The first presentation was for the 17th annual Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies and I presented some initial results of student perceptions of engagement related to their Second LIfe™ use and it’s impact on their performance. I have a lot more analysis to do and will be presenting a more detailed analysis at the upcoming Second Life™ Education Community Convention taking place September 5 – 7 in Tampa, Florida this year in conjunction with the Second Life Community Convention. I will post details of that after the session, but for those interested will post my slides from the AAA below.

My second presentation was given as part of the Conference on Teaching and Learning and was geared to how I used Second LIfe™, Twitter, Camtasia Studios, Meebo, Jing, and Concept Maps in my course. Whew that was a lot to over in 40 minutes! The slides for that are provided below.

Lastly, I was interviewed yesterday by CDB Barkley from the New Media Consortium as part of their Studio One series (follow the link for other interesting interviews). I mainly focused on the use of NMC’s orientation island which I’ve discussed previously in this blog and my plan on bringing in over 700 students this fall into Second Life™ (in just a few weeks, which says quite a bit about my lack of blog posting this summer).

Well it’s been a busy few weeks, but the real fun begins in 2 weeks as 700+ students enter begin using Second Life™, I promise to keep everyone posted with greater frequency.

The build by Davina Glitter (aka Davina Hovanec in RL)

is incredible (IMO) and has 3 separate areas for viewing my lectures. Why lectures in Second Life (they will also be made available on the web and as an iPod video download)? Simply because I believe that there will be myriad benefits for watching my lectures in small groups as opposed to alone in a dorm room or office cubicle or campus lab. Back channel chat and IM can happen, something that doesn’t happen in a classroom or certainly if you are alone. How many will choose to watch in Second Life remains an open question, compared to one-click on a web site, Second Life poses hurdles the students will have to jump over:

1. Have the proper computer
2. Navigate to the class parcel
3. Turn on media controls
4. Sit (well OK you don’t have to sit, but all AVs do)
5. Manipulate camera controls to view the video best

So that’s a whole lot more then just one-click, but should be worth it in the end.

The 3-D interactive accounting content is ready to go (though I’m quite sure I’ll be tweaking scripts for the next few weeks).

I’ve enjoyed my journey and have been blown away time and time again by amazing people, amazing builds and the amazing possibilities – it is time now to see what the students think. Update: Class is over and students seemed overwhelmed a bit about Second Life but also the other technology I’m using: Twitter, Meebo, Cmap Tools. I think once they get over the shock it will be alright.

So far the tool being used amazingly well is Meebo, an IM tool. I’ve embeded a Meebo widget into the class wikispace and students have been IM’ing me all day with questions, some before class even started! – what an easy tool to use. I’ve had more IM’s the first day then I received over the last several semesters.