Speaker Session Audience

The University of Kentucky participated in the 2009 College in Second Life this past weekend. This was the second college fair held on the main grid of Second Life and the second time UK has participated.  As with last year, the fair included a speaker series and an exhibit area where college and university representatives could create information booths.  The speaker events were held this weekend only, but the exhibit booths will be available at the fair site through Nov. 13.  The fair was held on International Schools Island, SLURL:  http://bit.ly/SLCF09welcome.

UK booth at College Fair

The speakers this year were really excellent.  We hope to have a page up in the fair Google Group soon with resources associated with several of the presentations (notes, links, slides, if available).

Alice at the closing panel session

A list of the participating schools is availble on the main fair information page, and a map of the fair site shows where each school exhibit is located.  We had more space and “prims” (Second Life building blocks) available to use this year, so the booths were particularly creative.  I’d encourage everyone to visit the site while it is available.  If you want to talk with any of the exhibitors, right-click on any object to find the name of the avatar owner.

I created the UK booth in something of an Alice-in-Wonderland theme – the site included a mini replica of the virtual William T. Young Library we have on our island, with small furniture and information objects inside.  The whole building is “phantom” (your avatar can walk right through it), so don’t worry if it looks like you won’t be able to fit through the door.

Many of the exhibits include free educational tools and landmarks and almost all include information about what their college or university is doing in Second Life.  They are also creative and fun examples of conveying information in Second Life.The fair tag is SLCF09, so search for that tag to find information posted by other fair attendees.  (e.g., see this collection of Flickr images using the fair tag)

Although the speaker series is over, the exhibits are well worth exploring!  If you have questions please contact kraemer@email.uky.edu.

The Common Reading Experience book discussion hosted on University of KY island went well last night! In addition to some island regulars, we also had a visitor from Ecuador who participated in the discussion.

Common Reading Experience participants

A big THANK YOU to Erimentha Hitendra for leading the discussion and organizing this event!  Maybe we should consider a regular book discussion series.  Anyone interested?

Reminder!  Please join us for the upcoming Common Reading Experience event, a discussion of the book

The Color of Water, by James McBride

Monday, Oct 12 at 6:00 PM local time (3:00 PM SLT)

The discussion will take place in the virtual Young Library on the University of Kentucky’s Second Life island.  The SLURL for the event is http://slurl.com/secondlife/University%20of%20KY/121/98/29.  The Second Life client is available (free!) at http://secondlife.com.  The client is also installed on campus in the labs in William T Young Library and King Library.  Contact a lab manager if you have questions.  A (free!) Second Life account is also required.

Students can receive CRE credit in participating courses for attending this event!

For anyone interested in learning more without creating a Second Life account, we will also be displaying the event in the Gallery of Young Library.  Or feel free to attend in the Gallery and bring your laptop, too!  Contact kraemer@email.uky.edu if you have questions about how to participate in this event.

Second Life Class Sept 18

Get started in Second Life, class session TODAY, 9/18, 11:00 AM EST, room B-35 in the basement of Young Library, University of Kentucky.  This class is specifically to support the UK Island participation in UK’s Common Reading Experience, but this is just a general intro to Second Life and attendance is open to everyone!

See this snappy flyer and these related blog posts:

Common Reading Experience

Exhibit to support Common Reading Experience

The University of Kentucky’s W.T. Young Library presents a new exhibit – The Color of Water: A Common Reading Experience at the University of Kentucky. The exhibit, housed in the virtual W.T. Young Library, includes information about James McBride, his book, The Color of Water, the Common Reading Experience, and campus resources at the University of Kentucky.  In addition, the exhibit provides supplementary information to expand the reader’s understanding of the author’s background and to address issues such as religion, interracial families, and African American history that are discussed in the book.

In conjunction with the exhibit, the UK Libraries and UK’s Common Reading Experience will host a discussion of the book on October 12, 2009, from 3:00-4:00pm (SLT) (6:00-7:00 EST), in the virtual William T. Young Library on the University of Kentucky Island in Second Life.  A face to face observation of the in-world discussion will be provided simultaneously in the Young Library Gallery on October 12^th from 6:00-7:00pm (EST). The discussion will focus on issues such as race, religion, education, identity, family, and more found throughout the book as well as how those things shaped the character’s experiences and perceptions of the world around them.  This discussion provides student participation credit for the Common Reading Experience.

For more information about the exhibit or the book discussion, contact UK Libraries’ own: Erimentha Hitendra, Ginevra Merlin, or Alice Burgess.

University of Kentucky Island is located at http://slurl.com/secondlife/University%20of%20KY/121/98/29.

