Setting up secure place for students

[aschombu]

I am a middle school teacher and wanted to set up a secure place for my students to interact possibly practicing anti-bullying behaviors and conversations. I heard Sloodle was good but when I looked into it I had to start here first.  I am a newbie at this (as if you wouldn't be able to figure that out).

[Rolig Loon]

You should be aware primarily of the very strict age limits for participation in Second Life.

Teens in Second Life

Second Life is generally for adults 18 years and older; however, if you are 13 years of age or older you can use Second Life with some restrictions. If you're:

• 16-17 years old you can access regions and search results that have a General maturity rating.
• 13-15 years old, you can access Second Life through an affiliated organization and will be restricted to the private estate of that organization. Only avatars approved by that organization will be able to enter these estates. You can't use Second Life search or purchase items from the Marketplace.

See Maturity ratings Knowledge Base article for information on Second Life maturity ratings.

Requirements for sponsoring organizations

All organizations serving users under the age of 16 must keep their estates private, with 13-15 year old accounts limited to their estate. Access to the estate by users 16 or older will be at the discretion of the owner of that estate, using estate privacy and whitelist features.

To serve 13-15 year old users, you must limit them to your Second Life estate. To do this, you must:

• Use the Registration API.
• Have a private region (island) in Second Life.
• Bring teens onto this island through your own website.

You can form groups that include teens and IM and exchange objects with teens who come in through your Reg API. However, in this case, these accounts will NOT be able to leave your island and visit other spaces, search within Second Life or purchase from the Marketplace. In this "closed island" model, you can form groups, IM, and exchange objects with them; but all these activities are limited to your island.

[Lindal Kidd]

Also see my blog post, "Second Life for Educators"

[Rolig Loon]

That's a great blog post, Lindal. I'll bookmark it now.