Virtual Environments

I'm looking forward to attending a special interest group webinar at the ISTE Island tonight.  My avatar is dressed in rockstar wardrobe and ready to go!  The series of webinars are held in Second Life for visitors that are attending the ISTE convention in Denver next month.  I'll finish this post later....

The virtual webinar in the ISTE "auditorium" was interesting.  My thoughts are this...There is not a lot of usage of virtual grids for high school classrooms yet.  Remember when not too many people had an email address?  Is there going to be a sudden boom, an explosion, of virtual, second life-type classes?  If nothing else, today's educator needs to be prepared, have created an avatar, and have "tried out second life", so to speak. 

My Second Life experience has been thrilling, to say the least.  I can't wait to attend another ISTE virtual forum tonight - one for media specialists like myself.  Knowing how I feel about going into Second Life makes me realize how powerful a tool this virtual environment can be for students.  I'm not even a digital native and I can't wait to go into the grid.  Just think how motivated a student will be to study in a second life environment.  Safe, secure virtual environments are needed.