Happy Whyville Halloween!

This "enhanced learning opportunity" invited us to attend and report on the Whyville Halloween party.

The very first challenge was obtaining the secret code. There were several ways you could do this. The first was to invite another person to join Whyville and if they were active enough, you would be sent the code. So, I sort of cheated. I invited myself (using another email address) and received a Ymail with the code. Here is the email.

Halloween Party Secret Word

Since robinweb, one of your Halloween Party invitees signed up for Whyville, you get to hear the special Halloween Party Secret Word. It's 'corpse' spelled backwards: 'esproc'. During the Halloween Party on October 30 from 1 PM to 8 PM Whyville Time, visit Dr. Leila's house and say that word in chat. You'll be instantly transported to the party!

The other way was to chat and see if someone would share the secret word with you. The first time I tried this I was told “ymmum” was the secret word but later found out that was last years. The second time I tried it, before reading Ymail, I found it that it was “esproc”. That’s great but dmwraight & I still had trouble getting into the party. Why? We kept saying the secret code and then walking through Dr. Leila’s front door. Instead you had to say the secret code and hit ENTER! That was not intuitive. I actually figured it out by accident because I was getting frustrated and hit ENTER without even thinking about it.

The other early step was to get a costume. Unfortunately I didn’t have a lot of clams left so I couldn’t buy much. I bought a pumpkin face for only 10 clams. So, here I am in Whyville:
Here I am in costume:
Once at the party, the first thing you see is a whole ton of people in front of Hauntington Mansion.
It took a while to figure out what else there was to do. It was a big help going to the party together with dmwraight because we both were figuring it out together and sharing what we learned using Facebook chat. She discovered the clicking on the ghost would provide information on the different activities:

Then, clicking on the door the haunted house brought you to the lobby where there were different scary things to observe (spiders moving, paintings looking at you, etc…).

I was intrigued by the staircase so I clicked at the top and it took me to a staircase to nowhere.

This staircase had two views and went on and on and on. I followed it up at least 6 levels but then gave up. Someone told me I could catapult things off the side and I tried it but apparently had nothing to catapult. I went back down the staircases, back to the lobby of the haunted house and then entered the other doorway. This led me to the dining room.

In the dining room, you could see if a reflection of yourself in the mirror if you were in the right place. I couldn’t figure it out though. In this picture it looks like I am in “eyeball soup”. dmwraight is at the bottom left of the table. The only way out of the house is by clicking on the crow on the branch at the back window. I then went to the graveyard to explore.

The graveyard was just another place to chat with your fellow partygoers. The tree on the left had eyes that kept blinking at you. I perused around about and discovered that you could enter a secret portion of the graveyard by clicking on the grey tombstone by the right tree. I pinged dmwraight so she could join me.
This is where the witch’s brew was that the ghost told us about. You could drink the brew and the avatar responded “yuck”. I then went to the Ghoul Shed where apparently avatars could create private party rooms at the Whyville Halloween party.

I attended sloane5’s party but no one was there.

The last activity was that you could vote on avatar’s costumes. You voted by saying “vote avatarname” when you were in the room with that avatar. You could see which avatars were in the lead by clicking on vote tally.
To reflect on this experience, I would say that it’s definitely geared towards participants of a younger age. While it was interesting to explore, I found it a little bit disappointing. There was so much more they could have done (more interactive activities for example). Again, it’s obviously not an activity that a visually-impaired student could participate in even those with limited sight because it’s so busy on the screen and there is a ton of movement to follow. However, for those with physical disabilities it might serve as a way for them to “attend a Halloween party” that they could not attend, or may feel uncomfortable attending, in real life. I think this would fill more a social need than an educational one. Other than learning about the holiday of Halloween and perhaps the concept of voting and citizenship (loosely) there aren’t too many educational outcomes that the party would provide to students with or without disabilities.

Digital Citizenship

There is a whole area that should be discussed whenever you start introducing students to the power of the Internet. It's all about digital citizenship - what it means to be a contributing member of the digital society. The conversation needs to start with what it is and is not ok to do online.

• Here is a great video about fair use that can kick off the conversation.
• For younger kids, you might want to start with this interactive question and answer cartoon about copyright and related issues.
• This article from the New York Times is another good resource on Making Use of the Public Domain.

