Community College Librarian

I sat on a panel discussion today about groups that support teaching and learning in SL. I was on the panel with so many incredible people. 140 avatars showed up for the discussion and it was, to put it mildly, a zoo! It was really fun. I had some issues with my chat not being heard by some of the attendees, but that was true for everyone at some points during the event. I’m going to post the text of my little talk below. And here’s a picture of the panel.

Pipsqueak Fiddlesticks (SL) Denise Cote, CCSL, Pathfinder Linden (SL) John Lester (RL), LL, Claudia Linden (SL), LL, George Linden (SL), LL, Carl Metropolitan (SL) Carl Henderson (RL), NCI, Beth Sachtjen (RL) Stella Costello (SL), NMC, Saxet Uralia (SL), Mentor groups in SL, Maggy Marat (SL), ISTE

My chat transcript
Thank you so much for inviting me here this afternoon. This conference is fantastic! I am Denise Cote from the College of DuPage in Illinois. Wow, I’m just so flattered to be here with all of these great people! My group is quite small compared to the awesome Real Life Educators group, the NMC, the ISTE and the NCI. The Community Colleges in SL group has about 380 members and our mission is very specific. The CCSL group provides support services to community college faculty, staff and students. I formed this group about 18 months ago because we needed a forum where community college people could connect and assist one another. The group provides a venue for community college educators who share similar curricula, economic constraints and also a culture that is very specific to the community college. Of course, we do get help and information from the variety of great support groups represented here, but our main goal is to band together to lend credibility to using virtual worlds in Community college education. You know, it is all well and good to tell community college administrators that Harvard and the University of Michigan are here in SL, but it is quite another to be able to offer examples of how other community colleges are successfully using Second Life! Community colleges have issues that can be very different from other institutions of higher ed. Our institutions not only teach students art, literature and mathematics but we also train electricians, nurses, construction managers and fashion merchandisers. And that’s just a tiny taste of the variety of instruction we provide. In addition, community colleges are not research-oriented. We are very practical and most community colleges do not have the same sort of funding for “experimental” methods as large universities, though our teaching is just as innovative. Given the pracitical nature of our Colleges, faculty need to be able to make a very solid case when asking for funding and support. The CCSL group works with individuals to help them formulate strategies for obtaining funds, for working with IT departments, for working with our students and how to overcome challenges that are particular to community colleges. In the community college, we rely heavily on hands-on labs and simulations. Virtual worlds can lend themselves well to scalable, affordable options for practical work training. There are many examples of technical training and work simulations in SL, many of which, I’m happy to say, we are learning about at this conference! We have several community colleges that are doing great work in making virtual world applications a part of their curricula, such asTexas State TC, Pellissippi State, Nova Scotia Community Colleges and Tacoma CC. There are still others that are quietly doing small but excellent projects, such as Front Range CC, my own Colllege of DuPage, Oakton CC and so many others. For some, our ability to continue teaching in SL is tenuous given economic constraints and the lack of research on how VW’s can enhance the educational experience of CC students. There are many challenges but we are overcoming them… Community colleges educators are used to doing a lot with a little! So, as I see it, our challenge is two-fold– we have to work to create viable learning experiences on shoestring budgets for our own students while continuously working to show that virtual worlds can be pedogogically sound/viable/economical options for community colleges. We also need to step up and lend our expertise to other community college educators who are trying to get a foothold in the virtual world. Every CC success here is a success for us all, because we can use these great projects as case studies to bring forward to our own institutions, and most importantly, to our students. The CCSL also helps new community college educators “ramp up” and learn the Second Life interface through a group of CCSL mentors who work with people one-on-one. We do workshops and field trips to interesting builds and share literature and information. I think, though, that the strength of the group is our collective knowledge of what other community colleges are doing in-world and matching up educators with similar interests and similar college profiles. I know that many of you are not from community colleges but I do invite you have a look at our group wiki at http://ccsl.wetpaint.com and to participate in our group activities. There is a update group that you can join that will not use up one of your 25 slots. The kiosks to join this update group will be around this venue until after our panel today. Thank you so much for your kind attention.