SLENZ Update, No 142, October 6, 2009

THE SLENZ WORKSHOPS AT Teaching and Learning/eFest 2009 Five lessons from the creation of education pilots  in Second Life SL’s Arwenna Stardust and RL’s Dr Clare Atkins make a point. The five SLENZ Project workshops attended by mainstream tertiary educators at  the  annual, national Teaching  and Learning/eFest 2009 conference, at UCOL, Palmerston North, New Zealand, [...]

The SLENZ Update – No 109, July 07, 2009

SLENZ PROGRESS Otago’s birthing centre pilot goes live with real students Open for class…  SLENZ Project lead developer Isa goodman (RL: Aaron Griffiths) “polishes”  the  Te Wāhi Whānau (The Birth Centre) build before students “arrive”. Otago Polytechnic and  Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology midwifery students have begun taking part of their midwifery course on the [...]

The SLENZ Update – No 82, May 15, 2009

The reality of unreality When an avatar changes his/her appearance Tere Tinkel aka RL, Terry Neal Immersed in Second Life one thing you notice, as in the real world, is when another resident changes his or her appearance – especially if they  are close to you, as in a work or social relationship. I don’t mean [...]

The SLENZ Update – No 81, May 12, 2009

MIDWIFERY TUTORS ‘ENTHUSIASTIC’ Exciting introduction to SL with bonding  and play Trainers, Dr Clare Atkins and Todd Cochrane with Kate Spencely, Dr Deborah Davis and Sarah Stuart. (Pictures from Sarah  Stewart) The importance of a time for “play” when people are initiated into Second Life was reinforced for  the SLENZ Project’s joint leader, Dr Clare Atkins [...]

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 55, March 11, 2009

SLENZ Project progress Gearing up for RL face-to-face … Gearing up for a face-to-face meeting in Wellington, New Zealand,  in two weeks time ( March 23-24) the SLENZ Project team is  now moving  steadily forward with its three pilot programmes – Foundation learning, Midwifery and Orientation – according to joint project leader, Terry Neal (SL: [...]

The SLENZ Update – No 53, March 10, 2009

Getting  right ‘message’ and/or where to read it SLENZ SORTS COMMUNICATIONS There has been considerable debate within the SLENZ Project on just how team members can communicate with each other effectively, in context, in timely fashion, and in the same “language”  without being  buried under a mass of  information both relevant and extraneous. The major [...]

The SLENZ Update – No 47, February 23, 2009

A pattern of  NZ  islands? Long White Cloud The original initiators of the  SLENZ Project, Dr Clare Atkins (SL: Arwenna Stardust), joint project leader,  and Aaron Griffiths (SL: Isa Goodman), lead developer,  have always dreamed of creating  an Aotearoa -New Zealand education archipelago within Second Life. It now seems that their dream is about to [...]

The SLENZ Update – No 46, February 16, 2009

Making SLENZ work! Learning by doing Learning by doing … Aaron Griffiths, building developer, Terry Neal, joint project leader, and Merle Lemon, lead educator (foundation leaning). Background: Sarah Stewart (lead educator midwifery). The SLENZ project team has continued to test and modify the design and development processes, despite some on-going communication challenges which are similar [...]

The SLENZ Update – No 45, February 10, 2009

SLENZ pilot progress An outsider’s view … The creation and melding together of the design and development phases of the SLENZ pilot programmes has proven a slightly more difficult process for the SLENZ team than initially envisaged. “We are making progress, albeit slower than I anticipated or would have liked,” joint project leader Terry Neal [...]