UC+Workshop+-+Prior+to+Workshop

Hello all!

Thank you for signing up to take the "**Second Life for Educators (Basic): Introduction to a Virtual World"** tomorrow from 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM.

To make the most of our time together, please take a few moments to prepare for the workshop by signing up for your Second Life account. In our experience, the workshop experience goes much more smoothly if everyone has an account prior to our meeting.

To create your Second Life account:

1. Go to the main Second Life website at [|http://secondlife.com] and click the large, orange "Get Started!" button to begin.

2. You must choose a unique combination of your avatar's first and last name. The first name can be anything you want it to be, but you must choose a last name from the list provided (this ensures everyone's name is unique). If your first choice name is already taken, try keeping the same first name and choosing another last name from the list. For very common first names, you may find that all of those combinations are already taken. In that case, you may need to pick a new first name or develop a variant spelling of the first name.

Note that it is best not to choose a first name like Professor or Teacher since there are already many hundreds of "Professors" in Second Life, and you may want to avoid anything UC specific in your name as well, since you may leave UC some day. It is quite common for people to choose whimsical first names, or first names that play on the last name. For example, my username is "Fleep Tuque" and I have a friend whose name is "Telmea Story". Clever, unique, and easy to spell/pronounce names are always appreciated by other Second Life residents.

3. If you have a non-UC email address, you should use that email address when you register for your account, since the UC email system often delays delivery of emails from Second Life and may take up to 4 hours for you to receive your confirmation/activation email. We have discovered this problem does not happen with non-UC email addresses. Whichever email address you use, please note that you will NOT be able to log into Second Life until you have received your confirmation email, and have clicked on the link included in the email to "activate" your account.

4. When you have created your Second Life account and have clicked the activation link in the confirmation email, then the last step is to register for access to the University of Cincinnati island in Second Life. Go to http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pHSojRbSnGxfqYWgUEsXyOQ&hl=en to register for access, and then you will be all set and ready to go for the workshop tomorrow.

If you would like to browse for more information about UC's Second Life Project, or educational uses of Second Life, prior to our workshop, see the following sites:

University of Cincinnati Second Life Project Wiki: http://homepages.uc.edu/secondlife/

Educational Uses of Second Life: http://sleducation.wikispaces.com/educationaluses

Thank you again for signing up for the workshop, and I look forward to meeting you tomorrow!

Sincerely,

- Chris/Fleep

Chris M. Collins (SL: Fleep Tuque) University of Cincinnati Second Life Learning Community Second Life Ambassador, Ohio Learning Network UCit Instructional & Research Computing University of Cincinnati 303G Zimmer Hall PO Box 210088 Cincinnati, OH 45221-0088 (513)556-3018 chris.collins@uc.edu

UC Second Life: http://homepages.uc.edu/secondlifeOLN Second Life: http://www.oln.org/emerging_technologies/emtech.php