Ergonomics and Adaptive Technology

Ergonomics, the science of work, or more specifically, the science of determining the most natural positions for work, applies to everyone. However, for those with disabilities, finding the most ergonomic positions is not always easy. Many of these individuals need adaptive technology to help them adjust to the best position for them. Here are some resources to companies and products (from low tech to high tech) that just might help these individuals be more comfortable.

Rifton - This company makes an assortment of products to help individuals be more mobile.
Laptop Laidback - For those more comfortable flat on their back, this company provides a solution for laptop usage in this position.
Heads-Up - A simple low tech solution for helping individuals with poor muscle tone keep their heads up.
Wenzelite Rehab - Mobility and seating solutions so that individuals can participate equally.
FlagHouse - Lots of solutions for those with special needs, but here is a simple solution to scissors for those children who can't manipulate them. It's called Adapt-a-cut.
Onion Mountain Technology - Specializing in low tech adaptive technology, these pencil grippers might be just the thing to improve writing in a classroom. For more great ideas, see also LoTTIE kits (Low Tech Tools for Inclusive Education - a collection of low and mid tech tools designed for teachers, classroom aides, and support professionals to use with K-12 students who have special needs).

Web Accessibility Resources

Today, I'm going to share some interesting tools and Websites that provide resources and information that can help teachers design lessons that accommodate every student.

The first site you should know about is the W3C. The W3C is the standards board for the World Wide Web and they provide guidelines for ensuring that Web sites are accessible by all. Here is a complete list of Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools. I also like these quick accessibility tips.

Another resource is Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators including a special section on Special Ed resources containing some resources on assistive technology, sign language tools and more.

WebQuest.org provides lots of information about how to create WebQuests, template design and detail, and a support community. You can also use QuestGarden to build your own and search existing WebQuests. While not specifically an adaptive technology, WebQuests are ideal for designing instruction that is differentiated. For example, here is WebQuest that I designed for 4th grade social studies students examining the connection between Colonial Values and America Today. The roles are designed so that students of differing abilities will be appropriately challenged.

FunBrain is a site that has several educational games for kids. It also seems like you purchase books to read online at the site which might help children improve their literacy skills.

I really like the idea behind Awesome Talkster because it helps kids learn to read and use the Internet at an early age. As per the review at IDEAS, "adding a Natural Voice to Web pages, children and teens can learn to pronounce words as they read them. Awesome Talkster, the Awesome Talking Library, includes an animated character, providing synchronized highlighting so that children can follow along even more easily. This multi-sensory approach is a powerful method for improving reading skills" for all children. I think it would also be especially helpful for students with special needs.

Don't be confused. Clicker is not one of the interactive response devices (called "Clickers"). In this context, Clicker is a reading and writing tool based on the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) which helps all students to improve these vital skills.

Powerpointlessness - I love it! Until reading Scoring Powerpoints, I have generally been of the opinion that Powerpoints should never be used in the classroom as a way to say "I'm integrating technology". While still true, I do see now the benefits of helping students prepare effective Powerpoint presentations with accompanying supportive documentation since remains a critical skill in the 21st century. But, it can not be the only tool used by students! If you want to explore some of the ways that Powerpoint can be used effectively in the classroom, here are some Powerpoint Tutorials to get you started: Powerpoint in the Classroom, Internet for Classrooms.

Finally, here are some challenges to web accessibility that you might consider as you design and use various sites, lessons, and more: The Challenges of Web Accessibility for the Blind and the Dyslexia challenge.

That's it for now. Stay tuned for more useful resources coming soon...

National Standards - It's About Time!

I just wrote about this on my other blog but I wanted to share it here. There is a new initiative to create National Education Standards for Math & ELA. It's relevant to our class because inclusion was a key consideration in design.

Specifically, it says:

"Special populations: In the development of these standards, the inclusion of all types of learners was a priority. Writers selected language intended to make the standards documents accessible to different learners."

All about Ergonomics: A report on my workstations and more...

Today's blog post is all about ergonomics: the study of how people work in their environments and how to adapt work environments to suit people's needs better. This report outlines both the advantages and problems of my various workstations and work habits. The assignment asked us to evaluate the workstation we use most often, however, I really move around quite often so I'm evaluating all of my recent workstations.

Green = Ergonomically good, Yellow = Not ideal, but not terrible, Red = Needs ergonomic adjustment.

In this chart, you can clearly see that the most ergonomic workstation is the SunRay at work. While I no longer work at Sun Microsystems, I included it in the chart because I knew that it would be the most ergonomic of all of them. The only additional design that would have been nice was a document holder, but quite honestly I rarely needed to refer to paper documents. Nearly everything I needed was in the form of electronic documents. I will now address the other three workstations.

