Second Life ™

The search continues for the culprit at 2DP! Many people have submitted guesses, but are any of them right? We’ll find out on June 17 when the answer is revealed! In the meantime, Clue #3 is available and can be found in a room close to the stairs - I’m not going to tell you which floor!

Remember to follow SLDENLC on Twitter and attend Wednesday Workshops for additional hints. Keep up the good work, gumshoes!

For those of you who missed our tour of the Smithsonian Latino Virtual Museum, the pictures below hopefully will encourage you to go visit on your own.  Our tour guides passionately shared their vision with us.  If you are lucky when you go to visit, they will be on hand to guide you and answer your questions.  Thank you to Penelope Riggles  (Melissa Carrillo) the Director of the Smithsonian Latino Virtual Museum and her outstanding staff.

In the lobby there is a searchable kiosk database with access to various exhibits and collections.

 Another area to explore is the beautiful Placito.  Here there will be musicians and artisans. There is a “Day of the Dead” display and you can even get your own costume.

Join a virtual expedition and play in the sandbox to learn about Latino art and culture.  There are many more photos of our guided tour, which included dancing and listening to Latino music, as well as some teasers to solving our iDiscover  “Who Dunnit?” sleuthing game.

Come and join us as we begin our Summer Series of Wednesday Workshops!  We’ll be kickin’ off the season with Smellslike Magic  (Mike Bryant - DEN Manager RL) as he presents, “Discover the UnDiscovered”.  Smellslike will give us a quick look at recent additions to Discovery Education streaming and a preview of the many exciting additions happening this summer.  (Laelia’s Note:  Hmmmm, this will give me a head’s up on the new school year and I’ll have the summer to process this information.)  Think flash, interactive and student ready.  Join us as we dive in and discover the undiscovered components of DE streaming.

As always, 5 p.m. SLT (7 p.m. CST, 8 p.m. EST)

Don’t forget to join us this evening (5 p.m. SLT, 7 p.m. CST, 8 p.m. EST) as Pennelope Riggles (Creative Director for the Smithsonian LatinoVirtual Museum in Second Life and DEN STAR educator Telos String give us aguided tour of the new museum and discussion on the current development of an interactive in-world game on excavation to exhibition of Pre-Colombian artifacts from the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.
We will meet at  2 DP ( our DEN in SL HQ)  and then be given the landmark to teleport to the museum.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Eduisland%20II/132/131/22

The Discovery Educator Network hosted its first-ever DENny awards on Tuesday, May 26. It was a night of recognition for DEN STARs from all over the country. Our very own DEN in SL Leadership Council members won several “real-life” awards, including Anne Truger and Lori Abrahams for being so helpful to everyone. In addition, Fred Delventhal a/k/a Riptide Furse won the award for Leadership and Nancy Sharoff won an award for having the “Best Virtual Hair.” Nobody can argue with that!

 On top of all that, the DEN in SL Blog won an award for best LC blog!

What do you say? Should we have a DEN in SL awards night? If so, what categories would you like to see? Leave a comment and let’s start brainstorming!

Mark your calendar for Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 5 PM SLT ( 7 PM CST, 8 PM EST) as we are honored to have  Pennelope Riggles (Creative Director for the Smithsonian Latino
Virtual Museum in Second Life and DEN STAR educator Telos String give us a
guided tour of the new museum and discussion on the current
development of an interactive in-world game on excavation to
exhibition of Pre-Colombian artifacts from the Smithsonian Museum of
Natural History.
We will meet at  2 DP ( our DEN in SL HQ)  and then be given the
landmark to teleport to the museum.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Eduisland%20II/132/131/22

And of course don’t forget to look for more clues over the next weeks to help to discover “whodunit” and why? in our IDiscover Sleuthing Game.  You could be a winner!!

We will have a “Reveal Party” on June 17th. So save that date too!

Awhile back, we announced that the DEN in SL leadership council is now on Twitter. Well, if you didn’t decide to follow @SLDENLC then, you’ll want to now because during the IDiscover Sleuthing game, there will be additional clues given only to those people who follow us on Twitter.

So head on over to the SLDENLC Twitter site and click “Follow” if you have a Twitter account. If you don’t, why not?

The strangest things have been happening lately at the DEN. First, there was the theft that occurred last week. Now there is a glitch in our schedule!

We happen to have no Wednesday workshop scheduled this week, so the DEN LC will be taking a bit of a hiatus this week. You can still attend the great EdTechConnect webinar tonight with the DE folks, but there will not be a workshop at the DEN in SL afterword.

That said, the sleuthing game must go on! We have found another clue and we need you to help us solve this crime! Lor Freriksson was surveying the building to determine the best place to have a little get-together with friends when she was shocked to discover blood spatter in one of the meeting rooms! Find the room and you’ll find the blood which will lead you to your next clue. To solve the mystery behind the clue, you may have to enlist the aid of a science teacher or other scientifically-enabled person. Remember, at the DEN, it’s all about collaboration!

The Wednesday Workshop with Brad Drakken (Brad Fountain-RL) called Sleuthing with Discovery Education Science was a fabulous success! Brad introduced everyone to some of the cool features of DE Science for elementary and middle school. Be sure to visit the DEN National Blog for details on how you can get a free 90 day trial!

After the workshop, Celestia Cazalet introduced the fun new contest the DEN in SL is hosting called “IDiscover Sleuthing”. Apparently, while all of us were in the auditorium, someone stole the engine out of the motorcyle in the lobby of 2DP! We did find a clue in some scattered papers on the floor, but we need your help to discover “whodunit”!

I’m not going to give you all the details - you’ll have to visit 2DP in SL, click on the IDiscover Sleuthing Game sign, and look at the first clue (which can be found in the papers on the floor). Each Wednesday, a new clue will be available somewhere on the DEN in SL grounds/building. Be sure to stay tuned to the blog and attend Wednesday Workshops for additional chances to win.

Win??? Yes! You didn’t think we would have a contest without great prizes, did you? Each person can make one guess per week. If you guess correctly, you will win one chance at the great prizes that will be awarded at the reveal party (on a date to be announced). We won’t tell you if you got it right until the party, though - so you’ll have to decide if you want to keep trying the same guess, or try something new each week. Everyone who guesses will win a fabulous “I’m a SLeuth” t-shirt, so be sure to give it a try!

Join us on Wednesday, May 13th as Brad Draken (Brad Fountain - RL) presents, “Sleuthing with Discovery Education Science”.

With Discovery’s new program “Investigation Discovery” could there be a better time to learn about Discovery Education Science?  In addition to learning about the great curriculum resources, we will work with the Science Sleuths application, which is best described as CSI for kids, to show how students can take the learning from science units and apply their science skills, the scientific method, and critical thinking skills to solve scientific mysteries.
Time:  5 p.m. SLT ( 7 p.m. CST, 8 p.m. EST)