Disgusted by current situation regarding SL education

After talking with a member of the SL Education Senate, in regards to organise some educational aspects in a festival i am organising it really disgusts me to find that the concept of free education which is a commodity all but unknown to the physical world (public schools - books uniforms etc.) where as here the concept of true free education had the potential for unlimited growth and it makes me terribly upset to find that its all but gone.

Look-up TeaZers U. Terrible name, excellent, free SL classes on many subjects. Selaras Partridge coordinates the classes and instructors and has recently been soliciting for what people want to learn about.

Enjoy.

I'll second that.....Teazers has awesome educational classes for all skill levels.

And to give credit where credit is due I believe I have seen another place offering building and skill classes. The name Carl Metropolitan comes to mind? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Please explain.

There is Teazers, Carl Metropolitan and the New Citizens Inc, Persephone Phoenix does Marketing and some other classes, there is a Land 101 class done by someone. I'm sure there is more, this is just off the top of my head.

If you're interested in running your own, LL provides applications to get $L to run classes that qualify, as well as providing location if needed. Foundation For Rich Content is another example of a place to get funding and/or location for something like this.

Dygash,

As one example of a source of free education, the Law Society of Second Life is a voluntary, collegial organization that engages in objective examination, analysis and discussion of aspects of governance, contract enforcement and dispute resolution in SL.

This includes case studies of governance models, posting of model contract forms, discussion of various methods of structuring contract enforcement and third party investment in commercial and land enterprises. It also examines recurring proposals for mediation, arbitration and other forms of alternative dispute resolution.

Much of its material is available in the Law Society of Second Life Group Forum, a link to which is in the signature to this posting. Its Observers and friends regularly contribute additional educational and analytic material for peer review and commentary.

This is only one of the many organizations within the 125,000 population of SL that is quietly but effectively engaged in providing free education in SL. Previous posters have pointed out several of those of which you seem to have not heard. In addition, in the context of various player towns and communities, there is ongoing free peer education and training of community members in a variety of skills.

This set of forums is itself one of the most powerful sources of free education in Second Life. Technical and non-technical questions are presented and addressed every hour in these forums, and searches reveal valuable educational material about SL and the methods useful to maximize one's SL experience.

Perhaps when you've gotten to know a bit more about the depth of Second Life and its variety of subcultures and communities, you'll find that there is far more "free education" going on here than you realized.

Once you see that, perhaps your disgust will pass, you will be less upset, and more open to calmly asking for information. When that happens, I suspect that you will learn far more.

For example, are you looking to obtain education, or to dispense it? I could not tell from your posting. In what discipline do you seek to obtain or to dispense it? A calm, composed question may elicit what your original posting might not.

New Citizens Incorporated offers seven educational events each week:

Basic Building
Tuesday 2pm - 4pm
Instructor: Tateru Nino

Animation Overrider Basics
Wednesday 11am to 12pm or Thursdays 7pm to 8pm (alternate weeks; check "Events"
Instructor: Alisa Honey

Water Effects
Wednesday 6pm to 7pm
Instructor: Toy LaFolette

Newbie Salsa/Q&A
Thursday 3pm to 4pm
Instructor/Host: Alisa Honey

Advanced Building
Saturday 6pm to 7pm
Instructor: Lethe Naumova

Making Money in SL I: The Basics
Sunday 2pm to 3pm
Instructor: Carl Metropolitan

Making Money in SL II: Land
Sunday 3pm to 4pm
Instructor: Carl Metropolitan

We also have two New Player Show & Tells each week, one Tuesdays at 6pm (hosted by Osgeld Barmy) and another at Wednesdays at 1pm (hosted by Yumi Murakami).

We have firm plans to add another three classes (Land and Groups, Basic Clothing Creation, and Using the Find and Map Windows) over the next few weeks.

We would like to offer more. If you are interested in teaching a class, please contact me.

You are thinking of New Citizens Incorporated. I'm the coordinator there and I teach a two part "Making Money in SL" class on Sundays, but most of the classes at NCI are offered by our volunteers (Tateru Nino, Alisa Honey, Toy LaFolette, Lethe Naumova, Osgeld Barmy, Yumi Murakami).

We are always interested in people who can teach a weekly class.

Hi Dygash!

If you are looking for classes in SL, there are many offered free everyday. To see the class listings, just go to Find -> Events -> and Search under the category Education to see all educational events.

I run Teazers University, where we hold over 25 classes every day in varying levels of Building, Scripting and Particles, and other SL basics. We even have classes devoted to teaching new players how to use the Find menu.

Hope that helps you find what you're looking for!

It's too bad there isn't a integrated/easy/accessible way for students to give feedback about the class being taught to the people that run these educational institutions. I recently attended a series of classes, 3 in all with 2 instructors total. by the end of the series there were private IMs being shared about the quality of instruction given by the instructor. I was contacted independantly by a few strangers, asking if I were staying the class through. We all did because it was such a short class but if it were any longer I've a feeling attendance would have dropped.

I doubt any of the students would report something like this because that takes research and time. I wouldn't have said anything myself but I happened to see this thread and the title of it brought my experience to mind.

Some of the things that happened were things you would expect an instructor to have a handle on. Just a few of the worst things that happened were, giving out materials of which they had no idea how to operate themselves and had not checked prior to handing out. They didn't know wha the script commands were when asked. and they had to be asked for. Then it was found that the script was faulty. Replacements were not automatically given out. Questions were asked in class and ignored.

There are so many people that enjoy teaching just to see someone learn something new. That in itself makes most instructors happy. There are others that look at teaching as a quick way to make money. Those are the people, department management should know about.

You might not see those feedback stations often used but I am willing to bet when you have a bad class you'll see those suckers smoking...and as someone that cares about their facility, wouldn't you like to know when classes like this happen?

I would definitely be interested in feedback from those who attend our classes. I know we had a suggestion box up at Teazers U, and we've distributed surveys at some classes, but the collection of feedback hasn't been as integrated as it could be.

At any rate, until we figure out a better system, I'll contact you in-world, Baron, to see if you have any feedback on TU. And if anyone else would like to give me feedback on TU, please let me know either here or IM me, Selaras Partridge.