This Monday I was trying to arrange a meeting with our designers because we are transferring some of the content on the Teen Grid to our new Main Grid islands. The two new islands are now ready, but I need to move the existing island (note to all you Lost fans, that might sound familiar) so it is right next to the new ones. Monday usually finishes with another meeting, this time with my colleague Frank Spearmann (Kyle Mawer), responsible for many of the learning quests on our island, and who will be starting to teach a First Certificate Speaking Skills course in Second Life next week. On the agenda will also be future events that we’d like to run for teachers and learners on the British Council Isles.

Tuesday

The Business English course is loosely based on the TV programme Dragon’s Den, and takes students through an imaginary process of setting up their own company and developing a business idea. This is basically an excuse to practice lots of business English skills such as interviewing, negotiating, presenting, etc. I’ll be team-teaching this course with my colleague Creed Juran (Joe Pereira) and we will be making quite a few changes to the course.

Although the course has now been planned, Joe and I will meet to discuss any last minute details and send reminders to the students. This time round we have students registered from Italy, Austria, Sweden, Spain and Portugal among other countries. For some of these students the course will be the first time they have ever used Second Life, so we need to be particularly careful to gently integrate Second Life skills into the planning of each session to help the newbies. The classes are usually filmed / recorded so we can learn from what we do well (and not so well!) and it’s likely that after the class we’ll talk about how it went and make notes about it to help us when we come to write the report. This information (including course and lesson plans) will be made public through the Avalon project to help other teachers who would like to do something similar. It is hoped that in this way we will be able to share best practice for any other language (not just English) teacher  who wants to run a similar course in SL.

Wednesday

As today sees the start of another course (the FCE Speaking Skills course), I’ll be meeting Frank to discuss what we need to do with any students who may have sound problems. As there’ll be learners without much experience of SL, we expect there’ll be those who’ll need help setting up their voice controls so they can fully take part in the course. This is one of the striking differences between being a teacher in SL and in RL. In order to be able to be comfortable with teaching online you need to have a certain degree of confidence and technical know-how. Fortunately, the SL platform is now far more stable than it used to be, and the new interface means it is also easier to teach people how to use it.

The other exciting development since the last courses we ran in SL is the ability to show any website in-world. This means as teachers we can now use text and images in a much more dynamic and flexible way than before.

Thursday

First thing on Thursday morning we have an Avalon project meeting. With so many partners and so much activity going on, these meetings are vital in order for us to be able to co-ordinate activity and make sure everything is on track.

Friday

Friday is a great day for catching up with things and for meeting people. There are also lots of social events going on in Second Life. I haven’t had time to go in a long time now, but Friday night is when the SLExperiments group meets. They are a great bunch of (mainly) language teachers who meet every week to share ideas about teaching in Second Life. It’s a great place for new teachers to start finding out what can be done. Maybe see some of you at one of the get-togethers sometime?

Baldric Commons usually calls himself Graham Stanley outside of Second Life, and when he’s not working there he is a social media consultant for the British Council and also works as a teacher of young learners at the British Council in Barcelona, Spain.

He has been teaching English since 1995 and even before studying for the M.Ed in ELT & Educational technology (University of Manchester), he had developed an interest in emerging technologies for language learning and teaching. He has recently become coordinator of the IATEFL Learning Technologies Special Interest Group and frequently speaks about this field at conferences both nationally and internationally.

As he’s not a big fan of TV (especially now that Lost has finished) and doesn’t like football, he can be frequently found on Twitter, and blogs at http://blog-efl.blogspot.com and  http://www.digitalplay.info/blog.

I wanted to try something that would stretch me as a teacher and remind me what it felt like to be a beginner. I certainly got what I was hoping for, and more!

As the 2010 EVO workshops are set to begin, I thought this would be a good time for me to look at how things have changed for me over this past year.

One of the biggest changes is that I’m blogging. In my first blog post I set out my goal:

This blog is one small part of my effort to be part of the teaching “We.” I’m definitely a work in progress, and I hope that you’ll help me grow by connecting and sharing your knowledge, too.

In addition to the larger teaching community I’ve discovered online, I’m also part of a smaller, blogging community. Karenne Sylvester saw enough potential in my early efforts to take me under her generous wing at Bloggers in ELT. Being part of a community of bloggers has been an ongoing education for me. I’m still not all that good at the tech side of blogging, but I’m better than I was. (Thanks, BELTers!)