The Laptop
Clearly, this is my least ergonomic friendly environment. The positives are that my feet can be properly placed on the floor and my wrist is properly angled on the mouse. Additionally, I have lots of space to spread out. The challenges here are: 1. It's a laptop so the monitor and keyboard are together, and the table is too high so my keyboard is not ergonomically ideal for my forearms. 2. While my feet technically can touch the floor properly, my work habits are to fidget in the chair, cross my feet, sit forward in the chair, etc... Some of this probably also has to do with the fact that I am using a dining room chair!

So, what are my alternatives: 1. Move. Don't work at the dining room table. Instead move my laptop to my desk in my office and work from there. This still doesn't resolve the laptop issue but would help with the chair issue. I could also get an adjustable chair for use at the the dining room table although my husband would prefer the former. But, you will see why moving to my office is not really an option. 2. Buy a separate monitor and keyboard to use with the laptop. I could but where would I keep it? 3. Keep working at the dining room table but sit properly and buy a document holder.

Home Desktop

My home desktop environment is a moderately ergonomic friendly environment. My feet can be properly placed on the floor and my forearms are aligned properly with the keyboard in its drawer. My chair is also completely appropriate for an office environment since it has lumbar support and adjusts in three different areas. The challenges here are: 1. I keep the mouse on the keyboard drawer which creates an improper angle. I would move it up to the desk if I had space. 2. Space. My desk is completely cluttered. I have no room for workbooks or textbooks or really anything else. I'm not even sure where I would put a document holder if I had one!

So, what are my alternatives: 1. Clean! Yes, I know I have to clean the desk. This would solve all the problems. I could buy a document holder, have space for my notebooks, and move the mouse up higher. Because of the size of the desk, it might not solve the laptop problem, but it might if I used a KVM switch and just pushed the laptop to the back. The problem. I have no time to clean it. It's a major project at this point in time and with school, student teaching, my internship and also finding time to spend with my husband, there just isn't anything left. My goal is to clean this all up when I graduate!

Student Teaching Desktop

My student teaching environment appears to be slightly more ergonomic friendly than the laptop situation although I must say that it doesn't feel that way. About the only good thing is a proper chair and a monitor in front of me. The challenges here are: 1. It's a shared group office. A technology office. My "workstation" is a PC amidst the clutter of other PCs, motherboards, manuals, and of course other people. You'd think I'd feel at home here given my home desktop description, but I really don't. I have no space for workbooks or even a document holder and barely any space for the mouse. 2. Because it's a shared office, I also have to use my cell phone without speaker, which means holding it to my ear while typing. It usually means stopping work while I talk.

So, what are my alternatives: 1. Ask my "neighbors" to move some of their stuff. or 2. Wait for my placement to be over. :-)

Solutions:
So, I've mentioned some possible alternatives above. In this section, I will identify some items that fulfill these accommodations and also list some additional websites for research.

Adjustable Chair (for the dining room) - This might help with my laptop environment.
Monitor & Keyboard - Allows me to place the laptop in a location with an adjustable keyboard drawer and position the monitor better.
KVM switch - Allows me to use my desktop keyboard, video (monitor) and mouse for my laptop.
Document Holder - For use at any of my workstations. This one is a bit expensive but I like it because I can use it with documents or books.
Desk - Possibly get an extra desk for my laptop, although I have to figure out where I'd put it.
Footrest - While this wasn't mentioned above, I wonder whether having a footrest would help me sit better.
Laptop in Bed - Another alternative although it means using the touchpad instead of a mouse.
You can find all of these listed on my Kaboodle Wish List under Ergonomic Devices.

Additional Resources

• Workstations & Document Holder resources
• Ergonomic Shop for Kids (and adults)
• My Diigo Ergonomics List
• Great calculator to find your perfect working position
  

Handy Dandy Browser & Collection Tools

Part 2 of this week's assignment is to share with you some handy tools that I have found to be useful in my own online experience. So here goes...

Browser Add-ons
1. Web of Trust - tells you which sites are secure and which ones are risky. It's really easy to use and very clear to interpret.
2. CoolPreview - gives you a preview of links before you open them. Only available for Firefox.
3. Del.icio.us Sidebar - I realized I didn't mention the reason that I sync my Diigo bookmarks to delicious. It's because I have this great sidebar add-on that lets me search and browse all of my links without leaving the browser window.

