Virtual_Worlds


 * Name of Technology:** GLBTQ Online High School
 * Address of Website**: http://www.glbtqonlinehighschool.com/


 * Virtual High School:**

Advances in technology have made it possible for students to receive their education from places other than a traditional classroom. GLBTQ Online High School will offer the opportunity for students who have had problems in "regular" school due to their sexual orientation to attend classes online. This allows students to receive their education in an environment where they feel safe and secure.

Lessons will be delivered online, and students keep in touch through email and the use of chatboards. Access to teachers will be made available, as well as counselors that will be able to help with the specific problems that gay and lesbian teens might face. A separateonline online community for parents will be made available, so parents can talk about ways to help their children.

Virtual classrooms like this are popping up more and more frequently. They allow students who cannot attend regular public school for whatever reason to stay on top of their school work and to not fall behind. Hopefully this will cut down on the number of students who drop out of school.


 * Submitted by**: Jessica Pina


 * Name of Technology:** Second Life


 * Address of website:** http://secondlife.com/


 * Second Life is School Libraries:**

Second Life allows individuals to use technology to interact not just with software, but also with other people. As human contact is being minimized in many institutions, the library’s social aspect is becoming even more important, so libraries creating an interactive presence on the web is quite important. Second Life is a multi-user virtual environment (MUVE). It is becoming more popular among educators and librarians.

Second life is not a virtual world intended for children, but Second Life for Teens is geared towards kids age 13-17. Also, “safe, walled-in private estates” can be created that can only be accessed by the originator and those selected, such as a school district or school creating an estate to be used by teachers and students.

Librarians could use Second Life as a way of meeting with teachers, as well as for a way to offer professional training opportunities on library offerings, equipment, specific databases, programs…the options are limitless! These could be offered by the district as well, so that all teachers are receiving the same training on topics that need strict consistency. Text documents, short videos, animations and audio can all be shared within Second Life (Trotter, 2008).

With Second Life for Teens, librarians have a whole new way of reaching out. Within a “private estate”, a librarian could hold book talks, chats, and fun discussions to continue to get kids interested in reading.


 * Second Life in Educational Settings:**

In a science class, students can build avalanches. In math, shopping within Second Life can be used to teach “market math”. Within Second Life for Teens, some schools already operate after-school programs and activities, such as service projects and making short movies.

It is predicted that Second Life and other virtual worlds will be more widely used for classes when they can be hosted on school computer servers due to performance and student privacy and safety (Trotter, 2008).

Trotter, A. (2008, June 18). Educators Get a 'Second Life'. Education Week, 27(42), 1-17. Retrieved August 5, 2009, from Academic Search Complete database.


 * Submitted by:** Nikki Stroud


 * Active Worlds and The Palace** []

Active Worlds and The Palace offer opportunities to build virtual facilities with avatars of users and digitized simulacra of photographed rooms. As this technology is still growing, only imagination limits its uses in libraries and schools. Like Second Life, each can be limited to specific users, and new worlds can be built.

Imagine a virtual library where patrons enter through the internet, search the stacks, virtual displays, meeting rooms; select items, pay fines, contact librarians and eventually, check out and view resources from the comfort of the bedroom. No paper, no gas, no trip, no reshelving. Items in a virtual library would automatically return to the library at the end of their checkout time. Items that would be used at the library and left on a table would automatically return to the stacks, and who would care since infinitely many copies of virtual items could coexist. Physical items could be sent by snail mail. The homebound, restricted and unwelcome need never show up in the physical library; only virtual bums could sleep there.

Now imagine a virtual classroom; perhaps for homebound students, in alternative schools, as tutorial resources in the evenings and summer. Aside from the savings in travel, facility care, etc., the vaguaries of weather, dependence of the young on rides from parents and friends, and discipline would shift responsibility to the learners. Teachers could focus on helping students at their individual levels as each student could have the necessary facetime with a teacher without the social distractions of a conventional setting. Disruptive and dangerous students could be relegated to a safe space unable to affect the education of those around them. Educational expertise could go anywhere wire can be strung. //Homeschools//, especially could benefit from the virtual classroom since the only necessary resources would be the educator with access to resources. Costs for educational materials would be significantly less and handled as licensing; charging for use. No lost textbooks, easy record keeping.

Don't let me convince you it is particularly easy or already done. Hardware requirements will limit use, as will access to the internet, of course, but, for situations in which physical attendance to a library or classroom are unnecessary or undesirable, Active Worlds and The Palace are additional alternatives for the creation of virtual worlds.


 * Submitted by**: Griffin Mauser

Jump start at [|http://www.jumpstart.com] Jumpstart.com is specifically for the younger generation--PreK through 2nd grade. It is a colorful, cartoon world where users create an avatar, befriend the permanent residents of this virtual world and embark on adventures. The adventures are goal-oriented quests, and to advance, users must solve logic puzzles and compete in learning type tasks.

In the classroom, students could first create their avatar, and let that character be their representative in classwork for whom they earn "points". Points could be earned by completing class assignments on time or early. Perfect grades (100's) could earn points. Points could be arranged in such a manner that students earn the right at a certain number of points to go to jumpstart.com and participate in an adventure. The adventures, themselves could be a part of a competition, with students participating in teams. At the end of a period of time, the team of avatars with the highest achievement gets a prize of some sort. Students learn team play and sportmanship while they exercise their creativity in the creation of their character. Goal-oriented time management is learned in addition to the computer skills and learning goals of the adventures themselves.

