Curriki

I didn't know that Scott McNealy, the CEO of Sun, was so interested in education and in helping teachers. He set up Curriki, a site for exchanging lesson plans and other educational material. It sounds good. I need to get back and look at it more.

Second Life in Education

CNN says Second Life is being used in classes at more than 60 schools and educational institutions.

The three-dimensional virtual world makes it possible for students taking a distance course to develop a real sense of community, said Rebecca Nesson, who leads a class jointly offered by Harvard Law School and Harvard Extension School in the world of "Second Life."

"Students interact with each other and there's a regular sense of classroom interaction. It feels like a college campus," she said.

She holds class discussions in "Second Life" as well as office hours for extension students. Some class-related events are also open to the public -- or basically anyone with a broadband connection.

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Besides improving the quality of distance learning, educators are finding "Second Life" is a good way to introduce international perspectives. In Nesson's course, students as far away as Korea engage in the classroom discussion and work on team projects.