Rockcliffe University Consortium celebrates 5 years in Second Life

Congratulations to Rockcliffe University Consortium celebrating their 5 years in Second Life with an Open House of “Past, Present & Futures of Virtual Worlds” panels and workshops full of educational and encouraging thoughts from the people who engage us all to be innovative advocates. We to hope to inspire community, connections, and collaboration with comrades from all over the world! I hosted the panel on “Can Virtual Health lead to Real Life Wellness?” with guests Gentle Heron, Brena Benoir, and Thinkerer Melville. Thank you for the opportunity to be part of this amazing day!

Graduation for University of Washington Certificate in Virtual Worlds

We did it! Our graduation was awesome! Claudia Linden posted a great story about our program on the Second Life Learning Online Blog. I had met Claudia at SLCC and it was so nice to share how we applied what we learned. I am so proud of my fellow classmates and thankful for our instructors and aids with the support of the University of Washington that had the vision to create this first of its kind program! I love being a pioneer!

UW Term Final – Caelatoris

For our final project for the term, we created an event full of panelists in Medicine, Education, and Business called “Caelatoris”. I was the Coordinator for the Business Session. My awesome team was Hasmik Ziplon, CelesteAngelique Zapatero, Joseph Trachtenberg, Sean Ricantaur, Michaal Kaligawa, Yari Huckleberry, Harris Adamski, and Joe Nirvana. I also had the pleasure of working closely with the other session coordinators, Jordanna Hamaski and Laurel Zenovka.

Because two of our panelists didn’t make it into Second Life for our questions, Celeste interviewed Sandy Kearney, an Independent Business Researcher, and our instructor Randy Hinrichs.Our team developed awesome questions for our panelist to answer. Sandy Kearney gave us insight and encouragement of our goals in learning about virtual worlds and our place in them. Until recently Sandy could be found working with IBM as a Global Director in the areas of 3D internet (3Di) and Virtual Business. She has over 25 years experience as a Business Analyst working with complex organizations and operations, including military and civilian strategy, aviation, futures planning, and logistics.

My two guests were Bevan Whitfield, a Virtual Worlds Business and Education Specialist, and Coughran Mayo, Senior Vice President of Planning and Development for Preferred Family Healthcare, Inc. who advocates using Second Life and Open Grid.

University of Washington Certificate Program in Virtual Worlds

Some of you know that I am earning a certificate in Virtual Worlds through the University of Washington. It is a three-term program that will explore all aspects of virtual worlds through in world lectures, guest speakers, like Logan Linden (see picture), field trips in Second Life and other VW, lots of reading, building an educational wiki, and personal project. I am one of 25 students from all over and it has been great to discover how they want to use virtual worlds in the future.