Second Life ™

What do you get when you mix meerkats, DEN in SL, trivia, and about a dozen participants?  One helluva good time!

Tonight’s Meerkat Monday DEN in SL featured a trivia contest with Meerkat and DEN related questions.  I didn’t get the final count, but from where I was standing Vita Demina was in the lead (by far).  The speed of her responses were A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!!!  She either studied like a maniac all week to brush up on meerkat facts, or she was given the questions ahead of time by ’someone’ on the DEN in SL LC (NOT!!!! LOL).  Way to Go Vita!!!  You done did us proud!

Of course, silliness is always part of trivia events, and we had plenty of that.  Some of the answers to the questions were, well….a little out there! LOL  (and I am sorry [NOT] to say that I gleefully partook in the mischief!)

The winners of this week’s meerkats are:

Walking, talking meerkats:

Thonalon Umarov

Vanshon Flow

Becca Fayray

Winners of the shoulder, nibble on the ear meerkats:

Jordyn Peccable

Pearle Schnyder

Markup Melnik

Don’t forget to join us next Monday, October 1st for the final Meerkat Monday hosted by yours truly, DEN in SL.

The Find the Meerkats game ends on October 1st and you can play that anytime. Next Monday will be the last evening to have a chance to win 6 more pet meerkats, 3 large size meerkats and 3 shoulder meerkats. We begin at 5 SLT (8PM EST).

Meerkat Mondays are being organized to raise awareness and excitement for the Discovery Connect Webinar where you and your students can conference with the executive producer of Meerkat Manor, Mick Kaczorowski. The webinar is on Wednesday, Oct. 3rd at 11:00 a.m. EST. Slots are limited so enroll now.

See ya’ll Monday!!!!

Here are some shots of the fun we had:

Our ‘Host with the Most’, none other than our DEN in SL LC Chair, Riptide Furse:

Getting ready for the Trivia Game:

I just left Second Life (literally seconds ago) and I think all would agree that despite our inability to show an episode from Meerkat Manor and despite the terrible lag a good time was had by all.  In addition to receiving special, one-of-a-kind Meerkat t-shirts (heh, if you didn’t get yours, just show up next Monday!) and starting the Meerkat Find (a HUD game), a raffle was conducted near the end of the evening with the following winners:

Winners of the LARGE meerkats (they walk, they talk, well…you get the idea!):

Warper Overdrive

Zenz Zenovka

Ansa Sautereau

Winners of the shoulder meerkats (they hang out on your shoulder, they talk….my favorite BTW):

Vita Demina

Teacher Spitteler

Clare Lane

Congrats to the winners…you’ve been given your meerkats already.  PLEASE be sure to read the notecard that accompanied the meerkats…they’ll tell you how to care for your new pets….

Hope to see even more of you next Monday for……………..(drumroll please………………..) ‘Meerkat Monday in DEN in SL’!

If you’re here, you should probably be there:

blog.discoveryeducation.com/secondlife

That’s our new blog home!

See ya there!

***I’m having issues w/ WordPress.  This post has been on Typepad so it may be a duplicate post for some of you.***

OK….you ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY MUST save these dates and times.

Ready?

Monday (of course, that’s why we called it Meerkat ‘Mondays’!), September 17th

Monday, September 24th

Monday, October 1st

ALWAYS at 5 p.m. SLT (that would be 8 p.m. EST)

OK, now you’ve save the date, marked it on your calendar, saved it to your PDA, stuck a post-it on the fridge…and you’re wondering WHY????

DEN in SL is promoting the FABULOUS Meerkat Manor (I’m sure you got the envelope filled w/ goodies — poster, CD, etc. in the mail at the beginning of the school year) series.  For the next three Mondays we will be showing shows from Season 1.  WHY ELSE?  Well, if that wasn’t enough to entice you…we’re also having a ‘Meerkat Hunt’, where you’ll wear a HUD (Heads Up Display) with clues and grids to find meerkats located all over EduIsland II based on some pretty creative clues.  WHY ELSE?  Geez, this is a tough crowd!  If that’s not enough, then check these out!

