We can use the term "News" very loosely here.

Important: Write your name in the title or at the end, so we know whose news it is.

I guess we can make comments below each 'edit' issue, so we can focus on the written 'news' (alicia)

Important: In order to avoid scrolling, the latest news will be on top now (so reversed order like on Weekly Meetings). This is not the case for the comments, however, which is programmed by Pbwiki this ways and we can not change it (unfortunately).

Virtual Gym Helps Weight Loss.  If this is to be believed, what implications might it have?

MUVEnation - A free one-year online postgraduate course for teachers

Teaching and learning with MUVEs

Deadline: 15 October 2008

Limited number of participants: 80

As far as I understand it, participants need to be in Europe.

More information here: http://muvenation.org/press-releases

(Nergiz through Cristina Costa on Twitter)

Unconference in SL 27-28 September 2008

http://jokaydia.wikispaces.com/jokaydiaUnconference

Is anybody planning to attend this unconference on Jokaydia Island? I probably won't be able to do so if you are attending, it would be great if you could give us a brief summary or links to chat logs or other resources. (Nergiz)

Uruguayan TV channel will broadcast our SLexperiments meeting on 19 September 2008

Hi all Alicia (Wonderalicia) just told me that she will be interviews by a Radio and TV station in Uruguay. The interview with the TV station will take place during our regular Friday meeting, tomorrow, 19 September. The journalist will sign up for SL with the help of Alicia and will take a tour of SL with her and also visit us. So, be prepared to introduce yourselves and say hello to the Uruguayan audience :) Hey, and put on your best outfit ;) Here is an article about Alicia and teaching in SL. It's in Spanish: http://tinyurl.com/4duoph Hope to see you tomorrow. Best wishes Nergiz  

PS: Feel free to arrange something with your local TV stations :) 

10-10:30 am SLT 

Learning Quests and Alternate Reality Games (ARG) in Second Life 

[Poster presentation (30 minutes)] 

Presenter: Graham Stanley/ SL: Baldric Commons 

Location: Rockcliffe Arts Center, http://slurl.com/secondlife/Rockcliffe%20I/100/74/24 

Description: This session will highlight the use of Learning Quests and Alternate Reality Games (ARG) in Second Life using examples developed by the British Council for their Teen Grid island in Second Life and looking at others on the Main Grid. I will discuss the lessons we have learned and give advice for others interested in using Second Life as a platform for similar game-based learning. Participants can expect to leave with a better idea of how they could

proceed in the design of their own quest-based games. 

SLexperiments Wiki goes public - 24 August 2008

Everybody can read the wiki now without having to become a member. However, if you want to contribute, you have to open a pbwiki account and request to join.

This will make life a bit easier for the administrator and those who are simply interested in reading what this wiki is all about to help them decide whether they want to join and participate actively.

Thanks for your interest!

Nergiz

Exploring Second Life for Language Teaching and Learning - public online session in WiziQ

Hi all

I have agreed to hold a public session in WiziQ on 28 August 2008, at GMT+3.

The title is: Exploring Second Life for Language Teaching and Learning

Here you can find a description of the session: http://snurl.com/slinlang

Suggestions on what to cover in the presentation are most welcome.

I hope to see you there.

I will need your support :)

Nergiz Kern (aka Daffodil Fargis)

http://slexperiments.edublogs.org/ 

DENNIS (Definitely news) 

Blog on teaching on SL in LanguagLab

An interesting  blog has appeared written by a group of people teaching on LanguageLab.

http://www.languagelab.com/blog/

That was DENNIS

(Apologies for the fact that the URL here was wrong. No-one compained, though, so perhaps no-one read this entry.)

DENNIS:  Presentation on Second Life: "How is SL being used for training and learning languages?"

"If you first......" My first attempt disappeared.  DENNIS writing. Daffodil asked for details of my forthcoming presentation on on SL. The precise date of my talk is not yet revealed to me, but the general details are:

http://www.besig.org/events/conf2008/index.htm

That was DENNIS

NMC Storytelling Presentation - Saturday, 17 May 2008 (Nergiz)

I attended the first half of this presentation. It was unfortunately not as relevant and interesting as I thought. But after I had signed out, I received an IM from the first presenter. He was curious whether I was Turkish because he said he loved Hodja Nasreddin stories which originated in Turkey. 

Why am I telling you this? Firstly, it's another proof that you can get contacts when you attend different events. Secondly, in this case, the person is a storytelling professional and an author in RL. So, somebody, I normally would have not met so easily. Thirdly, we are "friends" now, and he will inform me of future events of his (we could take our students with us for example). Fourthly, he might be willing to accept an invitation from us if we had a group of students and wanted them to listen to a storyteller life and then tell their own stories.

Eduction@Edunation event missed! :(  - Saturday 17 May 2008 (Nergiz)

Only after Graham Stanley twittered that he had attended the event and that it had been great, did I realise I'd missed it. I'm pretty sure I had put it in my calendar. It was very relevant. But anyway, too late for now. But, this is also why I set up this "News" page. We can add SL related events here, so that we are all informed and we don't have to send e-mail messages back and forth.

