I'm pleased to announce, a bit belatedly due to the frenzy of NECC09, that PESD Island, from our dear colleague Norma Underwood (Noreen Strehlow IRL), has been chosen Blog-o-the-Month at ISTE Island's Blogger's Hut for the month of August!

The past two months saw the largest voting turnout in Blogger's Hut history, and PESD Island won hands down, demonstrating its popularity amongst eduavatars and its value for teaching and learning in virtual worlds. Congratulations Noreen/Norma! You've been

For August, we're voting on the following stellar blogs, all ones created and maintained by folks I either talked with, learned about, or hugged--or all three--at NECC09 in Washington, D.C. Nominees feel free to snag the image here for use on your own beautiful blogs, because your blog has been

I have been blogging rather profusely at scottmerrick.net, and I think that since most of my effort here is in behalf of teaching and learning in Second Life, I should report out here tonight.

It was a fun day. I got up at 5, took my shower, and ate cold cuts I'd purchased earlier, a sad but sustaining breakfast. Off I walked, the two blocks to the Metro, then took the trip up to the Convention Center, setting up for the Second Life Playground day. Lisa Linn and I, working over the past several months via Skype over the expanse between our homes in Tennessee and California, put together two crack teams of volunteers, one here in DC and one in Second Life, as Supreme Poobahs in the onsite world and Inworld Docent Volunteers in the 3D one. These folks, to whom I'm will remain eternally grateful, make sure things run as smoothly as they can in both worlds.

Lots of the preparations have involved enlisting these teams, but we have also focused on providing a rough schedule for onsite events/presentations. Today, the site itself reared its head to toss a monkey wrench in the best laid plans. In the end, our planning and preparations prevailed, though it was a stretchl

The room we're in is on the northeast outside wall of the Washington Convention Center, and as I later discovered, there are entire rooms on that side of the building that are unusable due to the architects' failure to consider the morning sun's effects on a room whose east wall is mostly glass. Our Promethean Board and our monitor displays were forced into faintness until around noon, when Olde Sol finally exited over the roof of our building.

In addition, wi-fi issues were the order of the day. I've been in DC at pre-conferences since Friday, including Edubloggercon and the Computer Science Teachers Association's annual symposium, plus the ISTE Leadership Symposium all day Sunday. The Convention Center's wi-fi worked great. Not so Monday morning, as an estimated 18,000 teachers, technologists, and administrators decended on the Center and opened their laptops and personal devices looking for the internet.

Volunteers handled things well under fire, and by the end of the day we had settled in to a profile that looked like past years' Playgrounds. Talented, experienced users of 3D internet guided curious first time users through the first stages of the processes to get their avatar name registered, land in Second Life at the ISTE Island Orientation, and begin learning by walking through the nicely designed (by Blu Heron) orientation schema out back of the Headquarters Building in SL. There were stellar presentations, beginning with the one by my partners John Miller and Cathy Walker of MUVErs LLC, and that one is archived at ustream.tv . Give it a watch (sorry about the sound quality--we're working on that for today's sessions). They demo'd the new MUVErs User Interface, a groundbreaking set of programmed objects designed for onlind distance learning nursing education but modifiable for virtually any instructional purpose. If you can grab Cathy or John during the conference, they are, I understand, willing to share. :)

The official day ended with our Birds of a Feather session on Quest Atlantis. Flanked by Bronwyn Stuckey, Fil Santiago, Marianne Malmstrom, Jeff Agamenoni, and Marianne's colleague Sharon (last name coming), I opened by sharing the confession that perhaps the thing I do best is to surround myself with talented and competent people who really know what they are doing. The next hour and a half proved that statement true. At the end of the session I left the room with Bron madly scrambling to get the students and their teachers signed up for QA. It was a memorable moment, and I'd have it to share here but for the fact that our Ustreamer, dear friend Jeff, forgot to hit the Record button. I promised I would stop teasing him about that. Should I?

Here's the place to note that at 12:30 today several of the crop's cream, including superstar Peggy Sheehy and MUVErs Cathy Walker and John Miller, will help n00bs for three hours at the ticketed workshop n00bs Unite! across the hall from the SL Playground in room 143a. YOU MUST REGISTER for this workshop to attend. Visit the registration desk for more information, and join us if you can.

Also note that this workshop will end by breaking from the room to see a presentation from Second Life in the Playground, one which will feature Linden Lab's Claudia Linden, Education Community. Here's the session description:

Claudia L'Amoreaux, a long-time education innovation leader and education community developer for Linden Lab, chats with Playgrounders from her location in Second Life! Claudia will share new and as-yet unreleased Case Studies compiled by her staff and will solicit suggestions from those present about what case studies educators need to see pursued in order to further their teaching and learning in Second Life

PBS's Frontline Digital Nation will be in the house at the playground today around 11:00 a.m. with cameras, so drop by for the fun!

I'm also very much looking forward to attending a special reception at the Library of Congress this evening right after my Second Life Birds of a Feather gathering. This means I'll need to be sort of dressed up for the Birds session, which will be an unusual thing for usually casually dressed me. I have to run hail a cab and get down to the L of C directly when we finish! I'm not sure what garnered me an invitation to this event, but I am sure I'm excited about going.

This week has been one after another social event, and it's been fun running into good friends I relate with online year-round but whom I don't get to hug very often. I'm still offering free hugs, all conference long.

Pictures coming as soon as I get them up on Flickr!

your schedule, see http://tinyurl.com/c2x95z ,

Facebook post this morning:

Scott Merrick Still reeling from the experience of being on a virtual talk show last night. It'll be up online in a week or so at the show's site. My family watched via the stream URL at the family computer while I stumbled through what I had to say, and the Q and A at the end was the best part, IMHO. Heavy sigh! Thx to everyone who made this happen!