The SLENZ Update – No 74 , April 30, 2009

How to demo SL to non-users … IN UNDER FIVE MINUTES Although it’s been up on YouTube for  some eight months still one of the best introductions to  Second Life, particularly for  those in the health and medical fields, is  the University of Michigan’s Health Sciences Libraries’ machinima  highlighting Second Life and Public Health. The video, [...]

The SLENZ Update – No 73 , April 29, 2009

SL:  import-export with ‘SLENZ Shuffle’ The new ‘Arfur Daley’? Import-export “expert” bot, SLENZ Shuffle, with creator, Toddles Lightworker SLENZ Shuffle? Well he might not be the new “Arfur Daley” (of TV Minder fame) but it looks like he might be able to do a good job in the virtual world import-export business. He has already successfully [...]

The SLENZ Update – No 72, April 28, 2009

No the SL sky is not falling in … Chicken Little got it wrong! Second Life  user hours are still growing Surrounded by negativity!!! It’s frightening how the world of “yellow  journalism” even if in its latest form of  blogs permeates  the thinking of otherwise  sensible individuals. It’s right to take precautions to lessen the [...]

The SLENZ Update – No 71, April 27, 2009

EDUCATION IN SL A lesson from Mexico The UNAM Palace of Mining in SL .. and in RL. Despite the “tabloid” critics of  Second Life and Virtual Worlds educational use of  Second Life and other virtual worlds is becoming more and more  mainstream, especially in the Open University environment. This growth  has been strikingly demonstrated in [...]

The SLENZ Update – No 70, April 22, 2009

SECOND LIFE ORIENTATION Quickstart Guide  for ‘noobs’, and ‘not-so-noobs’ … It’s been around for a little time now but it was still good to see that the Lindens have put out a new Quickstart Guide to Second Life in PDF format Terming the seven-page document “elegant” and “stylish” ,  Second Life guru and training video-maker [...]

The SLENZ Update – No 69, April 20, 2009

PERFORMANCE ART Bridging the  Second Life, Real Life  divide  … Dancing fingers from reality – Butler2 Evelyn (RL: Isabel Valverde) and Toddles Lightworker (RL: Todd Cochrane) in Second Life. What are we losing through living more and more encapsulated lives in crowded urban areas, following the consumption driven “modernist-technical” standard of living, becoming disconnected from [...]

The SLENZ Update – No 68, April 15, 2009

Is this the SL future of ‘real’ reporting? Those who attended the Virtual Journalism Conference at Washington State University last week may have glimpsed the future of global journalism in a brief documentary about an avatar-to-avatar news conference, according to Steve Kolowich, of  The Chronicle of Higher Education. The news conference, which took place in [...]

The SLENZ Update – No 67, April 8, 2009

SL and secondary schools Evidence of education benefits  grow Evidence of the benefits of Second Life use in Secondary Education are growing as  New Zealand secondary school teachers look towards the possibilities of the immersive medium. The latest report in The  Herald, published in Plymouth in the United Kingdom claims that 80 per cent of the [...]

The SLENZ Update – No 66, April 8, 2009

SLENZ PROJECT Foundation Learning Kowhai build begins The contrast between the build for The Birth Place (Te Waihi Whanau) and The Foundation Learning project’s new build is quite striking. There is a futuristic, almost organic building  growing out of the ground on the Kowhai Island, where the three-pilot   SLENZ Project – Midwifery, Foundation Learning and Orientation [...]

The SLENZ Update – No 65, April 8, 2009

Coming to a screen near you Another Second Life may live behind firewall at your work IBM in Second Life … now trialling stand-alone Second Life Business and sometimes academic administrators’ worries about the lack of security of intellectual property within Second Life  appear to be about to be put to rest by Linden Labs with [...]