Sunday, May 4, 2008

Some Models in 2L














I have been exploring sites in Second Life that would be particularly good models of what we want to do in WoolfWorld Here are some of my favorites:




Second Life Literary Sites:









·The SL Globe Theatre - Home of the Second Life Shakespeare Company (23, 37, 21)
This site reproduces Shakespeare's globe theater in London. You can walk around most of it.
They do performances you can see and even film. Cannot get on the stage, however. I was thinking this might be great for student to perform in costume. Bet we could contact owners.
















Literature Alive! and The School Store
This site has a bunch of different sites with literary connections--the Archetypal Cavern site, another cave where you search for terms defining Gothic Literature, a site celebrating Gloria Naylor's Mama Day etc. etc. A number of sites built by Eloise Pasteur. Headquarters has some useful freebies, especially for neewbies. The School store also has some freebies.

· The Archetypal Cavern, Cevert (141, 88, 51)
The Archetypal Cavern is an excellent example of t he kind of interactive sites that Eloise Pasteur sets up. As you move through the labyrinthine cavern, there are open trunks, empty pots, and hidden scrolls with information defining aspects of literary theory and archetypal theory, a hero’s quest where participants can earn Linden$ by submitting notecards, and informative personifications of various goddesses, information about whom you need to know to get into each part of the cave.

The British Literature Classroom, Education UK (72, 73, 22)
This site has 14 different assignments on topics from Beowulf to Jane Austen and the Romantic Poets; 2L links go to web sites. Also a number of literary paintings with explicatory notecards.








The Willow Tea Room and Courtyard, Babbage Square (208, 226, 108)
This site is a good example of a gathering place designed to evoke a particular context in art history. This tearoom looks like it was designed by and exhibits the work of Scottish art nouveau artist Charles Rennie Macintosh.







Rachelville, Imagination Island (117, 179, 25)
This is a site focused on children and children's literature as well as bereavement info for those suffering loss of a child. It currently has lots of resources for teaching children about Mexico and Cinco Del Mayo, but that may be because I visited it on May 2. Here is a quotation from one of their note cards about other resources:
"Just west of the Plaza is the "Castle of Dreams." It is a place with resources on castles, dungeons and contains a large collection of resources on classic children's literature. Teleporting magic carpets within the castle will move you about. "


Second LifeArt Sites:

Sistine Chapel Re-Creation, Vassar (222, 96, 30)












This virtual re-creation of the Sistine Chapel is even more fun in Second Life because you can fly all around it, up to the architraves, and see every detail close up.




Virtual Starry Night - Vincent's, Luctesa (209, 181, 40)



One of the finest art sites in 2L, this collection of 70 VanGogh paintings from museums all over the world includes 3D renditions of a number
of works, including a pool hall and bedroom you can walk around in, a drawbridge you can walk across, an outdoor café in a plaza near the yellow house where you can sit, and at the top of a long stairway in the plaza, a view over the village in Starry Night.





Dresden Gallery - by Anshe Chung, Dresden Gallery (210, 175, 30)
This immense site collects a huge number of old masters in carefully rendered surroundings