(W6) Social Networks and Virtual Worlds

Social Networks and Virtual Worlds

Wed 19th June 2009 ... 1:45pm to 5.00pm 

In the last few years Social (online) Networks have grown enormously in popularity with students around the world ... but these have not yet been adopted or used by many schools. In fact quite a number of schools around the world have blocked access on the school network to some of the social network websites like, 'myspace' and 'facebook'. 

In this session we will look at what a social network site is and see some examples and discuss the pros and cons for a school community. We will also look at some ways of setting up your own social network for use with your class, school, or club .... or even outside work for your own family. 

Finally in this session we will look at Second Life, a 3D virtual world that is a potentially valuable tool to support teaching and learning, more than half of UK Universities have a presence in S.L. 

I will introduce you to my own Estate (3 SIMS) in Second Life designed to support the professional development of k-12 teachers ... http://internationalschoolsisland.info If you time before the session then have a look at the pages http://www.shambles.net/pages/learning/infolit/socialnet and http://www.shambles.net/secondlife

If you are attending this session then please click on "comments" below and introduce yourself ... please include information which you think will help me to customise the session to be more suitable to your individual needs. e.g. what ICT skills and experiences do you already have, are you already using it in class, what expectations do you have for this session.