But how is that applied in a library setting? For this age level, story time is a big library event. After hearing the story of the day, students might practice their creative writing skills by creating an adventure in Jumpstart land for their avatars that reflects the story from the story time. That type of creativity could make the literature come alive, by imagining the literary world as one their avatars could enter.

In short, jumpstart.com is a great avenue for creativity and imagination, coupled with life lessons such as achieving goals and applying logic.

Submitted by Carla James

=**__Second Life__**=

[]

Second Life is a virtual world created and owned by it's residents (users), called avatars. People who participate in Second Life, build their own avatars, which participate in. The avatars are digital versions of it's users. Second Life is a Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE). Second life was created in 2003 as a result of the vast use of digital media of a large population of users. Today, there are many users of gaming devices that engage people rather than sitting passively and only observing. With Second Life participants are actively engaged and involved in activity. The use of Second Life is limitless in the activities that can be done with this digital and online technology. Second Life is used for entertainment, but it is also used for educational purposes as well. With the advent of Second Life, it has allowed a different type of classroom setting. Many universities are using this technology for their distance learning classrooms. This new type of technology is allowing different forms of media to be used to the many different types of learners that we have.
 * __What is second Life?__**

The possibilites are endless what can be done with Second Life in an educational setting. As educators, we know that students learn best when they are actively engaged. Second Life allows for this active participation which will keep students engaged. Due to the fact that students today are such heavy gaming users, such as Game Boy. Wii, Playstation, etc., this is an excellent way for students to be engaged. They do not necessarily think of a learning activity using avatars that have been created in Second Life necessarily as a learning activity. For them, it is a fun and engaging activity, yet at the same time, they are learning. There are many activities that can be used using Second Life. For Social Studies for example, students can creat avatars that are characters living in pioneer days. As they are participating, they can see, and feel the experiences that pioneers had during harsh winters and weather conditions, harvesting crops with primitive harvesting tools, opposed to today's modern conveniences. After experiencing life in pioneer days, they could compare and contrast pioneer life to today's life. They can evaluate how these conveniences have changed and allowed people to have more time. In a Family and Consumer Science class (Food and Nutrition), students can do online shopping in the market place and learn how to budget their food dollars wisely. They could also follow a recipe and discover the results when recipes are followed and what happens when changes and substitutions are made. The educational activities are endless for classroom use. Libraries can use Second Life Library to use for staff development and virtual conferences for staff trainings.These staff trainings can help teachers learn how to use Second Life in their classrooms to enhance learning and engage all students. Virtual learning environments are created, so the possibilities are endless for classroom and educational use. Librarians can use Second Life to help teach students how to use the card catalog and locate materials in the library. It can also be used to teach students research methods and data retrieval.
 * __Second Life in Educational and School Library Settings__**

Ancelet, Lisa A. Association of College and Research Libraries and American Library Association. Fall 2007. Second Life: Using Second Life to Teach Information Literacy. [|www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/about/sections/is/projpubs/tipsandtrends/2007fall.pd] > //**by Brigette Hewitt**//


 * Name of Technology:** Club Penguin


 * Address of Website:** [|www.clubpenguin.com]

This website allows kids to create an avatar, who is a penguin and get to dress him or her up as they like. It is available for kids of all ages but it's featured for kids between 6 to 14 year olds. This site has been in business since 2005 but in August 2007 has joined Walt Disney Company. Knowing how careful Disney is, makes this virtual world more comforting to parents. Club Penguin is good with getting children involved in their community. They helped raise money for kids who needed help and continue to raise funds. There are employees that monitor the chats and what is posted, making sure that children are safe and are chatting and playing safely. This website has many activities that kids can play on line, write and interact with. There are comics, coloring pages, and many kinds of games as well. Photos and art about penguins can be displayed, this of course is also being monitored. There is a fee if one would like to join the special events, and exclusive parties. Advanced games will also require a membership. As stated in their website, Club Penguin allows kids to learn basic keyboarding skills, manage money with their virtual coins, reading and communication. Club Penguin has several headquarters througout the world like Australia, England and Brazil, to only mention a few.


 * How can this be used in the classroom?:** This website could be used as a fun site when kids have downtime. They can explore the site and learn new things. Instead of playing solitaire, or just goofing around the computer while others finish their work, students can learn about what is happening in the world. Teachers can also find out what Club Penguin is doing at the time and have the students get involved with helping the community. Help is needed no matter where kids are going to school. This can help expand the kids minds and have them come up with something locally to help those in need in their community.

[|Club Penguin Launches 101 Days of Fun], Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, June 16, 2009

[|Club Penguin and its Players Help Make the Holidays Brighter for Kids in Need], Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, December 25, 2008


 * Submitted By:** Elida Garza

Virtual Worlds in Education []

This website gives the reader so much information about using various virtual worlds in education and the benefits to students. Having students play in these virtual worlds builds decision making skills and leadership skills and adds an additional level to online learning. Below is a sampling of virtual worlds that could be easily integrated into the classroom:

[|http://www.sloodle.org] is an Open Source that integrates the Moodle module with Second Life allowing easier access and use to teachers in an educational setting. [|http://www.vivaty.com] is another virtual word that is easy to access. Teacher (or users) can create a Vivaty Space and post class related materials such as YouTube videos, class assignments and student products. These spaces may be kept private or shared. [] is a common virtual world with younger children.

Kimberly Schultz