Fontys 240/242/70

Fontys, a Dutch College for Higher Education has developed an island in SL. They have created a pleasant atmosphere and some interesting educational experiments. Nine of their schools have some presence on the island and all occupy students in in-world tasks related to their curriculum. The presence of a Nabaztag in the educational centre facilitates contact with real life which is, in any way, intriging enough for further research!!

Cervantes 65/50/41

Don Quichote is my hero. Take away the glasses, give me an armour and its me all the way. I protect women, fight mills and innocent people, have high ideals and little ambition. The Instituto Cervantes opened its library in SL and created a Spanish atmosphere. The have an elevator but as it didn't work I took the elevator and discovered my hero AFK hanging against the ceiling. Even then I am smaller than this giant.

Info Island II 146/231/34

Info Island is one of the many scientific centres in SL. It has a nice interface to their website: SLQuery.com for which you can register while visiting the center. The available HUD tells you more on what you will find there. An exciting promise.

Support for healing 172/91/67

This lovely green dragon and a splendid garden are there to comfort you, make you feel much more secure and healthy. SFH aims to supply support to those in need for help, and who is not these days. The website claims over a 1000 members all over the world, but not many of them visit this Eden in SL.

EduNation 64/234/23

What more do you need but sea, sun and sand. The presence of a noteboard, an assignment dropbox, a laptop in the centre of a teaching pavillion tells me that there is more to it than the 3S I started with. EduNation has it all nicely combined in SL, people are using it too, but being 9 hours away from the West Coast of the USA there wasn't a crowd. I like their solution for a group session. Hanging in the air, no attachments, just a place to sit and talk about life, or something more trivial.

NMC 129/172/23

Search on 'teach' and you 'll find 4 locations in SL that answer to that key. The fourth, closed to public, looks very empty seen on the Map. The others hold inside and open - air facilties for teaching, and hopefully learning. The Campus Cafe is nice and spacious, there is a bed to rest on. Why not make it comfortable, if that is within the budget. On T2 I met GlobalKids Bixby. He pointed me towards more resources. I will keep you posted.

Helicon meeting 84/121/50

From left to right: Amber (NL), Scot (USA), Joop (NL) and Wendel(Sweden) meeting in the boardroom of the Helicon College of Second Life. The session was organised to support Wendel in his presentation of SL to colleagues in his university. Amber was so kind to let us use her space, toured us through all the other rooms and gave a small demonstration on building. We discussed a while on the possibilities of SL, but more important to meet again in 6 weeks time, same place when Helicon will have students at work there.

Echoditto Island 85/175/28

Amongst professors. We were sitting there, all more or less dominated by our chairs in our movements. Scripting does that: it tells you how to act in a chair once seated in it. The other side is that three of kind discussed the chances we get in SL for changing the educational paradigm. We will have a presentation of our ideas together soon, no doubt! Big stuff, ordinary chairs. Rlife, Slife, we 'll see.

Antigua 99/139/25

Helicon has developed an excellent building for teaching and learning. It has an impressive front, its spacious, contains interesting games like chess and also held a birthday - party when I visited them just now. I hope to meet some students here one day and exchange ideas and experiences on the extra ' s for education in SL. As far as I can see they are heading for something special here.

Sedig 19/44/22

The yellow badge shows that I am taking the tour about schizophrenia in the UCD - Centre. I quote the builders of this simulation: This clinic building is based on the hallucinations of two specific people with schizophrenia. They were interviewed in detail and gave feedback on early designs for the hallucinations. While the hallucinations are not glamorous, they fairly accurately reproduce these patients' experiences. You should get a sense of just how intrusive the voices of schizophrenia really are. Not for nervous types.

SL Historical Museum 202/161/33

Did you know that day in Second Life is 4 hours long, with 3 hours of daytime and 1 hour of night. Many other quirks of the sun and moon: The sun orbits the SL world and travels faster during night, the moon is always full, there will not be an eclipse for many many Earth years, a year in SL is 10 days long. This and much more information can be found here. An amusing and illuminating afternoon, if you take the time to see all things and read all notecards.

International Spaceflight Museum 47/77/24

When old enough one remembers the Apollo 11 - flight in July 1969. We stayed up to watch the first men walking on the moon. Some people still believe that is was filmed in a studio, somewhere. Either true or not, the experience or wonderful illusion is kept alive in this museum that brings you up to date on all sorts of products of this magnificent project.

Australian Film and Television School 74/141/28

A perfect open-air film/ tv-studio and theatre. It can be found on Esperance Island. The island holds more surprises and treasures of Australia. Among them a circle - dome, statues and several glass constructions , one of them holding a photo-gallery and a nice relax room. You can also do a quest, I think.

eLumenata Socrates Sandbox 181/91/23

To be able to build in Socrates you ll have to join the eLumenata VIP group and activate it. It is all explained well and fairly plug-and-play. The joy of building can be explored here and you will find dozens of products of your group members, from slamming doors to treehouses. Some boats can be inspected in the local harbour.

University College Dublin 55/97/24

UCD provides a location in SL to a number of libraries, so it seems. One of the whatif's of Futurelab UK is: what if a learning environment would be comfortable? Well, UCD shows at least one example. The one for teens is, oh wonder, a pleasure to visit. The one I am sitting in now has a number of books, available to read, on the shelves. I sat there for a while, reading Alice in Wonderland. What a joy!!

Trinity College Dublin 144/110/24

Nice, white Victorian building, with large rooms, two floors that can be reached using the elevator button on the wall. One room with some chairs, no sign, a radio playing Irish music on the cobbled central square. Nobody there to ask about the idea behind this, must come back one day to see if it is more than a signpost of presence in SL!

Northern Illinois University 66/41/24

NIU was as quiet as a grave. Nice buildings again, looks like a an old english castle, nice rooms, big comfortable chairs. One is allowed to build on the green and there is a cute old fashioned school building, wood with a flag and all. Just one little bear snoozing out there on that big field. Their collection of books is interesting.

Ohio University 20/36/24

Friends, it is now 19.30 GMT +1 and I am going to visit Ohio University. There should be students at this time. I wondered around a bit, saw one person that didn't seem to know what was going on either. I found myself an empty office on the first floor, good seat, some books, a decent table and a telephone. The clocked ticked the time away, it was 09.13. A very nice building, typically made for teaching in groups, nice equipment but nobody there. I will be back some time.