Second Department

Here is my avatar in Second Life, Jackie Darkstone, pictured outside our new Departmental building, which has been kindly given to us by our University of Sheffield colleague Sheila Yoshikawa. She runs the Infolit iSchool in Second Life and this building is on the Infolit Island. I am a relative newbie to SL and am, along with my colleague Jason Sparks, exploring ways to embed it in our teaching programmes. I haven't had much time to spend on this before now but then realised I couldn't delay any longer and am amazed by what people are achieving in SL. Sheila, for example, manages to run Infolit Island and has her own virtual shop. A group called 'Global Kids' Digital Media Initiative' is doing some great stuff with teenagers and of course Angela Thomas has been showing us for some years what educationalists can do in SL. My own explorations will be rather more modest in nature but I am keen nonetheless - and if you are not yet convinced by the idea, then visit the SLED blog for more inspiration.