Some serious stuff

Can feel dread tug of professionalism, as note that there are reports and articles on SL coming out and feel information pro's urge to blog same. Decide to get it over quickly by shoving them all in one posting.

1) First is report by Silversprite Helsinki aka John Kirriemuir, he who has sat in my roof garden and admired windchime. It was obviously worth the investment as I get mentioned in report. Ho ho only joking, Silversprite.

The report was commissioned by Eduserv and has attracted a good deal of attention:
Kirriemuir, J. (2007) A July 2007 "snapshot" of UK Higher and Further Education Developments in Second Life. Bath: Eduserv. Available as a pdf at http://www.eduserv.org.uk/
foundation/sl/uksnapshot072007

2) There was a discussion by UK educators (24th July) on problem-based learning. Wasn't able to attend, so thanks to Art Fossett who has put the transcript up online at http://artfossett.net/meetings/2007/07/24/uk-educators/transcript.txt

3) This and the remaining 2 items came out this last week.

Bainbridge, W.S. (2007) "The Scientific Research Potential of Virtual Worlds" Science, Vol. 317. no. 5837, pp. 472 - 476
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/
content/short/317/5837/472

Concluding paragraph "Many virtual worlds may foster scientific habits of mind better than traditional schools can, because they constantly require inhabitants to experiment with unfamiliar alternatives, rationally calculate probable outcomes, and develop complex theoretical structures to understand their environment (60–62). Probably for better, but conceivably for worse, virtual worlds are creating a very new context in which young people are socialized to group norms, learn intellectual skills, and express their individuality (63). The "graduates" of SL and WoW may include many future engineers, natural scientists, and social scientists ready to remake the real world in the image of the virtual worlds." No.s in brackets are reference numbers showing that this is pukka academic article and not idle talk ;-)

4) Kenney, B. (2007) "Second Life: What Is It? (And Why Should Manufacturers Care?)" Industry week, 27 July. http://www.industryweek.com/
ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=14649 (answer given: yes they should).

5) Finally, posting on Information world review blog, since wanted to include something from information field:

Griffin, D. (2007) "Is Second Life the right tool for Further and Higher Education?" IWR blog, 24 July. http://blog.iwr.co.uk/2007/
07/is-second-life-.html

NB Normal service will resume in next posting where I will blog about hats.

1st photo is of me chilling in some pool in Cisco (I assume, as in "San Fran"), where I went by accident when I was actually looking for Cisco Systems. 2nd photo is of me scoffing Pringles in the Bloggers Cafe.