Online Storage Sites
1. Amazon S3 - Cheap, cheap, cheap! That is the biggest benefit. The downside - it's pretty complicated to use. You have install the S3 Firefox Organizer to really make it functional.
2. iBackup - This is where I keep the majority of my important files even though it's more expensive than Amazon S3 it's MUCH easier. You can even set an automatic backup schedule so you don't have to worry about your files.

Directories of Useful Data & Other Stuff
1. While not a traditional bookmarking service, Digg lets you save news media articles in a central location.
2. BibMe - A great site for bookmarking all your citations. You can look up the journal, article, website, etc... and it creates the citation in MLA or APA format. It will let you save lists of citations for future reference. I usually save lists by class.
3. PocketKnowledge - In case you don't already know about this, PocketKnowledge is TC's repository of intellectual property that you create. Check it out! Here is the link to my IP.

For more great links, check out two blog posts that I wrote in the Spring.
My Online Presence - Part I
My Online Presence - Part II

Online (Social) Bookmarking

The very first “online bookmarking” that I used was back in the late 90’s. Ok, so it wasn’t online in the sense that we mean today, but it did offer a feature that we get from online bookmarking sites. That is – access to your bookmarks from wherever you are. It was a feature of Netscape called Roaming Profiles. It allowed you to store bookmarks, address book, cookies, and other “shared” resources between your home computer and your work computer. This feature has been removed from the current Firefox implementation but I sometimes miss it, especially the address book part. Now, if only there was an online LDAP service! Sure, there are things like Plaxo and LinkedIn but that’s not the same thing. But, I digress…

So, in March 2008, when I discovered del.icio.us (that’s how it was spelled back then!), I became an instantaneous fan. You can find all of my delicious links at http://delicious.com/robin611. There are several reasons that I like delicious.

1. It’s very easy to use. Just install the bookmarklet http://delicious.com/help/bookmarklets on your browser and click the “bookmark on delicious” button from any site. You’ll get a pop-up where you enter the information, click save and it’s done. You can also install the Add-On which works the same way. http://delicious.com/help/quicktour/firefox
2. Tags. Yes, this is commonplace now but back then the concept of tagging was new. In delicious the only way to group a bunch of links together is through tagging.
3. Networks. One of the advantages of social bookmarking vs. online bookmarking is that capability to see other people’s bookmarks. For example, if you are browsing my network, you’ll see me connected to several other people. There are many links by Lisa Parisi, an educator who does a lot of technology integration that I met on Twitter.
4. Subscriptions. You can subscribe to tag topics to see a list of links related to the topic.
5. Rank. You can easily see how many other people have bookmarked the same link.
6. Blogging. It’s super easy to display your delicious list on your blog and interact with your blog in other ways.

Then I discovered Diigo. Diigo is similar to Delicious in many ways. They both have the concepts of Tagging, Networks and Subscriptions (called Groups on Diigo). It’s also just as easy to use as you can download the diigolet or the Diigo toolbar: http://www.diigo.com/tools. It also integrates nicely with your blog. So, why would I want yet another bookmarking service? Here are the reasons I started using Diigo.

1. Annotations – I loved that you could mark up part of a page with highlighting, comments or sticky notes. It’s a big help when you have a huge page and you can’t remember what on the page was important when you bookmarked it over a year ago!
2. Save to Delicious – If you start using too many bookmarking services, you will have the same problem you had with local bookmarks in your browser. Where was that bookmark I saved? On Diigo, you can send any links you add automatically to Delicious. Unfortunately, there is no way to do the reverse (send delicious links to Diigo). That’s why I always try to add all my bookmarks to Diigo these days!
3. Preview – You don’t actually have to click on the link to see what it was all about. You get a preview window right there.

I do miss the ranking information in Diigo but I think it’s a small price to pay. Here’s where you can find me on Diigo: http://www.diigo.com/user/robin611.

So, these are the bookmarking services I use. That being said, in the interest of completeness, I thought I would check out Kaboodle and Clipmarks. The things that caught my interest about them from Susan’s video are images and subcategories in Kaboodle and section clips in ClipMarks. Both seem to overlap more Diigo than Delicious but we’ll see…

Ok, so I checked out Kaboodle. Similar to the others, you can download a Kaboodle button or bookmarklet: http://www.kaboodle.com/zd/setup/setuphelp-firefox.html#kabbookmark. I’m having a lot of trouble getting past the “shopping” focus although I really do like the image and subcategory features. I also like the slideshow feature in concept, although I’m not sure how/when I’d actually use it. You can find me on Kaboodle at http://www.kaboodle.com/robin611/ but I’m not sure how much I’ll use it… Supposedly you should be able to import your Amazon wish list but I couldn’t figure out how to do it. There also doesn’t seem to be a way to sync with other bookmarking services which means yet another bookmarking repository to search! My feeling is that this is better for maintaining a web-wide wish list than as a general link collection.

