) posted this story today about Second Life’s new voice-chat feature.  It includes a video.