I’ve met wonderful teachers through the Stories from the Front Lines of EFL series. It’s been fascinating to hear about teaching contexts around the world, and there are still more stories in the pipeline. It’s been so much fun that I’ve got another series in the works–Stuff Every EFL Teacher Should Know. (If you might be interested in writing a guest post for either series, please let me know!)

I’m still vaguely surprised to find that people actually read my posts, so was astonished when Education International asked permission to reprint one of my blog posts (Why I Love Teachers) in their magazine Worlds Of Education (I’m on page 6!).

I wrote, and presented, and taught before I did the EVO sessions, but what I write and present about, and how I teach, has changed.

In the 1990s, I wrote a column for the JALT Teaching Children SIG newsletter called The Teacher’s File. It was a column about teaching resources. I’m going to resurrect it in 2010, to explore ways teachers can use the internet for professional development. It kicks off with a two-part feature called The Teacher’s File for the 21st Century (part two is coming soon).

My presentations have changed, as well. At JALT 2009, I made my first ever techie-type presentation–Can Twitter Make You a Better Children’s Teacher? My February workshops for the Oxford Teaching Workshop Series will also be tech-related for the first time–Interactive Ideas for keeping your English classes relevant in the 21st Century (or, how to include technology in your lessons even if you haven’t got any technology in your classroom).

VWLL introduced me to virtual conferences, and this year I attended more conferences online than I did in person. I still love being at conferences in person, but the logistics of attending very many from Asia are pretty daunting (besides being quite spendy). Being able to boot up my laptop and sit in on a workshop in Second Life is a very decent substitution. One of the nicest things about online workshops is that they generally run on a 24 hour clock (since presenters and attendees are from various time zones) and sessions are usually recorded (so I can view workshops that happen in inconvenient–for me–time zones). Here’s a presentation from SLanguages 2009 about the TESOL EVO on Virtual Worlds and Language Learning.

I’ve also enjoyed following summaries of workshops on Twitter, and on blogs. Not as good as being there, but way, way easier, and much better than nothing.

I still provide handouts for my own workshops, but now include electronic versions as well as paper handouts (another thing I never imagined doing). BAW introduced me to wikis, and now I have my own. For the moment, it’s a nice place to keep electronic versions of my presentations, so teachers who can’t attend my workshops can still get the handouts.

I still teach in classrooms where the highest tech item is the CD player. The challenge has been to find ways to use technology, and engage my students with technology, when we don’t actually have access to it during lessons. After six months, almost all of my adult students have finally tracked down their email addresses, and about half have actually sent me an email message. Most of them access the internet with their cell phones, and had never sent nor received an email message. I’ve started a blog for my students (and anyone else interested), and have even posted a couple of entries created by my adult classes. After I’d posted a video my students made demonstrating origami, I got an email message from one of my students:

When I looked for “Shinfujin paper Balloon” on NET, I was very surprised. Because I thought that was so small article. But I could see it and other people, too. I understood our small world links global world.

Both the sentiment (and the fact that it arrived by email) warmed my teacher’s heart! Not to be outdone, my bilingual children’s class uses the internet for reading, and they blog for writing.

My newest student doesn’t live anywhere near me–she’s in Second Life. Yes, a year after the EVO VWLL, I’m a Second Life resident approaching her first Rez Day (like a birthday, but for my avatar) and a firm believer in the promise of virtual worlds for language learning. In fact, I’ll be back as a mentor for this year’s EVO, Teaching Languages in a Virtual World, and wishing that I could sit in on ALL the TESOL sessions offered this year.

So, if you’ve signed up for one of the Electronic Village Online sessions, my advice to you is to jump into the deep end and embrace the experience. It’s six weeks of sleep deprivation, but totally worth the cost. Thanks to generosity of TESOL and the Webheads (who organize the sessions), these free workshops are some of the best professional development you will find.

They might even change your life

The virtual teacher's lounge

I love teacher’s lounges in the same way I love coffee breaks at conferences. They’re great places to make friends and build professional networks (same people, different roles). The people I meet become my partners in learning.

Second Life feels a lot like a teacher’s lounge. Today, for example, I chatted with teachers in the lounge (actually, the Twitter Clubhouse). We shared tips and resources. When we had a question, we called on more experienced teachers for help. A friend popped in and offered to help with a study group project. Oh, and a student saw that I was in the lounge and came by to say hello. Sound familiar?