Then, I checked out Clipmarks. Unlike the other services, there is no bookmarklet, so you have to install the plug-in which means a browser restart. Ugh! It also means that you have to repeat this process for any other profiles you use. I do like the concept of Pops which are basically kudos from other people on your clip. There is also the concept of Guides which is sort of similar to the Network in Delicious or Groups in Diigo, although it can also be compared to following in Twitter. There is also the concept of tagging and comments. Like Kaboodle, you can get a widget to show your clips as a slideshow. Clips also easily integrate with blogs, Twitter, etc… I sort of see this more as a note collector than a link collector, but I like the idea of it, especially because it seems that it will actually keep the text or media on the site even if it’s no longer visible on the original site. Sometimes it’s good to be able to keep information like this but I do question the security/privacy of this because what if there was a mistake in the original that was caught and removed… Also, you can clip directly to your blog but the ethics of this also is questionable. Does it include a requirement to cite the original source? If not, this is problematic. It remains to be seen how much I will use this site. You can find me on ClipMarks at http://clipmarks.com/clipper/robin611/.

Advanced Second Life

What's an ELO? An ELO is an "enhanced learning opportunity" that allows the over-achiever to get that extra chunk of knowledge on a particular topic and by doing so achieve a higher grade in the class. And, yes, I fit into that category. So, posted here throughout the semester you will find a series of posts labeled "Enhanced Learning Opportunity" which provided advanced or more detail on the topic being discussed.

Partying in SL - Everyone Can Do It
The ELO for Second Life has two parts. Well, really one, but I'm an over-over achiever. The "official" ELO was to party on the TC Island beach, dance to the Liyana Band (an African band consisting of disabled individuals), leave beach litter and meet up with friends. First, here is my friend and I lounging on the beach.








I don't know why it looks like our legs are through the chairs. I guess SL still needs to work on their graphics ability for some views! Next we decided to listen to the Liyana Band and dance to the funky music. When the music was playing, it was difficult to chat because the video was such a memory hog. This is important to remember when using SL in a classroom to demonstrate multiple features at a time.








The dancing was an unusual experience. I've heard of people going to parties in SL before but had never experienced it myself. It was actually kind of fun although I'm not sure how long it would actually keep me entertained. That being said, I love the possibilities it offers for individuals who for one reason or another are unable to dance in RL. Once again, it levels the playing field and allows people to enjoy the experience equally.

Finally, we needed to create an object to leave some "litter" on the beach. I found this to be the trickiest part of the whole activity having never actually created objects in SL before. Here is my attempt to create an object. My first object was a pyramid. I then created a ring which I was hoping to balance on top of the pyramid but instead it ended up slicing through the pyramid. Oh, well, I guess I need more practice with this!









Before leaving the beach, I finished watching the video play through including the interview with the band. Their last song is called "Roots" which seems to be very meaningful for the band because they are proud of their African roots and how they are able to capture the essence of their culture in their music regardless of their own personal limitations. Roots is also meaningful for us when we integrate technology into curricula because we also have to remember the roots of the learning task (what are we trying to accomplish?) and the roots of the learner (how much knowledge of technology do they already bring to the classroom?). Another song they play is called "Never Give Up". It's meaningful to the band because they were able to overcome adversity and reach their dream of playing in the US. They also want to spread their message of hope to everyone around the world. This theme is also applicable to technology in education because we must have the same hope that we will be able to integrate technology into curriculum for all students, to create an equitable education for all, and we must never give up hope of achieving that.

Blogging from SL - All about BlogHUD
This second part of this ELO was demonstrated in class during our introduction to Second Life. BlogHUD is a tool that lets you blog from within SecondLife. As a free user, you can post your blog to the main BlogHUD site and your own BlogHUD page. As a pro user, you can cross-post to your own blog or photo sharing site. I opted for the free version for now. Teleporting to BlogHUD gives you the option to accept the free or pro BlogHUD option which you then "wear". In order to post a blog you simply start a chat beginning with /9 and the post gets automatically sent. The following image illustrates what a personal BlogHUD page looks like:


Here is a snapshot of one of my blog posts on the main BlogHUD page:

You can see what I'm up to in Second Life anytime you want by visiting my BlogHUD page. My most recent post is that I'm dancing to Liyana band on the beach. The other great feature is that you can teleport right from my posts to the location that I posted from. Come join me and dance on the beach!

