Second Life Educators of Escambia County

  
Finally, the long awaited day arrived for educators of Escambia County School District, on August 24, 2011.  Our student environment, TEC Island (Teens of Escambia County) was delivered!  We have a plan!  We are working with a pilot group comprised of six visionary 8th grade science teachers.  After an initial informative meeting, we spent an entire day together immersing these teachers in Second Life, visiting science sims, observing various methods of delivery of information, experiencing simulations, and taking note of types of assessment tools.  We will meet virtually with these teachers, with stipend provided, during the remainder of the this semester, and teachers also commit to spend an extra hour inworld following each meeting completing an assignment.  During these meeting, teachers will learn skills such as terraforming, building, management of parcel and group, using Moodle/Sloodle, and using teacher/assessment tools.  Beginning second semester, our teachers will engage in a project based learning class, during which they will plan their first projects prior to students entering TEC Island later in the semester.  Watch for changes on TEC Island as these excited and dedicated teachers prepare to empower their students to discover and share new knowledge in a engaging new world.

Quite some time ago, we were privileged to meet John D. Ross, while presenting at FETC about our district’s beginning professional development program on SLEEC Island.  As an instructional designer with expertise in educational technology, he was looking for new trends in delivery of online PD.  He had heard of educators using Second Life, but felt it was new and was waiting and watching.  After our conversation, he became convinced he had to give Second Life a try.  After exploring and attending SL sessions both at SLEEC, VSTE and other educational islands, we met in world to discuss our program and our future plans more in depth.  Our program now includes formal PD series where teacher complete followup activities, evaluation of the program, and receive inservice points counting toward state recertification.   We are excited that our program has been included in his new book, Online Professional Development: Design, Deliver, Succeed!  Our thanks and gratitude to John Ross, RL/JR Quander, SL for seeing and sharing our vision, understanding the possibilities and joining the educational metaverse!

Are you a Virtual Educator who can’t get to the ISTE 2011 Conference in Philadelphia on June 25th-28th? No Problem!   SIGVE (Special Interest Group: Virtual Environments) speakers presenting in the SIGVE Conference Playground June 27th and 28th will be streamed into ISTE Island.
Location: ISTE Island SIGVE Playground

Schedule of  Presenters :

http://tinyurl.com/SIGVE-SCHEDULE|

Take advantage of the wide variety of fantastic, talented educator who volunteer to share their experience using virtual environments in education!
Seats are unlimited, there are no traffic jams and no high hotel and travel cost!  Just grab a cup of coffee and your favorite snack, put your feet up and join in from the comfort of your home!!! Hope to see you there!

Thursday, February 10th,  Second Life Educators of Escambia County (SLEEC) launched a four week professional learning series, entitled  “iTeach with iPods & iPads”, at SLEEC Island in Second Life.  This four week series meets Thursday evenings, at 8:00 p.m. central time (6:00 p.m. SLT).  Our first session on Feb.10th was presented by Chris O’Neal, a nationally renowned educational consultant and featured speaker, as well as a former elementary and middle school teacher and tech director.  Chris shared  useful information including research supporting handhelds, experience and lessons learned, and the following web resources: iPod Wiki ,  Research on Mobile Learning, Learning in Hand, iPod Educator Ning

The second week in the series,  Timm Hackett of East Carolina University, presented on the use of the iPad and it’s many apps supporting education as well as those useful for personal management and productivity. Timm shared many resources, including the Apple in Education site.  I am sure the app store sales volume increased as he spoke.   Week Three , ECSD IT Teacher, Sue Stevens spoke about how the iPad and it’s apps fit well with Project Based Learning.  She shared examples of how specific apps were used to create student projects. of projects as described in this Learning in Hand video.  During our 4th and final session,   Chris Smith, Thailand Educator and creator of International Schools in Second Life, challenged us to continue networking and sharing ideas among ourselves as we lead the way piloting new programs with new technology.   A panel discussion followed, comprised of educators from various Escambia County School District who shared success stories, best practices and strategies using iDevices with students.

Escambia County School District’s Instructional Technology Department hosted a four week professional learning course at SLEEC Island during November and December, 2010.  Rather than meeting face to face in a computer lab at the district training center, teachers met virtually in the evening from home, to learn about identified Web 2.0 tools.   Teacher could either enroll in the course and commit to attend all four session and complete follow up work in the course Moodle, or choose to attend for audit.  Each of the first three sessions featured one of our district teachers sharing a tool they were using with students in their classroom curriculum and gave examples of completed student projects.  The web 2.0 tools shared were:  Wordle (presented by Sue Stevens), Glogster (presented by Gail O’Neal & Angela Funderburk), and VoiceThread (presented by Dynita Padgett).  During the fourth and final meeting, participants used Typewith.me to share how they used one of the tools presented in their own classrooms.  Watch the ERO posting for our next course, iTeach using iPod and iPad, during the months of February and March.