Check out what they can do….(so far!):

• two sizes one on the ground and one you wear on the shoulder
• they play a sound when clicked on
• the owner can name them
• they will speak in chat based on what the owner tells it to say. For instance if the owner names theirs Flower, it would say “Flower says Beth is a great person to work with”
• they blink their eyes
• one is wearable the other is land based but follows the owner

Six of these ADORABLE creatures will be given out as prizes on each of the three Mondays.  Now if that’s not enough to have you in-world, well….WOOT!!!! I MIGHT NOW HAVE A BETTER CHANCE AT WINNING ONE OF THESE CREATURES!!!!! LOL

SAVE THE DATE:  October 3, 2007

Sign up here.

All of this is in preparation for the Webinar featuring Discovery Connect Mick Kaczorowski of Meerkat Manor.  This webinar will be featuring Mick Kaczorowski, Executive Producer for the much loved Animal Planet series Meerkat Manor. He’ll be sharing stories from the set in Africa, where 37 Meerkats have become the most unusual reality stars on television!

SLip (Second Life Tip):

If you see a bunch of green dots on your mini-map (green dots indicate avatars), did you know that you can click on ^Maps^, mouse over the stack of green dots, hold your mouse there and you’ll be given a count of the number of avatars present.  Cool, huh?

OK….you ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY MUST save these dates and times.

Ready?

Monday (of course, that’s why we called it Meerkat ‘Mondays’!), September 17th

Monday, September 24th

Monday, October 1st

ALWAYS at 5 p.m. SLT (that would be 8 p.m. EST)

OK, now you’ve save the date, marked it on your calendar, saved it to your PDA, stuck a post-it on the fridge…and you’re wondering WHY????

DEN in SL is promoting the FABULOUS Meerkat Manor (I’m sure you got the envelope filled w/ goodies — poster, CD, etc. in the mail at the beginning of the school year) series.  For the next three Mondays we will be showing shows from Season 1.  WHY ELSE?  Well, if that wasn’t enough to entice you…we’re also having a ‘Meerkat Hunt’, where you’ll wear a HUD (Heads Up Display) with clues and grids to find meerkats located all over EduIsland II based on some pretty creative clues.  WHY ELSE?  Geez, this is a tough crowd!  If that’s not enough, then check these out!

Check out what they can do….(so far!):

• two sizes one on the ground and one you wear on the shoulder
• they play a sound when clicked on
• the owner can name them
• they will speak in chat based on what the owner tells it to say. For instance if the owner names theirs Flower, it would say "Flower says Beth is a great person to work with"
• they blink their eyes
• one is wearable the other is land based but follows the owner

Six of these ADORABLE creatures will be given out as prizes on each of the three Mondays.  Now if that’s not enough to have you in-world, well….WOOT!!!! I MIGHT NOW HAVE A BETTER CHANCE AT WINNING ONE OF THESE CREATURES!!!!! LOL

SAVE THE DATE:  October 3, 2007

Sign up here.

All of this is in preparation for the Webinar featuring Discovery Connect Mick Kaczorowski of Meerkat Manor.  This webinar will be featuring Mick Kaczorowski, Executive Producer for the much loved Animal Planet series Meerkat Manor. He’ll be sharing stories from the set in Africa, where 37 Meerkats have become the most unusual reality stars on television!

***Here’s another possible double-post….heh….NO ONE told me that WordPress wasn’t quite ready to roll yet! LOL***

Our very own Beth Kohnke (Beth Knittle in RL) will be presenting a FABULOUS workshop at DEN in SL.  We hope you’ll be able to join us.

Differentiating Instruction and Discovery Streaming

Please join us for a discussion on ways Discovery Streaming can be used to support students with diverse needs.  Many students need repeated access to content, pre-teaching and re-teaching of prerequisite concepts. We’ll look at some examples of how these have been successfully implemented using Discovery Streaming.  You’ll have an opportunity to share your experiences and success with other DEN members.

Place: DEN in SL Headquarters (EduIsland II 69, 99, 21)
Date:  October 20th, 2007
Time: 4 p.m. SLT (7 p.m. Eastern Time)

***This may be a double-post for some.  I had posted this to WordPress only to find out that the transition over hadn’t been made yet! OH NO!!!! LOL***

Here’s a BIG hello to our latest DEN in SL Leadership Council Member, Geekie Kidd, who will be our DEN Guide Coordinator.