There’s one big difference–All the people in this teacher’s lounge were in different countries. I’m in Japan. The other teachers were in Australia and Venezuela. The more experienced teachers who helped us? One was in Hong Kong and the other in the US. My student? He was in Italy. Basically, in Second Life, there’s always someone around if I have a question, want to practice a teaching technique, or just want to play.

For a bit more formal way to learn about teaching in virtual worlds, there are study groups.  Teachers in SLExperiments meet every Friday to share tools and lesson ideas, and learn new skills. They’re a nice mix of experienced and inexperienced teachers, and welcome newcomers. Their wiki contains a growing collection of lesson plans, resources, and a great list of teacher blogs (group members who teach in Second Life). One of the group’s founders, Nergiz Kern, also keeps an amazing blog about her experiences, Teaching in Second Life.  

The Osnagroup is another study group that welcomes new teachers. It’s a little more difficult to find, but well worth the effort. The group started during the TESOL workshop about virtual worlds in language learning, so they’re still part of the EVO VWLL Ning. They meet on Thursdays. The best way to join this group is to contact Dennis Newson through the Ning.

Finally, you can experiment with different teaching tools on your own.  Dudeney Ge’s Educator Freebie Shop is like a toy store for teachers, filled with tools created by Gavin Dudeney. They come with simple instructions and the shop is next to a sandbox where you can try them out. When you want to see the sheer volume of tools available for teachers in Second Life, visit the towers on International Schools Island. If you can imagine it, Shamblesguru Voom probably has it sitting in one of his towers, free for teachers.

You can enjoy some my early efforts as a teacher-in-training in a machinima my co-teacher posted on his blog, Meet Scott Scorbal. You can see some basic tools and techniques that we were learning to use. If you’re interested in reading more about our experience putting the lesson together, you can read about our pre-lesson planning, our post-lesson reflection, and look at our lesson plan. Even if I never teach much in Second Life, the process of learning how has made me a better teacher in real life.

Professional development in Second Life is generally one of two types: using Second Life as a place to learn about things, and learning how to use tools in Second Life to do things (like teach). In both cases, it’s the people you meet who matter most–they will teach you, learn with you, and challenge you. Without people, Second Life is just a pretty computer graphic with some spiffy special effects. 

In this post, I’m going to focus on using Second Life as a place to learn about things. In my next post, I’ll focus on learning to do things. There are a lot of links which will take you to websites, blogs, or videos with more information and a slurl to take you to the place in Second Life.

If you visit places that match your interests, you will find people from around the world who share them.

Do you teach science or math? You’ll enjoy the Exploratorium, or you can take a quick tour of science-related locations, or you can find a list of interesting places in the Science Center wiki.  Do you teach English? Explore Virtual Macbeth or Literature Alive to see how teachers are using Second Life with their literature students. Visit the Story Mountain Center for Writers or the Virtual Worlds Story Project to work on your own writing. Are the fine arts your passion? Artists, musicians, and actors are all exploring ways to use Second Life for their craft. You can keep up with exhibits, performances and plays by following Second Life Art news or checking the Second Life Showcase. Do you teach Health? Check out the resources (and workshops and groups) on Health Island.

Do you teach foreign languages, world geography, or perhaps just like to travel? You can use your languages to make new friends (much nicer than simple language practice) as you experience ancient culture in Rome, explore archaeology at Chichén Itzá, learn about protecting the environment on Cocos Island, or immerse yourself in another culture in Morocco.  If you search, you’ll find travel blogs like this one, highlighting sightseeing spots in virtual Japan.

And, while Second Life is not a game, there are places where you can play games, like trying to solve the puzzles in The Pot Healer Adventure or playing a role in the medieval community on Aldarian Isle.

As in real life, virtual libraries and museums are learning and information hubs. Unlike real life, they’re always open. The Alliance Virtual Library regularly hosts exhibits, community meetings, and concerts. The library catalog contains links that take you to locations within Second Life where you can interact with information. As far as museums go, You can visit the Louvre or Dresden Gallery in the morning, and still have time for a quick trip to the Sistine Chapel before lunch. Or, if art’s not your thing, you can broaden your horizons with a visit to the Smithsonian Latino Virtual Museum, the Frank Lloyd Wright Museum, the Kristallnacht Exhibit from the US Holocaust Museum, or the Star Trek Museum.

