ISTE Eduverse Talks Appearance!

I hope you can join us in Second Life this next Tuesday, June 9, as my avatar sits down at 5 pm SLT on stage with those of Peggy Sheehy, Marianne Malmstrom, Andy Wheelock and host Kevin Jarrett to talk about the impact of Second Life and ISTE on my "real life." In the live talk show, ISTE Eduverse Talks, you'll likely hear me say that Second Life, for me, isn't a "second life," but rather a fun and exciting extension of my only life into another realm. I've made dear friends, whom I see admittedly more often than I see my "real world" friends, and I've shuttled  some of those friendships over into "real life" to become colleagues and collaborators in ways that would never have thrived as they have, not even been possible, without Second Life.

A couple summers ago, David Warlick, kindly Skyping in for a talk with a group of teachers I was leading into Web 2.0, made the statement: "Scott and I aren't friends because of our geographical proximity, we're friends because of what we think." I'll always cherish that concept, and it goes a long way toward explaining the draw of Second Life, Twitter, and any other tool I can use to network with innovative and technology savvy educators. Life(s) is good.

Location: ISTE Broadcast Studio: 
http://slurl.com/secondlife/ISTE%20Island%203/197/238/23

I hope you'll come to see and hear what I know will be a fascinating hour. Here's a pic from the most recent episode of the show (sponsored by Hewlett-Packard and ISTE and produced in collaboration with the Second Life Cable Network!):

Now I have to go shopping for professional virtual clothes. I don't think my medieval knight's cape or my MUVErs scrubs will do the trick!

The "Embedded Practicioner," -- Words of Blogging Wisdom from an 8th Grade English Teacher

I didn't mean to do it. After all, I had already spent over an hour in Second Life earlier in the day at a fantastic panel discussion on "Virtual Identity," the discussion facilitated by the dana centre in England. That panel featured Howard Rheingold, coiner of the term "smartmob" and widely acknowledged creater of the concept of "virtual community," and Will Gardner, founder of the non-profit "Childnet International," an internet safety organization created to "help make the Internet a great and safe place for children." I did some recording there but haven't had a chance to do anything with it. (I hope I can, since it was really wonderful.)

So when I logged in on my laptop at my boy's bedside while he went to sleep last night (he doesn't really need that anymore--it's just a tradition with us, one that I'm sure I'll be losing soon as he breaks into teenagedness) I never intended to get caught up in another online presentation. I made the crucial (propitious) mistake of checking out the happenings at the Auditorium on ISTE Island.

Friend Kevin Jarret (KJ Hax inworld) manages a wonderful Tuesday night speaker series over there, and his blog, "The Story of My Second Life," was one of the first ones that motivated me to begin blogging my Second Life experiences. Last night, KJ offered Torontan 8th grade English teacher Konrad Glogowski (SL: Konrad March) on the topic, "The Embedded Practicioner," sharing information about his journey from attachment to his "teacherly voice" to the development of his "readerly voice," which a teacher attempting to nurture literacy skills with blogs must, in Konrad's view, adopt.

Take 20 minutes and listen up to the segment of the talk I choose to share. If you are interested in educational blogging with students, I feel it's a "must listen!" Then head on over to Konrad's blog, "blog of proximal development," for more. I'll add the pics I took here soon, but here's one for starters, the one referenced early in Konrad's presentation, when he's talking about what most of us traditionally, and habitually, call "teaching":



Cheers,
Scott