Geekie Kidd, a relative newbie to SL, loves the ability to interact with the amazing educators found in the DEN. In RL, she is Charlene Chausis, the Technology Training and Integration Manager at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois, and a frequent presenter at state and local conferences. Charlene has been a DEN member from the beginning and a STAR Featured Educator. She most recently was honored at NECC as ISTE’s 2007 Educational Leader of the Year, and in Illinois as the ICE 2007 Leader of the Year. She is also the Volunteer Coordinator for the Illinois Computing Educators (ICE) 2008 Conference, and a 2003 Apple Distinguished Educator.

I’m sure you’ll help me welcome Geekie to our DEN in SL family.

In order to promote the upcoming ‘Building It Bigger’ webinar on September 13th, our DEN in SL LC Chair, Riptide Furse create this towering structure outside the DEN in SL Headquarters.

Now that you’re sufficiently impressed (I know I was!), here’s a little more information about the upcoming webinar….

Build It Bigger with Danny Forster! 

As host of Build It Bigger, it is Danny’s great honor to give Discovery Channel viewers a closer look at some of the world’s largest engineering projects — from the Arizona Cardinals stadium to the tallest building in Madrid. Given his morbid fear of heights and his healthy suspicion of giant stone crushers, though, it’s just not always his great pleasure.

From New Orleans to South Korea, Russia to Spain and even aircraft carriers in undisclosed locations, Danny has been behind the scenes of the biggest construction sites around the world.  On Thursday, September 13th at 1pm EST, he will be sharing his stories with you!

This webinar will be a live conversation with Danny, the host of Build It Bigger.  He will provide an exclusive glimpse at the show behind the show.  The presentation is perfect for  teachers to share with their students and there will be ample opportunities for him to answer questions.  We have added a new feature to our Discovery Connect webinars to make it easier for you to share the event with students.  The audio from the teleconference will be sent through your computer speakers as well. This should make it simple to amplify for a classroom or auditorium. If your students would like to be able to ask questions live, a telephone connection will still be required though.

Danny’s Discovery Connect will be limited to 200 seats, so register early!

Click here to register for this webinar.  While you’re there, don’t forget to browse through our list of upcoming webinars to find others that might interest you.

SLip (Second Life Tip):

If you see a bunch of green dots on your mini-map (green dots indicate avatars), did you know that you can click on ^Maps^, mouse over the stack of green dots, hold your mouse there and you’ll be given a count of the number of avatars present.  Cool, huh?

Our very own Beth Kohnke (Beth Knittle in RL) will be presenting a FABULOUS workshop at DEN in SL.  We hope you’ll be able to join us.

Differentiating Instruction and Discovery Streaming

Please join us for a discussion on ways Discovery Streaming can be used to support students with diverse needs.  Many students need repeated access to content, pre-teaching and re-teaching of prerequisite concepts. We’ll look at some examples of how these have been successfully implemented using Discovery Streaming.  You’ll have an opportunity to share your experiences and success with other DEN members.

Place: DEN in SL Headquarters (EduIsland II 69, 99, 21)
Date:  October 20th, 2007
Time: 4 p.m. SLT (7 p.m. Eastern Time)

Here’s a BIG hello to our latest DEN in SL Leadership Council Member, Geekie Kidd, who will be our DEN Guide Coordinator.

Geekie Kidd, a relative newbie to SL, loves the ability to interact with the amazing educators found in the DEN. In RL, she is Charlene Chausis, the Technology Training and Integration Manager at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois, and a frequent presenter at state and local conferences. Charlene has been a DEN member from the beginning and a STAR Featured Educator. She most recently was honored at NECC as ISTE’s 2007 Educational Leader of the Year, and in Illinois as the ICE 2007 Leader of the Year. She is also the Volunteer Coordinator for the Illinois Computing Educators (ICE) 2008 Conference, and a 2003 Apple Distinguished Educator.

I’m sure you’ll help me welcome Geekie to our DEN in SL family.