FRIDAY 16TH. TOOL PRESENTATION BY ICT LIBRARY (alicia)

On Friday afternoon I checked my mail before leaving for class and I saw an announcement about a tool presentation. I opened up SL without thinking I could catch it up. FOrtunately was just going on! At least 40 people were there. ICT Library developer was the presented. Milosun is his name in SL (Maru, you can search him by choosing the tag : people once in SL ) . It's an OPEN mind. Can't imagine how much he knows about teaching tools and he showed us ALL. There are at least 40 in that land, some for free (which I took) and other to purchase. There is the board I mentioned with the notes to be left. I know who the owner is. I contacted but no reply till now.

In 'landmarks' here, I left his name to be contacted when I visited Edtech. It was great luck to meet him, have him as 'friend' and been in touch to ask him 'anything' about how things work. He also gave a list of many 'names' of  educational tools. I bought one for $Ln 5, which brings a hand chair plus other tools. This is very practical for 'classes' or when giving talks. People who sit on that char can 'raise' their hand to participate. This can be managed by 'up/down' arrow. This tool box is at ICT library on the second floor. You can go up through a ramp or just flying inside. ICT LIBRARY, it's really WORTH VISITING.

Conclusion: a)I have plenty of Teaching tools. We can share them when we meet

                        b)Milosun is an open source to consult.Terribly kind

                  c)I asked 'friendship' to many of the participants: some were educators, others not. Also with the objective to have them in our list to send future information when our project will be in force.

MAY 23rd - MAY 24th - SL CONFERENCE AT EDUNATION (alicia)

I guess Nergiz must have enrolled, but if by any chance you Maru has not,please do it. Go to 'Edunation' site (again, put Edunation on 'search' - places,  once in SL) and enroll. It's a great chance to see things going on, meeting people and a good trigger for us to brainstorm about what who we talked with and what we heard. It will last both days long.

Teaching opportunity in  - Saturday 17 May 2008 (Nergiz)

Hi Alicia, hi Maru I don't have much time and will tell you the story later in detail but I've just accepted to prepare and teach a 3-week English course in SL. I have two weeks to prepare now. Will share the course in SLexpriments, of course and hope for your feedback. It will be a pre-int/int General English course, 2x week, 90 min. This course will be for free but students who want to continue will have to pay.

It will be a great experience and will help me learn and actually sit down and prepare for something more concrete now. 

Lessons in Second Life - Every Monday from 1.00 to 2.30 PST (Alicia)

http://slurl.com/secondlife/hyperborea/92/30/26/

An open table forum centering on what can be learned in sl in both formal and informal settings.  

Language Learning & Teaching in SL - 7 July 2008 12pm SLT/PT (7pm GMT)

http://slurl.com/secondlife/SL5B%20Linked/185/187/25/

This is a roundtable talk about learning and teaching languages in SL. It's part of the Second Life Birthday Events which art taking place from 23 June and last for two weeks.

There are some other interesting presentations and talks. Check out the event calendar:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/SL5B/Panels_%26_Keynote_Speeches

SLexperiments Google Discussion Group

Only very few of the SLexperiments Wiki members have joined the discussion group in Google, which complements the wiki. I've set it up so that we wouldn't use the comment feature for longer discussions of topics and because pbwiki doesn't offer an integrated forum yet.

Some of you might just not have time to add to the discussions and others might not have anything to ask or say. You might also be using other Second Life discussion forums to ask your questions (e.g. SLED), which is absolutely OK as there is a much wider audience.

Anyhow, I have now at least lowered the barriers so that everybody can join the group now without asking to be invited.

SLB5 Round table of language teachers in SL - 7 July 2008, 12.00 pm SLT

I'm very sorry that I am so late with this news. I should have posted it earlier (before the event). I just assumed that most of you will know because Gavin had announced it in the Webheads' YG. But not all of our members are Webheads. I'm really sorry for that. To make up for it a little bit, I have just posted the chat log on a new page that I've created called Event chat logs. There, you will also find a link to SLB5 event recordings. Maybe they will have a voice recording there. Would be great.

Please, if you know about an SL event relevant to us, don't wait for me to post about it. I'm not always reliable :) (Nergiz)

News? Daffodil asked for details of my forthcoming talk: How Second Life is being used for training and language learning. I don't yet know the precise date, but it is during the BESIG Bonnj conference (Germany).

Second Life Introduction in WiziQ - 13 July 2008, 3 pm GMT!

OK, here I am trying to be more reliable ;) Minhaaj, whom I started following on Twitter only recently, has announced a session about Second Life in WiziQ called "Introduction to Second Life". Nellie Deutsch will moderate the session: http://tinyurl.com/6feuxh (Nergiz)

SLexperiments Blog with lesson plan

Hi everybody! Some time ago, I had created an SLexperiments blog but had never used it really. Now, that I have finally started teaching in SL, I have activated the blog and made it public. I have started posting regularly about the process of setting up the course and especially about planning the lessons, difficulties involved and post-lesson evaluations. I will also publish my lesson plans there so that you can get a better idea of what I am talking about in the blog. 

You can also download the lesson plans and try them in your classes.

And, of course, you are most welcome to leave comments on the blog or also, specifically on the individual lesson plan pages. If you try the lessons, let me know in a comment how it went.

Nergiz Kern (aka Daffodil Fargis)

PS: I've also linked to the blog from the Lesson Plans/Ideas folder as that's the place where we collect lesson plans.