I an a private teacher in Second Life. My husband and I have been working on our teaching business on and off since the fall of 2009. We curate the Alvarado Zingrone Institute for Research and Education in Madhupak on the mainland at the east end of the Chilbo Education Village.
We have recently been running a MOOC on the WizIQ classroom about our field, and hosted a students' discussion group every Sunday for six weeks, now the group meets once a month in our Learning Center. I am also involved with two colleagues Pionia Destiny and Nellie Homewood and we ran a MOOC about teaching in Second Life and other virtual worlds. We will be doing that again in April. I manage the building for Nellie's teaching business, Integrating Technology for Active Life Long Learning (www.integrating-technology.org) which trains folks in English as a Second Language, in Moodle skills, and in the use of the WizIQ teaching platform. This year I'm also a member of the social committee for VWBPE and we're expanding our freebies for educators in the Chilbo Education Village.
Second Life has been a huge part of my online teaching professional development through ISTE and VSTE and through the example of Fleep Tuque who was one of the founders of the Chilbo Community on the mainland. I also took Spanish from Eugenia Calderon at the Institute Espanol in Second Life from 2009 through 2014, and am hoping to be able to take that up again.
I make money as a small landlord and from donations from the discussion groups I lead, and am planning to expand into one on one SL skills, especially those related to teaching. SL has been very important for me in a number of ways and has helped me work in online teaching for the last five years or so through communities, conferneces, and professional development opportunities inworld.
It's been an extremely good experience for me, and my intention is to expand my educaitonal activities as I go along.
Maggie Larimore