Often, it’s the people whose interests, opinions, and backgrounds are different from my own who teach me the most.

Second Life is full of people who are trying to figure out how to use virtual worlds to improve the real one. The folks on Better World Island will challenge your thinking about current world issues (like genocide, peace, and water). Visit NonProfit Commons to check out projects in Second Life, or follow their efforts on the Betterverse website. If you find a project that appeals to you, they’ll welcome you as a volunteer. 

I first heard of Virtual Ability Island at a conference workshop demonstrating Max the virutal guide dog.  On my first visit, I started chatting with a woman as I worked my way their orientation trail (which is, hands down, the easiest place to learn how to use your computer controls to get around in Second Life). It wasn’t until we’d talked for awhile that she chose to tell me that she was deaf–a choice she doesn’t get to make in real life. In a sense, I had a chance to meet her, not her disability. Somehow, knowing that you can’t make assumptions about an avatar makes it easier not to make assumptions about a person. (Details like appearance, gender and skin color are chosen in Second Life, not assigned.)You can read more about the difference accessibility makes and ongoing projects on the Virtual Ability website.

So, how can you find locations to explore? The blogs and magazines I’ve linked to are good resources. In addition, both b-places and Sloog allow you to search for places by descriptive tags, and include slurls to take you to those places in Second Life. Sloog is a partner of the Salamander project, a collaborative effort to index education-related Second Life content. The calendar on the Second Life Educators wiki and the SLED Blog are also both great places to find out about events in education.

If you join groups in Second Life (like Discovery Educator Network, ISTE SL Tours, or Second Life Library 2.0) you’ll receive notices about events and exhibits. If you are in Second Life and looking for interesting places to explore, Jokaydia and ISTE Headquarters have nice collections of places teachers will enjoy. The curriculum tower on International Schools Island has the largest collection of education landmarks in Second Life (that I’m aware of, anyway). They’re divided by subject area, on various floors of the tower (e.g., landmarks for real world places in Second Life are with geography materials on the 6th floor, and sports landmarks are with athletics on the 7th).

Once you feel comfortable moving around and interacting with objects (getting things, finding them in your inventory and using them), it’s time to enjoy some of the professional development opportunities available in Second Life. Again, I’m not trying to list all of the groups that host speakers, conferences, or tours in Second Life–this would be a book, not a blog post. I’m only attempting to show the potential of virtual worlds for professional development.

I’ve separated these by the skill level required to participate.

Talks

Luckily, one of the easiest things to do in a virtual world is also one of the most immediately satisfying–listening to and interacting with guest speakers. All you need to be able to do is to teleport to a location, click on a seat, and make sure your speakers are on. 

Iste regularly hosts guest speakers, and a series of Eduverse Talks that focus on innovations in educational technology. You can check times and dates on their wiki.  Their wiki also contains presentation archives

The Consultants-E SL hosts a ”Coffee With…” series to bring leaders in language education and teacher training into a Second Life studio for a live talk followed by discussion with audience members. Their website also provides liniks to archived audio from the talks, so people outside the live time zone (or curious and not ready to enter Second Life) can listen. 

Atlantis Seekers hosts Monday Night Happenin’ at its underwater auditorium in Second Life. Many of their themes focus on technology in elementary and secondary education. You can learn more about upcoming topics by joining the Atlantis Seekers Ning.

RezEd also hosts speakers, tours, and workshops for educators. In addition, they have monthly podcasts about education in virtual worlds (an easy way to learn about professional development in Second Life without having to actually go there). You can get more information by joining the RezEd Ning.

Conferences

Conferences are almost as skill-easy as talks. However, you are often dealing with multiple locations and larger groups of people. Large groups of people in one location makes Second Life cranky. Experienced conference attendees often dress not to impress but to reduce the strain on computer systems and servers (the more elaborate or flashy your outfit, the more things your computer has to keep supporting). But, most of the time, attending a conference presentation is still a matter of teleporting to a location and finding a seat. Conferences in Second Life are unbelievably international, free (no flights, hotels, or meals), convenient (just need a computer, although headphones are nice), and because the speakers and attendees come from all over the world, generally run 24 hours.

Jokaydia’s Unconference is coming up in September. You can read about it on the Islands of Jokaydia website.You can get a feel for what to expect by looking at the schedule from the 2008 Unconference.

