VLENZ PROJECT
Steering Committee named
for new VLENZ Group
A new steering committee, which includes some of New Zealand’s leading virtual world researchers and educators, has been named to head the Virtual Life Education New Zealand (VLENZ) group, formed after the finish of SLENZ Project.
The new leadership group is: Dr Clare Atkins, of Nelson-Marlborough Institute of Technology, Terry Neal, of BlendedSolutions, Dr Scott Diener, of the University of Auckland, Merle Lemon, of Manakau Institute of Technology, and Aaron Griffiths, of Fxual Education Services.
Dr Atkins and Terry Neal (pictured top right and left) were joint leaders of the NZ$500,000 Government-funded SLENZ Project; Dr Diener(pictured middle right), the Associate Director, IT Services (Academic & Collaborative Technologies) at the University of Auckland, has led the development of the University of Auckland’s much-lauded medical simulation project in Second Life, is active in many international groups related to the use of virtual worlds in higher education, and is a key player in the New Zealand Virtual World Grid (NZVWG); Lemon (bottom left), an MIT lecturer, was a Lead Educator (Foundation (Bridging) Learning) for the SLENZ Project; Griffiths (bottom right) ,the founder of Fxual Education Services, was the Lead developer for the SLENZ Project. Atkins and Griffiths initiated the SLENZ Project two years ago.
The VLENZ meeting early last week, which set up the steering committee, agreed to the VLENZ name for the group,which will be a consortium of
individuals rather than institutions. It currently has 32 members drawn from education and virtual world research across New Zealand.
It will continue with this blog at slenz.wordpress.com, as well as becoming a sub-domain of the previously registered edumuve.ac.nz domain as vlenz.edumuve.ac.nz. It has a Second Life Group called VLENZ as well as a google group under the same name.
It is likely that the formal group will operate as a non-profit trust although this has not yet been finalised.
The group’s purpose and objectives are to be discussed at meeting on the NMIT Second Life island of Koru at 10 am on Monday, Feb 8 (New Zealand time), with the objective of finalising the group’s mission statement and initial goals.
Filed under: Education, Education in Second Life, Education in virtual worlds, Second Life, SL Medicine, SLENZ Project, Virtual Worlds | Tagged: Aaron Griffiths, Blended Solutions, Clare Atkins, F/Xual education Services, Manakau Institute of Technology, Merle Lemon, MIT, Nelson-Marlborough Institute of Technology, New Zealand Virtual World Group, NMIT, NZVWG, Scott Diener, SLENZ Prohect, Terry Neal, The University of Auckland, Virtual Life Education New Zealand, VLENZ, VLENZ Steering Committee | 1 Comment »
