Big News: An Island and Two New Partners!

Big news! An anonymous donor has purchased an island for us which will give us much more room to grow. It should be ready in the next week or so. At that time, we will begin moving the current library as quickly as possible and then continue to plan for expansion.

We acquired two new excellent partners today who will move to the island with us which will help us make the island a place to go to do a lot of different things.

One of our new partners is TechSoup, which is just building a presence in Second Life.
From the Tech Soup website: "Powered by CompuMentor, one of the nation's oldest and largest nonprofit technology assistance agencies, TechSoup.org offers nonprofits a one-stop resource for technology needs by providing free information, resources, and support. In addition to online information and resources, we offer a product philanthropy service called TechSoup Stock. Here, nonprofits can access donated and discounted technology products, generously provided by corporate and nonprofit technology partners.

We believe that technology can enhance nonprofit work, making us more efficient and better able to serve our communities. We never lose sight of that goal.

Whom we serve
TechSoup is a trusted technology resource that offers a variety of information and services for the benefit of the nonprofit sector.

TechSoup provides instructional articles and worksheets for nonprofit staff members who utilize information technologies, as well as technology planning information for executives and other decision makers. Our introductory articles and message board support are aimed at those who do not have much experience using technology, but we also provide more advanced information.

Our product philanthropy service, TechSoup Stock, is open to all qualified 501c3 nonprofit organizations. "

The other new partner is the ICT Library, or
Information and Communication Technology Library. It
is so named to be more global. "ICT" is a term our
friends in Europe, Africa, Asia, & the Middle East
readily recognize as refering to "educational
technology" and "instructional design."

From the ICT information card:
"Overview of the ICT LIbrary
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The ICT Library is a not-for-profit endeavor formed to reach out to members of the educational community working within Second Life. Funds received from sponsors will be used to expand the knowledge of SL members who are interested in using this virtual environment as a way to mediate classes or training.

It is based on a premise of taking information that exists on websites (ex., www.simteach.com, www.secondlife.com/education, various blogs, etc.) and putting it in SL for display and demonstration. The library hopefull will help solve the difficulty many new educators have in finding useful tools and ideas (rather than leave it to serendipity). Central to the Library's goals is the tenet that outreach to educators is essential in helping expand understanding and knowlege of media tools. Specifically, the ICT Library will:

- serve as a repository of tools and scripts that would be useful for instruction (both commercial and "free" tools)
- give hints and tips about how to best use the virtual environment to promote higher levels of thinking and constructivist approaches to learning
- provide case studies of how educators are using tools
- show pictures/descriptions of innovative educational projects
- offer small grants to spur innovation in educational implementation

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SL ICT Library History
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The ICT Library was founded in spring 2006 on the initiative of SL member, Milosun Czervik. In RL, "Milo" is a research associate and instructional technologist in Virginia Tech's School of Education (Blacksburg, VA, USA). Special thanks goes to SL members Jeremy Kapumbo, Mari Asturias, Pathfinder Linden, and Adiatha Bishop for their continued encouragement, ideas, and assistance. A blog about this project (and other thoughts) can be found at: http://www.rpfolio.com/cblog/"