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education is a huge collaborative effort involving a lot of groups both in and outside of Second Life. This year’s conference was in March. You can see this year’s schedule or visit the slideshare archives to see what to expect next year. You can find even more archived sessions if you search using the additional tags listed along the right side of the page.

SLanguages is hosted by The Consultants-E and focuses on language learning and teaching in virutal worlds.  This year’s conference was in May. You can see what you have to look forward to next year by looking at the 2009 conference presentation schedule or archive.

Webheads in Action Online Convergence is a blended conference (it uses Web 2.0 tools like Elluminate as well as virtual worlds). The 2009 Convergence was in May. You can check out the presentation recordings on their website.

Tours

Tours generally require you to move from location to location, interact with objects (for example, click on an object to get a notecard explaining an educational site), and be able to use your camera controls to zoom in or rotate for a better view. These tour recordings of Ciudad Bonita and Jokaydia are good examples of what to expect.

New Media Consortium hosts Virtual Worlds Explorations. These tours usually include in-depth discussions combined with visits to educational projects in Second Life.

Jokaydia also hosts Road Trips in addition to their Newbie Tours. 

ISTE Tours happen on Sundays at 9 am SLT. You’ll notice that most Second Life events give times as “Second Life Time.” This is the same as US Pacific Time (since Linden Labs, Second Life’s owners, are on the west coast).

Discovery Educator Network hosts events that take a little more coordination than sitting and listening, but are definitely worth the extra effort–for example, this week you can dive with sharks in Second Life to go along with the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week. Where else could you swim with sharks without having to deal with wetsuits, learning to actually dive, and sharks with real teeth?

So, let’s say you’re convinced, and have decided to give Second Life a try (or another try). What’s next?

You’ll probably go through several growth stages in your second life, just like you did in your first. I’ll talk about each in a separate post.

Getting Some Basic (Second) Life Skills

If you create a new account in Second Life, your avatar (the virtual you) should automatically be put into some sort of new resident orientation. I recommend entering Second Life through ISTE in Second Life or New Media Consortium. Both groups provide great mentoring to help new avatars in very teacher-friendly environments.

If you’d rather figure things out on your own, you can always head over to Jokaydia’s Newbie Garden (slurl) or visit the Nik Peachey’s video tutorial booths in the Edunation II sandbox (slurl). (Just as an url will take you to a location on the web, a slurl will take you to a location in Second Life.) Nik’s videos are also on YouTube, of course. And if you still need more options, you can head over to 3-D Virtual Worlds for even more tools and tutorials.

There are more resources than the ones I’ve mentioned–these are simply the free ones I’m most familiar with. Remember, I’m not much past my newbie stage, either.

One additional resource for teachers who happen to be on Twitter is the Chateau de Tuite (ning and slurl). I hesitate to mention it in the company of  these true mentoring groups because the Chateau wasn’t actually set up to do orientation or training. Caliburn Susanto is a long-time Second Life resident who embraces his second life, happens to be on Twitter, and has a soft spot for teachers and librarians. He built the Chateau de Tuite as a place for Twitter members to meet face to face. Because my Twitter friends live around the globe they’re some of best friends I’ll likely never meet, except in Second Life. I appreciate the idea of having a virtual clubhouse. As more Twitter members discover the Chateau, I’m sure there will be additional groups using the Ning and virtual Chateau to meet (a Tweet Up, in Twitter-speak).

Anyway, there’s obviously no need to create yet another group to do what existing groups already do extemely well. And there are lots of sandboxes where teachers can practice opening boxes and things like that. However, the Chateau is a lovely, safe place for Twitter members (including teachers) to meet and work on basic skills–it’s on Caliburn’s private island (so no zombies, vampires or griefers), groups tend to be small, Twitter makes it easy to coordinate meeting times, and it comes with an experienced (and knowledgeable and patient) mentor in residence. So, if you are a teacher on Twitter, and too nervous to jump into the big ocean of Second Life, or even the medium sized lake of newbie groups, then maybe the small pond of Chateau de Tuite is a good fit to start. Join the Ning and check it out. Feel free to contact me through this blog or on Twitter if you have questions. In any case, I guarantee that it won’t be long until you’re ready to take advantage of the fabulous new resident resources available beyond the Chateau’s borders. Then the Chateau can just become one of many great places to meet with friends in Second Life.

