Sunday, March 29, 2009

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education

At the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 2009, Kittie explored three days of presentations at three different Second Life islands, Kennesaw, Faire and ISTE, (with overflow locations at Muse Isle, Metanomics Sage Hall, Rockcliffe University and Memorial University) which was a shining example of how educators are using virtual worlds to enhance the learning experience.
Teachers, students, researchers and journalists were some who came together from locations all over the world to share ideas and strategies for advancing education. With so my different choices in the packed schedule, Kittie thought that it would be nice to have the ability to be in more than one place at a time. Fortunately there were reporters there from SLCN.TV (Second Life Cable Network) and their new fledgling, Treet.TV, to record many of the events. Marty Snowpaw said recorded presentations will be aired after Tuesday, March 31, 2009.

Kittie made many new friends over the weekend and being in such close contact with so many brilliant minds gave Kittie hope that people will overcome the thought that Second Life is only a game. As Wainbrave Bernal so eloquently quoted Pierre Tielhard de Chardin , " The future belongs to those who give the next generation reason for hope."

Kennesaw welcomes visitors to explore their four Second Life Campus Sims

Monday, March 9, 2009

NOAA

On NOAA's (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Meteora Island, Kittie found an abundance of opportunity for discovery and exploration.

A Hurricane Tour, Tsunami Demonstration, Real Time Weather Map, Science on a Sphere, Submarine Ride, Weather Balloon, and a Glacier Exhibit made kittie's visits here action packed.

On one of Kittie's early visits to NOAA, Kittie had the good
fortune to meet NOAA staff Hackshaven Harford
(Eric Hackathorn) who will be a keynote speaker at the
2009 NMC Symposium on New Media March 24-26.
The topic of Hackshaven's presentation will be Government 2.0



On NOAA's second Island, Okeanos, Kittie found the interactive map to be to be extremely interesting. When she typed in her location of Port Hadlock, WA, the map not only gave her several views of her home area, including sattelite, terrain, hybrid and normal view but also her latitude and longitude coordinates -122.795219, 48.045582. The map also features weather warnings and hurricane information.

An Algal Bloom Demonstration, an Oil Spill Demo, a Marine Sanctuary Submarine Tour, a Coastal Survey, and Predictions Survey Ship Demo are a few more reasons why Kittie has found NOAA to be one of the most educational places she has visited yet.