How to put on costumes in Second Life

My students in advanced grammar & conversation are required to give a 3-minute presentation according to the course learning outcomes. This quarter, they have the option to write dialogues that include target grammar from the quarter and making movies in Second Life. Of course, I offer the alternative of a live class performance...But I'm hoping that SecondLife will be an attractive option for the less-extroverted students. Plus, I've got lots of great props, costumes, and locations for filming. Who can resist? Here's a video I made to help them prepare for their presentation next week.

great Web 2.0 resources for language teachers

I found this excellent website with a list of teacher training videos for free, fun Web 2.0 tools for language teachers. Four of them are specific to teaching ESL. There's a wealth of information here about sites that allow students to create cartoon videos and write their own scripts; pronunciation, listening, and reading websites; digital poster creation tools; and a lot more.

An alternative to narrated Powerpoints

I'm trying something new. I've recorded a lecture for my students in SecondLife. Well, first a little context: for the past year, I've been adding some UDL (Universal Design Learning) components to my grammar class to help my students, some of whom need more time to process the lectures and material. I started creating narrated Powerpoint lectures using Elluminate in the fall. Mainly, I chose Elluminate because I don't have an Articulate license. Elluminate is OK but a bit unwieldy...Not a pretty presentation, not full-screen, and many students have trouble opening the files at home because they require Java. That's not a difficult fix, but try explaining to someone with minimal computer experience that they need to download "Java" when they get home. Anyway...I recently had another idea. Check out this video I shot in SecondLife on Evergreen Island. It's actually the second of three: in the first, I give a (yes!) Powerpoint lecture in SecondLife, then move over here to the demonstration area to give some examples, then in the third movie, go over to a screen with an online quiz for practice. So I move through the early steps of presentation: introduce, demonstrate, guided practice.