Henny at VSTE on Quest Atlantis and CSO Talk Talks--A Busy Monday Night!

A GREAT session last night at VSTE's weekly get-together in SL, followed by an intimate and fun watch of a GREAT TED video. What does TED stand for, anyway? [opens a tab to google the answer]. Oh, "Technology, Entertainment, and Design." Hmph, learn somethin' every day!

The speaker last night was my good friend Jeff Agemenoni, aka Henny Zimer in SL. He appeared dressed in an avatar he affected early on in his Second Life "career," that of a diminuitive pizza maker. His topic was Quest Atlantis, one that is dear to my heart. I led my own 4th graders into QA this year for the first time and it's been absolutely stellar, and in very complex ways.  Today, I had a student proudly smile at me and share that she started the newly enabled NASA Quest this very morning, beaming "Mr. Merrick, I'm working with NASA!" 

Here's a slideshow of three pics I snapped during the presentation, which I hope I'll be stealing for our Birds of a Feather at NECC. Jeff and I are generally of like mind on this sharing thing, but he clearly put so much effort into his presentation, which should be available soon at his blog, "From Mr. A. to Mr. Z," that he may get possessive about it. I predict not. :)

I had to leave before Henny had completely finished, but as you can see from the pics, his session was well-attended. He did a great great job! When I can get the links to his presentation archive I'll slap them in here!

CSO Talk Talks is an odd thing, a simple chance for educators to meet and watch a TED video chosen by vote, and during it to take advantage of the built-in backchat opportunities that SL's text chat feature provide. I plan to build it slowly (there's so much going on), experimenting with some different times, exploring options to publicize it, and nurturing it as if I were blowing gently on a handful of kindling glowing red with potential flame. All the chat is at the CSO Talk Talks wiki, along with a little slideshow from that gentle event. Suffice it to say that we overcame recurring technological difficulties to enjoy a wonderful 18 minutes with Margaret Wertheim, creator of a giant collaborative project to create and display a full-sized coral reef made by volunteers solely by crochet. Yup, needles and yarn.