The SLENZ Update – No 10, September 29, 2008

Need an upgrade? For Kiwi educators who want to upgrade their Second Life skills the Second Life Kiwi Educators group will be running a number of sessions in world during the second week week of the New Zealand semester break to familiarise users with a number of different aspects of this multi-user virtual environment. Led [...]

The SLENZ update – No 9, September 24, 2008

Is SL for education? There is an often fiery debate going on  the US-based HASTAC  Scholars Forum  (http://www.hastac.org/scholars/forum/09-22-08Metaverses-and-Scholarly-Collaboration) which has spread to the Second Life Education (SLED) list. It’s on whether Second Life  is providing “fabulous opportunities or over-hyped fabulation”  for education. It has resulted from a sometimes tongue-in-cheek video put up by Ana Boa-Ventura, [...]

The SLENZ Update – No 8 September 19, 2008

Growing like Topsy! There is no doubt that the importance of Virtual Worlds for recreation, education and business is growing around the world, despite the fact that the print and free-to-air television media often appear to have a vested interest in denigrating them. Cambridge, UK, based Nic Mitham, K Zero’s resident guru has just updated [...]

Feb 2009 – ISTE, Blog of the Month – Feb 2009 Dec 2009 – EduBlog, Best Educational Use of a Virtual World (2nd runner up) Compiled/written by Johnnie Wendt (SL)/Johnnie Waugh (NZVWG) Free copies of the SLENZ Midwifery and Foundation Builds are now available – visit  here for more information

The SLENZ Update – No 7 September 15, 2008

SLENZ issues RFP More than 40 individual educators from tertiary institutions across the country  have expressed interest in becoming part of the Second Life Education New Zealand (SLENZ) project. All five types of New Zealand tertiary institution are represented in the numbers – Universities, Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics, Wanangas, Industry Training Organisations, and Private [...]

The SLENZ Update – No 6 September 13, 2008

  The kids will grow up If one feels that virtual worlds are still not relevant for education – and there are a myriad who feel that way – one only has to look at the current figures for children in virtual worlds, and extrapolate those figures into future young adults and adults. To ignore [...]

The SLENZ Update – No 5 September 10, 2008

Compiled/prepared by John Waugh/Johnnie Wendt That SLEDcc gabfest Image courtesy of Rik Panganiban and TMJ Second Life could be a promising educational platform under the right circumstances, according to The Metaverse Journal’s coverage of the Second Life Education Community Convention (SLEDcc) education conference at Tampa in Florida and in SL over the last weekend. “However, [...]

The SLENZ Update – No 4 September 1, 2008

Compiled/written by John Waugh/Johnnie Wendt How REAL can you get? Watch Emily describe her creation  and display her attitude We all want avatars that look real – although perhaps some of us don’t want them too look too real. Emily is an avatar who seems  to make virtual worlds almost as real as real can [...]