Adventures in Dee. An A&S Wired student finds the dangerous narrows between adherence to role in a roleplaying sim and stereotyping.

Second Life Progress.

Reblogged from Between Shadow and Light in a Global Village:

This is a terrific post by an A&S Wired student - looking forward to seeing what international community in Second Life this student chooses to investigate for the group project.

There will be about 25 first year undergraduates from the A&S Wired living learning community in Keeneland Hall working on a group project focused on the many different dimensions of international communities in Second Life.  They will be looking for aspects of what the sociologist Elijah Anderson calls, The Cosmopolitan Canopy.  We will be guided in our explorations often by the teachings of the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah who wrote so persuasively about the concept of cosmopolitanism.

See more about all this at our class blog, http://ukshadowlight.wordpress.com/.  We’ll be playing with “bio-cubes” on the island after spring break – contact dolph@uky.edu if you want to facilitate… or just come and play!

They met together with Dr. Wilhelm’s class of pre-service math teachers in their UKy Second Life classroom to talk about their science findings – and Dr. Venville writes that she found the added bonus of using an avatar to talk online live with students from another university to be intriguing. 

Dr. Venville writes:  “The lesson was a great success because it enabled ‘live’ discussion across the hemispheres which is an enriching experience when trying to understand and explain the phases of the Moon. Our goal is for these pre-service teachers to see the ‘added value’ that platforms like second life can bring to teaching…”

They plan to try and bring together their two classes next time – a combined meeting of aspiring teachers in Australia and in Kentucky.  Great things are ahead!

With the help of the UK Libraries and two undergraduate psychology students, Professor Kraemer has replicated a classic psychology research study in Second Life.

A good time was had by all.

Please join us inworld at 5:30 p.m. ET (2:30 p.m. SLT) when several local artists convene in the W.T.Young Library Auditorium (in real life) for a discussion with Marjorie Guyon, the artist of the Nation of Nations art installation.

This free event is co-sponsored by The Central Kentucky Council for Peace and Justice as part of their VOICES for Peace and Justice Series 2011.  The reception and discussion is open to the public and provides an opportunity to discuss critical questions in our community about immigration and debates over new state laws defining citizenship.  For more information, contact Bella Yan inworld or Randolph Hollingsworth at 257-0047.

Internet2 Meeting Presenters

A small group presented on October 3 to the Internet2 Fall Members Meeting. Doesn’t this look like a fun crowd?

If you are looking for more information about Second Life at the University of Kentucky, contact Patsy at pcarr3@uky.edu. We’d love to hear from you. 

Virtual Anatomy Lab in Second Life

Ricetopher Freenote (Dr. Christopher Rice) and Kezia1618 Landar (Dr. April Richardson) will join Wildcat Thursday (Patsy Carruthers) and Alice Burgess (Beth Kraemer) in-world for a brief presentation to the Fall Internet2 meeting. The focus will be Second Life as a K-20 tool that requires high-speed Internet access. Here is a description of our 15-minute session:

Virtual Anatomy and Political Science in Second Life – University of Kentucky uses its space in Second Life to support teaching and research projects as well as special events. April Richardson, Ph.D., (Kezia1618 Landar) teaches a virtual anatomy lab in SL, and Christopher S. Rice, Ph.D., (Ricetopher Freenote) has used SL to support his course American Political Thought, in which students explored political theory concepts in the built and social environments of Second Life. Visit UK’s SL project and link to resources and UK Island in Second Life at http://ukisland.wordpress.com/

Our session starts at 8:45am Eastern time (5:45am SLT) on Monday, Oct. 3, 2011, in the virtual WT Young Library. We will visit the virtual anatomy lab, as well (photo of lab building, which is next to the library). There are two ways to join us, but be aware that some challenges exist and, depending on how you attend, you may not hear all parts of the presentation.

1. Join us in Second Life*. We’ll start at the virtual WTY Library on University of KY Island and we’ll move to the virtual anatomy lab to wrap up. If you join us here, you will not hear Wildcat’s introduction; you will only hear the in-world presenters. Since Wildcat’s portion is very short, at the beginning, then you won’t miss much. We’d love to have you there to observe! (Please refrain from discussion if you attend in-world; we have only 15 minutes to present and will not have time for Q&A.)
2. Join via streaming for I2 Meeting attendees at https://www.mcnc.org/video-streaming/Internet2Members.