just chanced upon this 4-mths old article by Owen Thomas, it appears that Second Life is ending it’s ‘original life’ in the business world:
We were primarily interested in Second Life as a business/commerce/finance phenomenon, covering it like we would any small but fast-growing economy in the real world. The bureau is now closed. Essentially the story we were there to cover has moved on. — Adam Pasick, as cited by Thomas
in short, SL didnt make MONEY as originally planned. so it’s getting a second life by “pitching itself as an online schoolhouse.”
good news for those of us in teaching isn’t it? (:
TPCK – Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge
this is one thing that’s related to my work since my return to work on 20090401.
TPCK (read “TPACK”), stands for “Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge”, just to quote “(it is a) complex, multifaceted and situated form of knowledge” (Mishra & Koehler, 2006, 1017)”.
(source: tpck.org)
very briefly, when we reflect upon the time when we use ICT in our classroom, teachers are applying techonological knowledge of the watever tools u might choose to see how best the affordances can be used to as part of your carrying out of lesson (the pedagogical knowledge) on your intended lesson and its outcomes/objectvies (the content knowledge). and these three types of knowledge are not standalone but overlaps with each other. so for e.g. your pedagogical knowledge will not be wat it used to be as it has now evolved to include ICT; likewise the use of an ICT may not be wat it is originally designed to (“repurposing”). Yes, TPCK is not a new idea, and if you’re interested to get a better understanding of this, here’s some resources:
1. a MUST WATCH webinar by Mishra & Koehler (i found this very useful link from tucksoon’s blog, thank you 🙂
2. notes taken by Wesley Fryer during the keynote presentation at CITE2007 by Mishra & Koehler
3. TPCK.org maintained by Mishra & Koehler
4. related reading list on TPCK.org