Would you like to see educational events advertised in the Herald?

Greetings, event-mongers!

We at the Second Life Herald would like to do our part to promote educational events in Second Life. To that end, I posted an announcement on Sunday that we are now accepting free ads from educators. See the announcment here. (A copy was also posted to this forum and to the General forum but seem to have been Linden-wiped as inappropriate. So be it.)

When I posted the announcment, I expected to get a flood of applications, given the dissatisfaction that's cropped up lately on the forums over the new events posting rules and mechanics. I realize it was just posted a couple of days ago, but so far we've gotten exactly none.

So my questions to you are these:

Are there just no educational events out there?
Do you guys think no one who reads the Herald will ever want to come to your educational event?
Is my offer too restrictive to attract anyone?
How can we get more educational events going in Second Life?

I'd love to hear any ideas from you as to how the Herald could help promote education in SL. As the Grid's hometown paper we are eager to be of service in this area.

Thanks very much,
Walker Spaight
Editorial Director and Raving Correspondent
The Second Life Herald

Walker - I'd like to see them listed somewhere that I will not have to sort through various non eductional events to find. So yes - I think that listing them in the Herald is an excellent idea.

Are there just no educational events out there?

I'm not finding many (in my eastern time frame anyway) and those that I do find are sort of designed specifically for newer people. It would be great to see some advanced classes for those who have been around awhile but I would like to understand certain things better.

I haven't held any events because I don't feel comfortable trying to carry one off all by myself. I have had ideas, but I am worried that I can't handle the tracking and response adequately.

Do you guys think no one who reads the Herald will ever want to come to your educational event?

No - if I held one, I think there is just a good a chance of someone reading the Hearld coming to the event as there would be of someone seeing it in the forums.

Is my offer too restrictive to attract anyone?

Not in my opinion, I just don't think that many people do educational events anymore.

How can we get more educational events going in Second Life?

Team up with some people to offer classes on how to hold educational events, offer tools to help people hold these events. (Perhaps put together an "educational events kit". Get them started and they will take off on their own. If I knew more about how to do this, I'd offer to help.

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I have been mulling over teaching textures classes for a while now. I applied to become an instructor but haven't heard anything yet from the Lindens (granted, it's only been about a week since I applied).

It's a lot of work to hold an instructional event, and it takes some decent preparation in order to do it properly (IMHO). I also think that a lot of the people who are most qualified to hold educational events in SL are too busy making things and doing other stuff.

Unless people have a burning desire to pass on what they know in SL, teaching isn't really that attractive an option for most, especially given the relatively low pay; it's hard work.

Thanks for your responses, you guys. Those are useful insights.

I wonder if there's anyone else out there who's gotten Linden support for an educational event who could say about what their response time usually is.

Beryl, have you been in touch with the folks at The Learning Center? They seem to have a pretty good system in place for getting educational events going that might remove some of the burden you feel.

If either of you (or anyone else, for that matter) do plan an educational event, please drop a line to the Herald if you'd like to advertise it there.

I think that the main burden of running teaching events is having some notes made up ahead of time as a general framework for what I want to teach, as well as some pictures that I can use to demonstrate stuff. I'm not sure what The Learning Center people could assist me with regarding these needs.

So, um, are you Walker's alt, then?

Walker,

I would be very interested in advertising my classes. I am hoping to run them (if my SL running problems are resolved) early June.

I will contact you closer to the date. Brilliant idea, thanks!

haha, yeah, Haythem is an account I made my father get to check out SL. He didn't want it anymore so I logged in to change the credit card and I guess I never logged out

btw, the first free Herald ad for an educator has now been posted to the site. Woot!

From the staff at the learning center, I'd like to appologise for the lack of educational events of late. A fall in the number of classes has been caused by a lack of teaching staff available to run classes. Additionally due to circumstances beyond our control, our staff have been unable to list events on the events calender.

We are currently working on an alternative in-world events listing for non-profit and educational events (InfoNet), and are currently in the process of re-building The Learning Center. Over the next month, we hope to merge the two existing campuses into one new centralised school and resume all classes. In addition to this, we will be aiming to open up as many new classes as possible on both RL and SL topics.

If there is anyone interested in holding events, please contact myself (Squagmire Stravinsky), for more information. We will be able to help organise a venue, event advertising, and assist with any training or event management that you require.

/me pants in eager anticipation of the next-gen InfoNet console...

I've never heard of SL Herald & wasn't able to access it by clicking on the link, but YES, if there are educational events, I'd love to see a central advertising location. I have been learning on my own for 2 months, & could really use some help!