Best Practices

Don’t Have to Build to Use SL
· There are many free resources already on SL, so you don’t need to build or have an island to use SL in your courses.

Find Your Own Networks
· Work with another colleague on your campus and attend education talks in SL to find colleagues to share tips and receive answers to your questions

Create a Collaborative Activity for SL
· Link SL learning activities to course learning objectives and chunk the assignment into manageable pieces
· Students completing SL activities in a group creates peer networks allowing students to troubleshoot technical issues with their peers
· Incorporate other technologies for students to network on their SL progress (discussion boards, blogs)

Manage Student Expectations
· Introduce hardware and software requirements in the syllabus
· Orient your students to Second Life using You Tube videos and popular media articles
· Assign a “Scavenger Hunt” for students in SL where they can create an avatar, change their appearance, update their profile, send a friendship offer, visit SLURLS and specific locations in SL of interest, post a screen shot of themselves sin SL

Evaluate the Impact
· Administer a survey to your students to see whether or not SL is achieving your needs and students feel that it is impacting their learning.
· Share these results!!