Just for fun: Here is a picture of our class is Second Life...

My Life as an Avatar: Whyville, WebKinz & More

WhyVille
Part two of the virtual worlds assignment was to investigate Whyville.net. My first comment that I feel compelled to make is that I am definitely NOT part of the target market for this application. That being said, there are some pros and cons to the environment worth mentioning.

Pros:

• Definitely designed for the younger age range, as opposed to Second Life and others.
• Great for learning about banking. The "bank" teaches about checking, savings and CD accounts as well as the idea of earning interest on your "clams" and "pearls".
• Some games provide other lessons as well. For instance, the WhyEat Food Challenge helps users to learn about nutrition and the Girl Game Clubhouse gives girls the confidence to design and play games.
• The Chat license is a great introduction into online safety rules and procedures.
  

Cons:

• There is no sound in the game. This makes accommodations for special needs children highly lacking.
  
• Getting started is somewhat confusing and the "tour" is not much help.
• Chat is confusing. There is no instructions on how to chat and it seems like meeting up with friends is difficult.
  
• Creating a Face is also difficult especially since many of the parts are expensive. I have a face but I'm still not happy with it.
  

Here is a picture of me (Robin611) in the Girl Game Clubhouse. I'm the one on the pink carpet...

Full Evaluation

As far as educational uses in the classroom, I think that it has limited application probably in a computer lab environment for lower grades (K-2) but beyond that would be difficult to implement as part of a technology-integrated curriculum.

WebKinz
While not part of the assignment, I have been wanted to check out WebKinz for a while. In my opinion WebKinz has most of the advantages of Whyville but without the cons. Sound and text are nicely integrated, there is a very user-friendly introduction, there is no need to "create your face" because your avatar is your pet and the user interface for games and chat is very to easy to use. While there doesn't seem to be the concept of bank accounts and CDs, it does keep track of your "KinzCash", let you find employment and earn a salary, and has lots of educational games like Math Trivia and more. Like Whyville, you can shop and it uses the grown-up concept of a "shopping cart" to buy house parts, pet food and such.

The negatives that I can deduce are: 1) There really isn't a "Home" page per se. You always have to keep bringing up the "Things to Do" menu to move around. 2) Whyville has a much nicer method for understanding the online safety guidelines with the "Chat License" concept. WebKinz doesn't have an equivalent. 3) You have to buy a WebKinz pet or code in order to play.

From an educational perspective in the classroom, each student would need to have at least one pet (which requires a purchase). Like Whyville, this would probably be best in a lab environment for younger children but it's much easier than Whyville to direct students to certain areas within the virtual world. For instance, you could specify that they have to go to Quizzy's corner to play Math games today. The lessons learned would include basic skills (in a drill-n-kill type of implementation), keeping track of funds, and taking care of a "pet" (learning responsibilities like providing food, being aware of other's happiness, etc...).

Other Virtual Worlds
There are lots of other virtual worlds worth investigating. This directory gives a good overview of each one and provides a link to the site. While I didn't sign up for any others, the ones that caught my eye for future investigation are:

1. Club Penguin - a virtual world designed to let children play and interact with one another in a moderated and safe enviornment. I've heard of this one before and my understanding is that it's a lot like WebKinz.
   
2. Disney's ToonTown Online - a MMORPG designed for ages 7 and up. Knowing what ToonTown in Disney World is like, this environment, while not described as a virtual world, could offer potential learning opportunities. Not surprisingly, this is not free. So, this limits its usefulness in the classroom.
   
3. Kaneva - combines social networking and media sharing in the setting of a 3D virtual world. Not one that I had heard of, but it caught my eye because it focuses more on content sharing versus traditional virtual worlds. Probably for older kids.
   
4. Minyanland - a virtual community that provides entertainment and educational opportunities. Spotlighted on this K-8 Educational Technology Resources page, it looked pretty interesting.
5. Not listed in the directory, but possibly worth checking out are: Build-a-Bearville and Beanie Babies 2.0.
6. Quest Atlantis - A 3D learning environment designed to be entertaining and educational, as well as develop character and values.