However you go about learning these basic skills, you’re going to meet other interesting people, some of whom will also be teachers. Make friends. Add them to your circle of contacts, and let them add you to theirs. As you become more comfortable in a virtual world, friends make a huge difference in how valuable and enjoyable you find Second Life.

My Second Life self, Lynn Carlucci, being camera shy

You may have heard about Second Life . I actually hadn’t heard of it before I saw the course description for a TESOL EVO session on Virtual Worlds and Language Learning. Considering that I thought an avatar was a diety in Hindu Mythology, I think it’s fair to say that my learning curve was pretty steep.

Learning to live in Second Life is a lot like learning a foreign language. There’s more than one way to go about it. You can simply create an account and log on, but that’s a bit like assuming the best way to learn Russian is to catch the first flight to Moscow without knowing a word of the language. You might become fluent, but you’re just as likely to have a traumatic experience, leave, and take a long time before being willing to try again. It’s tough to be a beginner. However, that’s the first reason that language teachers need a Second Life.

It allows us to remember what it feels like to be a beginner.

After years of teaching, it’s easy to forget what it feels like to be totally lost. Regaining that feeling is worth the learning curve of trying something difficult.

It’s easier to learn a foreign language with a good teacher (or else we’d be out of jobs!), and it’s easier to develop Second Life skills with good coaching. I was lucky to end up with the Webheads who led my course. In six weeks they took us from absolute beginners to enthusiastic Second Life residents (and potential virtual world teachers). To continue the language learning analogy, I’m far from fluent. I make a lot of mistakes. A LOT of mistakes. And that’s a second reason language teachers need a Second Life.

Mistakes are good. They help us learn.

I’ve certainly said this plenty of times in class over the years. Second Life makes me practice what I preach. Somehow, when I tell my students about losing my hair, or getting stuck in an animation, or trying to chat up zombies, they don’t feel as embarrassed about their own mistakes anymore.

I meantioned my EVO class earlier. What I didn’t mention was that my classmates came from nearly every continent, and time zone, in the world. Many spoke languages other than English. Our four instructors were from four different countries. The only way we could have all met at the same time was in a virtual world. Once people are your friends in Second Life, you always know if they’re in world when you are. For me, it’s like having a virtual teacher’s lounge–there’s almost always a fellow teacher, somewhere in the world, who’s awake when I am. We attend conferences together (SLanguages, for example). We experiment with teaching tools together. We practice camera skills in Costa Rica, or meet for coffee in Barcelona or a beer in Dublin. For a language teacher who feels a bit isolated, this sense of community is a gift. And, it’s another reason language teachers need a Second Life.

Friends matter. We learn better when we learn (and laugh) together.

Related to this is the chance to practice our second (or third) language. As in Real Life, language speakers tend to live near each other in Second Life. So, it’s pretty easy to find native speakers of any language. The best part? We’re using language to make friends, without having to buy an expensive airline ticket to meet them.

At the end of the day, I continue to visit Second Life because it makes me smile. The beauty that more fluent Second Lifers have created from computer code astounds me. I can fly over the rain forest; I can enjoy a perfect sunset in Bora Bora; I can ride a plane through a hurricane; I can walk on the moon. What’s not to enjoy? And that’s my final reason (for this post, anyway) that language teachers need a Second Life.

It’s fun.

The language teaching profession is not always taken very seriously. Sometimes, in the process of proving that we are professionals, we take ourselves a bit too seriously. We focus on the end result (an exam score or a grade) and forget about the process. This doesn’t mean that every class needs to be a party. Learning a new skill–whether Second Life survival or survival English–can be tough. But, using those skills to do something new and challenging can, and should be, fun.

If you’ve never visited Second Life, I encourage you to give it a try. I also strongly recommend that you create your account through ISTE. Instead of the vampires that plague the regular orientation areas, you’ll find wonderful docents to gently ease you into your virtual life.

If you’re a teacher who tried the solo immersion approach to learning Second Life, and haven’t been back after being traumatized or overwhelmed, consider joining the Chateau de Tuite. This online community (and virtual clubhouse) was created by a Second Life resident who has a soft spot for teachers and librarians. You’ll find other other Second Life beginners, and friends. Friends make all the differnce when you’re trying something new.

Oh, and be sure to look up Lynn Carlucci when you get to Second Life. There’s always room for more people on her friend list.