The UK Second Life community and the UK Department of Anthropology invite all to attend — in real life or in Second Life — an interview by AJ Kelton with Tom Boellstorff (SL: Tom Bukowski), Editor-in-Chief of American Anthropologist, the flagship journal of the American Anthropological Association and author of Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human (Princeton University Press, 2008). Mark your calendar and be sure to join us:

Tuesday, September 1st
2:30 pm Second Life Time (5:30 pm Eastern)
CHSSSouth Amphitheater in Second Life
OR
UK Student Center Theatre in real life (near the UK Federal Credit Union) – we’ll have the interview available for viewing and a microphone on hand in case anyone wants to use Randolph Hollingsworth’s SL avatar (Bella Yan) to ask questions and interact with the inworld participants.

Several of us will be at the Center Theatre auditorium at 5 p.m. to talk more about how we are using Second Life in the classroom and for research. If you are curious to know more about how Second Life works, are wondering how a terrific educator and researcher like Boellstorff got involved, and haven’t gotten a chance to see it for yourself… this is a good event for you!

The Rowdy KYians will be meeting on University of KY Island to have an information-sharing session about the recent Second Life Community Convention, held in San Francisco on Aug 13-16, 2009.

What:  SLCC Discussion
Where:  University of KY Island
When:  Wed, Aug 26, 2:00 PM EDT (11:00 AM SLT)

Two Rowdies (David Horrar from UofL and Beth Kraemer from UK) attended the event.  David and Beth (aka Oggie and Alice) will talk about sessions they attended, people they met, things they learned, and more in this informal meeting.  Everyone is welcome to attend!

SLCC 09 M Linden Keynote

We’ve scheduled a “real life” training class on campus for anyone new to Second Life who is interested in participating in the Common Reading Experience book discussion taking place on the island on Oct 12.  This class is for anyone who wants a little help getting started, whether you have an avatar already or not.

Date: Friday, Sept 18, 2009
Time: 11:00 AM – noon (EST)
Location: Young B-35 (Student Computing Lab classroom, basement, Young Library)

Remember that Second Life is installed on campus in the labs in both Young Library and King Library. (The link is under “Instructional Software” or ask a lab manager if you can’t find it.)

If you cannot make this class but want some help getting started in SL, contact kraemer@email.uky.edu.

Several University of KY island residents participated in the Second Annual Rowdy KYians training session hosted at the University of Louisville yesterday.  The day-long workshop was intended as training for new Kentucky educators interested in Second Life, and also as a chance for experienced users to meet and share.

We had an overflow crowd, with all 40 computers occupied and several experienced UofL Second Lifers floating in the room to provide tech support support.  Participants represented colleges and universities, K-12 educators, public libraries, as well as other Kentuckians interested in learning more about educational applications of Second Life.  New users created accounts and learned the basics of Second Life:  how to edit your avatar, how to communicate  and navigate in the virtual world, how to find educational sites in SL, how to get a box off your head!  We toured several educational locations in Second Life, including (of course) University of KY island.  Several UK attendees conducted tours, facilitated discussion, or conducted demos.  Kathryn Moore of UK provided an overview of her experience as a Nursing faculty member in Second Life.  Dwight Newton of UK did a building and scripting demo.  And Beth Kraemer conducted the University of KY island tour.

If anyone who participated in the workshop is not yet a member of the Rowdy KYians, please join!  You can post any follow up questions to the list to get help.  The purpose of this group is to provide a place to share information and support each other.  Use the Google Group page to request membership.  If anyone has images from the event, please add those to the Rowdy KYian Flickr Group.

Thank you to David Horrar and everyone at UofL for all their work to create this wonderful event!

Participants in UofL's computer classroom.

Rowdy KYians avatars on UofL's island

Building demo in the UofL sandbox.

The University of Kentucky is hosting a Common Reading Experience event this fall, and University of KY Island will host one of the discussion sessions!  Visit the CRE website for information about the book (James McBride’s The Color of Water) and other CRE events on campus.

The Second Life session on UK’s island will take place on Monday, October 12 at 6:00 PM EST (3:00 PM SLT) in the virtual Young Library on the island.  Miranda Hines (Erimentha Hitendra in SL) will lead the discussion and Beth Kraemer (Alice Burgess in SL) will be on hand to help out any new Second Life users.

We hope to see many of our island regulars for this event, as well as some new faces!  If you are new to Second Life and would like more information about how to get started, contact Beth at kraemer@email.uky.edu.  We are planning a campus training session to be held a couple of weeks before the 10/12 event.

For more posts relating to this event, see all UKisland posts tagged “CRE”.

Wildcat reading on University of KY Island

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