Happy Rez Day

A VERY VERY Happy Rez day to my dear friend Mystical Cookie. I would be nowhere close to where I am in SL without Mysti.

First, she create the greatest HUD every, the MystiTool. Second, about a year ago she bought her first sim, Nevi, and I was a major tenant there, owning, at one point, nearly 1/5 of the sim. I have since sold all of that but the original parcel. But Mysti didn't stop with Nevi, she added Adeo, Cila, Avendale, Avendale Ruins, and soon (we hope), Myla will be moved over to join us.

On a personal note, Mysti has been there every time I had a question or needed advice. Most of my building skills are thanks to her direction and anything I know about scripting (which is darn little) is only because she has been so patient.

Thanks for being a great liege, a leader, and a good friend.

ENWR class update

Things have really started to come together for my Introduction to College Writing I class. At the start, we had some turnover. I believe this is in part because the pop up students get is rather generic. If that message could be customized, that would be wonderful. Even if it couldn’t be customize for each class, if we had more than one classification, that would even be better. Right now all is says is that many of the classes are going to take place online.

I reached out to those who were in BlackBoard prior to the end of last semester. I reached out again after the new year, also through BlackBoard. A few days before classes started I sent an email to each individual, not through BlackBoard, and used their MSU email address as well as the email address they have listed in WESS. I was fairly clear in all the emails that there was a strong technology component to this course and to contact me with questions.

Once the first day of class came and went a few students got it and decided it was not for them. The problem, of course, is that a student leaving at that point leaves an opening in the class, so other students can register – and some did. Some even registered right up to the registration deadline, which meant they missed two or three classes.

I don’t go over the syllabus on the first night and then let them go – we start class, so any student coming in after the second class is going to be at a disadvantage. Does this mean they can’t make up for it, no, of course not – a little hard work to catch up and they’ll have no problem. The key here is that the student should have contacted me as soon as they registered to find out what to make up. All but one did not do this. The students also get access to BlackBoard after midnight once the register. If it were me, I’d go through all the announcements and posting and see what I missed. Even when I was an undergraduate, I would have done that. Many of these students did not.

So, now the class is settled, we’re into Second Life, and almost every student is excited about it. We have had a problem using Google Docs to share papers and so tonight I’m going to have to can that and we’ll have to go back to paper. I was hoping to go paperless this time around, there are just so many advantages, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to work out. As the semester progresses, if it seems we might be able to go back to it, maybe we’ll try it again.

Tonight, Dr. Patty Kahn will be coming to our class to go over the RAVE/Campus Connect program. We’ll be using the phones for polling and also for the students to get announcement from BlackBoard and also get notification when they have a grade posted. Each student should have this phone already, its part of the fee structure. The only students who will not have it will be Junior who are not living on campus and Seniors. This group will be able to use their regular cell phone.

More as it comes up.

Montclarion flap gets even wider coverage

Here are just a few of the Google Alert hits I got today. If I get more in the future I'll add them here under and UPDATE with the date.

http://chronicle.com/news/article/3840/student-newspaper-at-montclair-state-u-gets-funds-restored

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/nyregion/31montclair.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin

http://www.nj.com/columns/ledger/diionno/index.ssf?/base/columns-0/1202017024159761.xml&coll=1

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/01/montclair_state_sga_students_n.html

http://www.intheagora.com/archives/2008/02/the_exploits_of.html

UPDATE: Here's another one I found on the 5th
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/opinion/editorials/story/7533230p-7435703c.html

UPDATE - Two more on the 6th
http://media.www.signal-online.net/media/storage/paper771/news/2008/02/06/News/Montclarions.Budget.Partially.Unfrozen.By.Sga-3189381.shtml

http://datanews-gh.blogspot.com/2008/02/funds-freed-for-montclair-state-paper.html

And, of course, now my blog adds to the mix. :-)

Rez Day

Happy Rez Day to my good friend, Gina Dawn! Gina is celebrating here 4th (thats right, I said FOURTH!) year in SL. Way to lead, Gina!

Happy Rez Day!

My guess is that many of you out there are starring at the screen wondering what on earth a rez day is and why you should care about it.

Well, for most of you, the answer to that last question will probably be, you shouldn’t. For those of you in Second Life, your rez day is the day you signed up for your account. You can find your rez day (or birthday) by looking at the upper left hand side of the profile. You can see anyone’s rez day from his or her profile.

I just celebrated my 1-year Rez Day. I find it so hard to believe that so much has happened in only one year. I’ve presented countless times, built an island, taught classes, helped others teach classes, help another academic unit here come in-world, and most amazingly been highlighted in an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education and been published on the subject. All this in less than a year. It’s been a wild ride.

Seeing the importance of marking important dates in SL as well as RL, I hope to note, from time to time, the Rez Dates of some of my friends. To start this off, I’m going to go through some I missed in January.

AnthonyFontana Chevalier (January 1st) – 1 year
Elmont Carver (January 7th) – signed up
Irwin Nitely (January 7th) – signed up
Hugo VanSant (January 16th) – 1 year - (Hugo is the first person I met on Orientation Island. It turns out that not only is he from Brasil, he lives in the next town over from the one I usually visit. Guess even the virtual world is a small world.
Rixhawz Milestone (January 16th) – 1 year
Me, AJ Brooks (January 16th) – 1 year
Bret Rydell (January 17th) – 1 year
Theresa Hawks (January 17th) – 1 year
EdTek Zeno (January 19th) – 1 year
LauraMaria Onomatopoeia (January 23rd) – 1 year
KenBain Brooks (January 25th) – 1 Year
Larry Pixel (January 26th) – 2 years

Oh, Mr. Grant!

I’ve never written a grant before. I’ve never even worked on helping to write a grant. I’m not sure why, its just never happened. I’ve always said one of the things I wanted to do was write grants to bring in money so I can do the cool things I want to do – but the right grant has never jumped out at me. I’ve offered to help the faculty writing their grants, by working on the technology portion of it – but nobody has ever taken me up on it. Several people have asked questions, but nothing beyond that. One of the big problems we’ve seen is that people write grants and then forget to include the hardware and software requirements.

Grants have always seemed so complicated to me. I’m really good at putting budgets together. Putting words on paper is not a problem either.. But the structure and formality has always been a bit daunting. I’m told that one you write your first one, it gets easier, and once you write one and get it, it gets even easier.

Do those of you who have written grants think it’s hard? What is your success rate and what do you attribute to that success?

These folks will be running the show some day

A huge thanx to Barbara Feldman for passing along this video
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=3486473n

The segment of 60 Minutes talks about Millennials in the workplace, but I think it has real relevance to the academic environment. The attitude the segment is discussing regarding students performance and integration into the work environment is very much the same as what I believe we are seeing in the classroom.

So, do we adapt the way the segment suggests business do? Is the Ivory Tower crumbling at the base? Has the day of "You have to learn this way because I learned this way." gone the way of the 8-Track? Or is it our place to set the standard of learning style and let the students be the ones to adapt. I'm not talking about content here, since I think we've already seen that content can be delivered in many different ways. I'm referring specifically to deliver methodology.

What do you think? Feel free to comment whether you watch the video or not, but I'm very interested in hearing for anyone who does watch it.