Before the end of January we’ll be issuing a call for proposals for the fourth annual Second Life Languages Conference (SLanguages 2010), and the last one we (The Consultants-E) will be organising in Second Life. There are a couple of reasons why this will be the last one we’re organising:
- we need to re-focus our energy elsewhere as the company
continues to expand - we’d like to ‘donate’ the conference to a wider community
As our work progresses and changes, we have less time for work in Second Life. With that in mind we’re scaling down our presence from three islands to one in the autumn of 2010, and turning over the two rental islands to people or organisations that have more time to run them effectively.
At the same time, we feel it is the right moment to donate the SLanguages brand to a wider community of language professionals, and work towards a rolling committee who will take it forwards from 2011 onwards.
At the SLanguages 2010 conferences there will be one session devoted to ensuring the continuity of the conference and the appointment of a committee to take it forward. A public vote will then be held online to elect the committee who will take charge both of the brand and of the 2011 conference. We would like this committee to be made up of a wide range of individuals and organisations working in language teaching and training in Second Life and not to be dominated by any one group, institution or company.
In short, we hope that the SLanguages conference will live on as a community-organised annual event, and remain publicity and sponsorship-free, relying, as it does, on the goodwill of the community in Second Life, and concentrating on people and their practice, rather than organisations and their profits.
If you’re interested in forming part of this public committee, please let us know…
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One of my big plans for 2010 is to check out Second Life!
[Reply]
Anna,
Let me know if you need any help when you get started. There are a lot of regulars on Twitter who are also in SL, so you should be able to get lots of tips.
Gavin
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Gavin,
I’m interested in working in a public committee to organize the annual SLanguages conferences. It would be great to be a part of such an exciting and innovative event!
Best,
Burcu
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Burcu,
Anyone with experience of language teaching or teacher training in Second Life is welcome to contribute. We’ll have the meeting in-world during SLanguages 2010.
Gavin
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Oops! Then I should go on organizing conferences in real life:-)) Because my only experiences in Second Life have been doing some shopping, hanging out with friends and attending an interview session. This doesn’t seem enough:-)
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Burcu,
You still have five months…
G
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Oh, no more challenges! I’d rather visit Second Life as a tourist:-)
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If I can be of any help, Gavin, just let me know.
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Marisa,
Many thank. I hope you’ll be able to come along to the meeting during the conference.
G
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Gavin,
About time you admitted Second Life is a fad.
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Mik,
If you put as much effort into writing blog comments as you clearly do into having uninformed opinions about things, you might have been able to write something longer.
As it is, I can’t be bothered to give a proper answer to the nine words of rubbish you wrote above.
Best,
Gavin
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Hi Gavin,
Just saw this. Surprised to see your handing it over, hope it continues to grow regardless. It was becoming a significant fixture in the ESL conference calender.
I’ve got my hands full at Languagelab but good luck finding a team, it would be sad to see the conference end.
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Hi Gavin,
The AVALON project team and us, LANCELOT School are interested in being part of this rolling committee.
rgds Heike
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Hi Gavin,
Where are you issuing a call for proposals for the fourth annual Second Life Languages Conference (SLanguages 2010)? This is something I forgot to ask you when we met last week in Harrogate.
Best regards
Kalyan
[Reply]
Kalyan,
I’m having work / travel / schedulng problems at the moment, so suffice it to say it won’t be happening in May, as it has done for the last three years. I’m in talks with a couple of people to get some help to set the conference up and I hope we may be able to run it towards the end of June or in early July.
Gavin
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Wow Mr Ge – Kalyan just told me – please don’t hold it between the 25th & 27th June unless you really have to I need to go to Paris – can’t miss my son’s engagement party and I don’t want to miss SLanguages
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