Escambia County School District is a large countywide district with nine middle schools placed at diverse locations.  So what is the best way for one district Math Specialist to meet regularly with her 21 middle school algebra teachers?  They are meeting at SLEEC Island once per month to discuss and reinforce state curriculum standards and best practices in student project based learning activities, as they prepare their students to succeed on the end of course online exams this year.  We send kudos to Sheila Montgomery, forward thinker in the use of this virtual environment.

Virtual Innovative Teaching and Technology Summit (VITTS)

Please join us at SLEEC Island, Escambia County School District’s virtual campus, on October 9th from 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. (cst) for our Virtual Innovative Teaching and Technology Summit.  Throughout the day, many educators will be presenting on the following topics:  iPods & iPads, Google Apps and Google Earth, Teaching in Virtual Environments, Geocaching, ePals, VoiceThreads, and Project Based Learning. For more information on session times and presenters, visit our conference website.  Help us prepare by completing the registration form.  Please make sure you upgrade to the Viewer 2 for optimum interaction during these session.

SLEEC Island is a Closed Estate accessed by joining the”SLEEC” ( Second Life Educators of Escambia County) Group.  However, October 9th, we will open the island, for the day, removing the group membership requirement.  If you would like to visit the island prior to that day, please search for “SLEEC” and join the”SL Educators of Escambia County” Group.
Come spend an hour, a few hours, or all day with us!

For further information, please email or IM:
Lauren Thurman/Laural McCallen LThurman@escambia.k12.fl.us
Lori Weedo/Lori Galli LWeedo@escambia.k12.fl.us

ISTE’s Virtual Environments Special Interest Group is an organization you will want to join both in real life and Second Life.  Initially formed by ISTE Second Life members, this group seeks out and welcomes representatives from the many emerging virtual worlds, building a community of like-minded educators learning from and teaching one another.  Many valuable resources and presentations are posted at the SigVE Wiki. Each third Tuesday of the month at 5:00 p.m. SLT, the SigVE hosts the ISTE Speaker Series at ISTE Island in Second Life. The next session takes place September 21st and will be a Reaction Grid Panel featuring K12 Teachers and RG founder Kyle Gomboy, followed by an Educators’ Evening in ReactionGrid.   Take a moment to join the ISTE SIG Virtual Environments Group in Second Life, to receive notices of in world events.  Hope to see you at the SigVE Speaker Series Events.

In early May, a group ECSD teachers at SLEEC Island engaged in a  brainstorming session of technology and instructional topics of interest to the group.  The result was a bi-weekly event called the SLEEC Virtual Learners Community Series.   Several of the educators in the original group volunteered to present on these topics.  Our teachers needed knowledge of the use of Second Life presentation tools, so we spent our next meeting creating educator tools that are helpful when presenting inworld.  The first tool we created was a website on a prim media board to support interactive presentations and the second was a notecard to share information with other avatars.  Instructions to create these items are posted at the SLEEC Playground.   The next time we met, PrincessDy Halostar (Dynita Padgett) taught us how to create Clickable Worksheets, using a word processing program, a table, graphics and weblinks to provide guided internet research.   This week,  PrincessDy joined with Islet Wonder (Trisha Dickes) to share how their students are using VoiceThreads to present their understanding of curriculum content and to discuss these issues with students in their school.  We hope you will join us in our community series.  If you would like to be added to the SLEEC email group to receive notices of events, click the SLEEC Contact Form at the top of this page.

The School District of Escambia County’s Information Technology Department will be hosting its Innovative Teaching and Technology Summit on April 30th and May 1st.  Virtual events hosted at SLEEC Island in Second Life will coincide throughout the ITTS schedule.  Friday evening, following the opening session at 5:30 p.m., teachers from Project Based Learning schools and Technology Learning Groups will showcase completed student projects at the Hall Center, while teachers who participated in the virtual PBL class will share their projects at SLEEC Island. Come interact with these teachers using computers in the Mac Lab at the Hall Center, or from your home using your own account.
Corresponding with the May 1st ITTS schedule in real life, sessions will be available at SLEEC Island.  To view a list of sessions, times, presenters, how to register for Virtual ITTS, and how to create a second life account, please view the Virtual ITTS page linked at the top of this blog.  If you are new to second life, once you create your account, we encourage you to come into SLEEC Island in advance to practice moving with your avatar so you are comfortable using this medium during the summit.