April 20 at 6 pm SLT
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Native%20Lands%20East/212/34/22Presenter: Nano Kayo
(Nancy McDonald Director, Virtual Native Lands)
Facilitator: Soleil Lemondrop, Qualitative E-Research Group (Janet Salmons, Capella University School of Business & Technology)
Virtual Native Lands uses three islands in Second Life roughly representing North America to demonstrate and illustrate uses of virtual worlds technology to benefit real world Native American communities. Exhibits on the islands provide educational information about authentic Native American culture and history, and at the same time provide opportunities for group members to research both Native culture and the virtual worlds technologies used to create the content. The islands are a test bed, a sort of sandbox.
All of the content on the islands is in flux, constantly growing and changing and adapting to new members' interests and newly available methods.
Virtual Native Lands is currently working on several new projects including helping to coordinate the building of a virtual library in Second Life which contains an extensive collection of Native American literature, and working with the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in conjunction with the Smithsonian Latino Virtual Museum in establishing a virtual collection representing Olmec culture. We are planning to add a new island to the archipelago representing Indigenous cultures of Greenland and the Arctic. We have reserved space for an Indigenous Hawaiian island as well.
We are developing resources for a Native American arts cooperative that can serve both Second Life Residents and Native Americans who are not members of Second Life. Through ongoing outreach, Virtual Native Lands is fostering many new collaborations every day with educational, nonprofit and commercial organizations in the real world and in Second Life which can benefit and be benefited by Native American culture.
Flier is online at:
http://tinyurl.com/VirtualNative
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