I’ve been working on our Educational Uses of Second Life wiki resource this evening – a huge task that’s only getting bigger as the fabulous examples of education in Second Life keep on coming!

Anyway, I visited a bunch of places, but tonight’s stand-out was definitely Genome Island (SLurl) .

Developed by Professor Mary Anne Clark aka Max Chatnoir, a Professor at Texas Wesleyan University, the Island is focussed on using Second Life to teach genetics. Using the building and scripting tools in Second Life, Max has created laboratories where her students can take part in virtual experiments that produce analyzable data.

Here I am checking out the results of a experiment that was first done by Thomas Hunt Morgan in 1910 on the genetics of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.

The Island is also designed as a place where students and other residents can meet and talk with professional geneticists. It includes a range of interesting areas, including:

• the Abbey of Saint Thomas in Mendel’s Garden (SLurl) which is focussed on the laws of inheritance, which were discovered by Johann Gregor Mendel in the mid-nineteenth century
• the Tower (SLurl), which includes a Genes are DNA (Hershey-Chase) Experiment, DNA Models, a virtual DNA Sequencer, a model of the human chromosome and also includes quizes, notecards and links to additional information
• the Terrace (SLurl) – which houses a giant model of a Eukaryatoic Cell which residents can enter and interact with
• the Gene Pool (SLurl) which is situated by a lovely virtual pond and includes a series of displays which illustrate Protein Synthesis.

Here I am inside the Eukaryatoic Cell, trying desperately to click on the Excytotic Versicle so I can escape!

Here I am hanging out with the mixollamas – a crazy bunch of virtual creatures that are very handy for learning about genomes and how the recombination of genetic traits determined by different pairs of alleles is a powerful mechanism for generating diversity in a population.

One more interesting discovery – Dr. Clark also produces music based on protein sequences, which she has presented in Second Life.

If Science had been this cool when I was at school I would have paid way more attention!

It’s been a busy month, both in Second Life and in the real world… but I haven’t forgotten this blog! Time to catch up on a few things – including some stuff that I really should have linked to weeks ago!

eNetworks and the Australasian Second Life Showcase

We delivered 2 presentations presentations for the Australian Flexible Learning Framework’s E-Learning Network’s e-Trends Online Conference. Check out the proceedings and recordings on the conference website – including Sean’s fantastic presentation on Virtual Worlds which you can listen to here (recorded Elluminate session).

We also presented an In-world Event: Showcasing Australasian Educational Projects in Second Life – which was a hoot. Representatives from a range of educational projects came and shared their ideas and expertise and we have a great crowd of educators with us at the event. Sean’s written a great blog post about the event here, and also done a great job of putting together the event documentation. View the slides from the event below:

The slides can also be viewed in-world at Jo and Sean’s Virtual Meeting Space: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Wasp/74/31/86/

The generosity of our presenters was amazing and I think the crowd enjoyed hearing about the projects they are working on. It was certainly a thrill to ‘max out our sim’ with 40 participants at our space in Wasp for much of the event. A great learning curve for us too – which has given me lots of ideas about how we can explore running mixed-reality events and conferences in Second Life.

Relaxing at the Learnscope Lounge

Yesterday we held the first of two workshops for NSW LearnScope – focussed on helping people find their feet and get started in Second Life.

The sessions went well I think, and we managed to move a group of 15 newbies around to a few spaces in Second Life including our space in Second Life – Jo and Sean’s Virtual Meeting Space, Terra Incognita (SLurl) – Decka Mah’s fantastic action learning Island, the Heart Murmur Sim (SLurl) – where we saw a great example fo training in Second Life and Prim Hearts Amusement Park (SLurl) – which has some fantastic rides.

As part of supporting these events, I’ve established the LearnScope Lounge in-world.

It provides a base for the participants from our workshops to use during their explorations. The Lounge is an example of how easy it is to setup a simple space the group to use as a meeting point, and includes a bunch of tools and resources including notecards for newbies, our slides and resources and some examples of cool tools including Angrybeth’s Whiteboards, a Podcaster and free virtual Learnscope t-shirts (Virtual Schwag!)

All NSW LearnScope particpants are welcome to visit and use the resources. I’ll be maintaining the space until the end of August. Visit @ http://slurl.com/secondlife/Wasp/10/90/89.

An Island?…..

In the last month or so we’ve been busily working on some new plans in-world…. including exploring options for purchasing and establishing our very own virtual Island. I can’t decide what to call it though….. Suggestions in the comments greatly appreciated!

I’ll reveal more in the very near future, and am excited by the prospect of a new challenge in Second Life – planning and implementing my very own Island is an exciting prospect! I’m especially interested in developing some more extensive orientation resources for our participants in-world, as well as spaces for arts, community and educational projects.

Coming Up…

The next few weeks are likely to be busy too – with Session 2 of our Getting Started in Second Life workshops for NSW Learnscope Team Members, a session for the NMC TeacherBuzz group, an eNetworks 2007 Tour, a Knowledge Tree podcast and the kick-off of the Sydney Institute’s Second Life project…… so I better get back to work!