Besides having  better understanding of how SL places are “spatially distributed”, what caught my attention was that there was something called a “Destination Guide”. I managed to find it by scrolling to the bottom of the sidebar menu and click where it said:   “Looking for even more places to visit in Second Life? Check out the Destination Guide page”.

And so I did, and here is what I found:

It is a fantastic resource! The guide is organized into six categories: Learning, Hot Spots, Arts, Music, How To and Business. I browsed through the contents of the Learning Guide, and loved it! Of course, it’s not a complete list of all places, but you can always go back to the World Map and use the search engine to find the SLURL to places you know exist but don’t know where they are exactly.

I also found two fantastic blogs that write reviews of places to visit connected to education: Edumuve and Second Life Insider. To make the story short, after all these discoveries, I didn’t want to lose  the information so I bookmarked these sites so I could go back to the links and visit these places throughout the year. But thenI thought “Hey, why not share these discoveries?” And so I mashed all three feeds together and made them public through Google Reader, and here it is! A feed for all the places I’ve found so far, that I will continue to update with any other destinations I come across and tag. To get the feed, click here, and enjoy! Please comment if you’ve visited any of these places and have any recommendations.

I think this might be a very valuable tool for newbies who don’t find many things to do or places to go…in my case, for example, I am quite wary about just walking/flying around until I find something to do. That is why I like TLVW10 so much; the moderators have suggested so many cool places! We have plenty to choose from, and they are always a fantastic surprise.

Just for fun, I went to some of the places that had ongoing exhibits, etc. Here are my findings:

If you’re a Trekkie, visit the Star Trek Museum Complex. You can see what it’s about and find the SLURL to teleport by clicking here. You can also go HERE to see some of the picks I took on my visit, to give you an idea of what to expect.

If you know or want to learn German, visit the Goethe Institute and check out their inworld conversation sessions. The link to more information is here. They also have a very creative use of the space. There is a photography exhibit that is 3 floors high but has no stairs. I struggled until I remember we could fly!

Finally, for those who want something a bit more serious, you can visit the Exhibit on Human Trafficking on info island. There are documentaries and it is an eye-opening experience, at least in my opinion. The SLURL to teleport is here.

After doing that, I teleported to one of the places suggested, Better World Island, where I found several places to visit. I explored a little bit, but didn’t find anybody. The place is very nice and peaceful, is located by the sea and you can hear the waves…very nice!I also found (later) that this place has a Ning site where people interested in learning more about it can get together and comunicate.

Mostly, this part of the island that you see in the snapshot above seems to contain places to teleport to, so I chose the Streets of Baghdad tour. As you can see from the snapshot below, when you arrive you have several objects that you can touch before you actually go into the “streets”. They contain information, newspaper articles, there’s a donations bin and more. Once you start walking along the streets, it can be a bit confusing, which I think was done on purpose to give people some idea of how chaotic it is to live in Baghdad. There are objects that you can touch along the way that do different things(I’m not telling you! It would ruin the experience) and contribute to this atmosphere of chaos and despair.

Once you leave the city through one of the exits (there are at least two, it’s kind of a maze in there…) you can go back to the entrance. Behind you there is water and from there you can see the display about Darfur. I got curious so I decided to visit.

The display about Darfur was really sad but at the same time it encouraged you to do something about what is going on. Tomorrow we have a visit to the Holocaust Museum in SL, and although it is important for us to remember what happened there, I believe it is even more important to remember that unfortunately genocide is not part of our past history, but of our present. Especially because we’re educators, we need to help our students understand that these things are everybody’s business. The Darfur display calls visitors to action. You can collect free t-shirts to wear on SL, touch a wall that will take you to a page where you can ask Mr. Obama to do something about it, learn about the situation and become involved. You can read stories about people in Darfur, hear flies in the background that remind you of decay, hunger and fill you with infinite sadness…at least that’s what happened to me. I invite you to visit all these places and invite your students to do it too. We all should know about these issues. Just because it happens far away, it doesn’t mean it’s not our business. After all, it’s our world, right?

So it’s 2010, and it’s my chance to do it right. I signed up for two interconnected workshops: Virtual Language Travel and Teaching Languages in a Virtual World. They are both related to teaching using virtual worlds and Second Life. Here’s how I am preparing this time:

1. I started a private pageflake with feeds for the events from both classes (I don’t want to miss anything!) and keep notes about what comes next.

2. I set up a Google calendar to start adding events there and keeping them organized.

3. I fed my blog (originally at www.pamelaarraras.com.ar/blog) into my personal page on both Ning sites. That way, as both classes are connected, when I blog both communities get the posts.

4. I took note of the tags we’re using: TLVW10 and #EVOVLT. I’ll tag every post, photo and bookmark with them.I’m trying to remember how to feed everything tagged to one place…I am going to ask in the forums, I guess.

5. I started befriending people, checking out their blogs and profiles on places such as LinkedIn, to start interacting and getting to know each other.

In case anyone needs help learning to do the things I mentioned above, leave me a comment and I’ll make a post, ok?

So, how am I doing so far? I hope my organizational skills last me for the 6 weeks we have ahead! Wish me luck!