Creating an Area for Home School Students

[ELColeman]

I am an educator and I am doing a project for an Advanced Multimedia Class.  I am wanting to create an area for homeschool students to receive extra help and tutoring if they need it.  I also want to explore the concept of virtual education a bit further.  If anyone could direct me to someone to help get me started I would greatly appriciate it.  Thank you very much.  

[Tari Landar]

Most of the information you are going to find in regards to setting up educational sims for minors, is going to be years old, and likely outdated, though still relatively valid in its own right. However, you can create sims (if you are an organization) that can be used for minors, but you must recognize that your students are going to be extremely limited in access, as in, to only your sim. Teens that are 16 and older will have access to more of sl, than teens that are 13-15(those under 13, will have no access at all, as per the rules LL has set forth), but if they register via your organization, rather than sl itself, they too will be limited to access of only your sim. I will include the only links LL provides regarding this information below.

As someone who has used sl for homeschool purposes, I highly recommend that you do not, though, unless all of your students are over 16, and even then, limit their access severely. Because of the need for limited access,sl is really not recommended(by me, or countless others) for underage educational purposes. You can accomplish far more on open sim, than you can second life. Heck even minecraft can teach your students far more than sl ever can. As for having a virtual space for tutoring or virtual educational purposes, sl is not really well suited for that, either. This is coming from someone who has used sl, open sim, and other methods for years, for educational purposes, not just someone that *wants* to limit teen access to sl(many who want to keep teens, and kids, out of sl in general, though they have valid reasons, may chime in for that reason alone). For children under 15, there are much, much better options(though truth be told, there are much better options for all under 18). Open sim can, and will, provide you all that you need, despite being slightly difficult to set up without having any prior knowledge(it never hurts to learn more yourself, though!), and you will have just as much control as you would having set up a private region that restricts access to sl for any of the students with whom you may currently(or in the future) work.

All of that said, these are the links that you may find most helpful, also, you can contact any of the educational sim owners(or whomever they have in charge of such contact) to find out a bit more about their own setup and functionality), just know that they all, or nearly all, cater to adults and their education, not children(teens, are still very much children).

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Second_Life_Education/FAQs

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Second_Life_Education/FAQs#I_have_students_that_are_under_18_years_old.3F_Can_I_use_Second_Life.3F

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Education_and_Non-Profit_Discount_Terms_and_Conditions

You're not very likely to find anyone that actually uses sl for homeschool purposes, or underage educational purposes anymore, and certainly no one that anyone can deem "official" or even "well versed", as all of our experiences vary greatly. 

[Dresden]

My first question to you would have to be how big of a budget with which are you working?  The space you'd need to have in order to do this in Second Life would probably come at a substantial expense.  I concur with Tari's suggestion of Open Sim for all the reasons which she's mentioned, but mostly because of the cost.

...Dres

[Tari Landar]

---

Dresden wrote:

My first question to you would have to be how big of a budget with which are you working?  The space you'd need to have in order to do this in Second Life would probably come at a substantial expense.  I concur with Tari's suggestion of Open Sim for all the reasons which she's mentioned, but mostly because of the cost.

...Dres

---

Yes there's definitely that too, lol. I didn't even bother mentioning it(I don't know why, haha) Me, personally, I'd never actually buy a sim for educational purposes. When I did use sl, or when I do, I just limit everyone to one place myself, it's not hard to do, since I am in the same room as they are, or their parents are in the same room as they are if they are accessing it remotely(ie. their home, rather than wherever we might be at that moment)

I much, much prefer open sim, because the cost is mere pennies-and the only real cost is whatever electricity you are using to run it. For us, it's not even that, as the system we use as the server for it, is going to be on at the same time for other reasons anyway. 

The cost, is definitely not worth the effort, for sl, unless an organization has money specifically earmarked for sl and sl only. I can't see that as being a potential possibility for homeschool use, considering all of the other limitations in place.

I can however say that the students with whom I work, still use sl, just not directly They work on lsl scripts, they work on building techniques, and I can later implement them into sl, to show them how their work, well..worked. They don't have to be in the same place as I am, they can work on these things at their own pace, and more importantly, they can use MOST of what they learned, in open sim, on a much larger scale, with little to no problems and absolutely no inclusion of anyone I don't allow to access our region(s). I have absolute control, which both the parents and the students enjoy, immensely.