ISTE Island to Close, March 1st

Some sad news for Second Life's educational community.The International Society for Technology in Education will be losing it's ISTE sim in Second Life. February 28 is the last day the sim is due to be up.

Following the end of Linden Lab's discount for non-profit sims, a task force was formed to look into options. They met up on the island on Tuesday Jan 24 to make their decision, and because of the lack of finances, the organization wanting to spend no more than $500 a year, the decision was made to stop payments to the Island.

In his blog, Scott Merrick posted that at it's height, the ISTE held four separate sims in Second Life. It apparently has been very popular with educators on the Grid. The "In a Strange Land" blog read, "ISTE has long been a major player in the SL educational community, and it provided a popular orientation spot for new student and faculty avatars seeking to avoid the freakshows of the public welcome areas."

So what is the ISTE planning? There was talk of moving to a smaller area at the Eduislands 9 sim, as well as discussing moving to the Jokaydia Opensim-based grid. It appears they will be doing both. They are still listening to ideas.

Monday February 27 will be the last planned event on the island, a good-bye party for the island. To get to the island, go to ISTE Island (109, 66, 30).

"Thanks in retrospect for all you have shared with all of us at ISTE Island over the years. Thanks in advance for your sharing over this next month. Keep the Faith, whatever it is for you."- Scott Merrick

Sources: Daniel Voyager, OhVirtualLearning, In a Strange Land,

Bixyl Shuftan

Easter Egg Decorating at ISTE Island

Those wanting to do a little Easter egg decorating inworld might want to head to a spot at the ISTE sim, which had a simple but fun way to do the job, as well as offering a lesson in texturing objects in Second Life.

The first thing one does is to click on the yellow Egg Coloring box next to the Easter basket. Doing so will have the box send a folder to your inventory, which contains a couple egg shapes, and a few decoration textures.

Decorating the eggs is simple. First rezz one of the eggs on the ground (click and hold, followed by draging it on the ground). If you want one solid color, go into "Edit, " click the "Texture" tab, then click on the second (white) square to bring up the color screen, and chose which color you want.

If you want a more detailed egg, you still go into Edit and click Texture, but you go into your inventory, chose what texture you like, and drag it onto the second square. This will copy the texture onto the egg.

One thing not shown in the pictures is being able to change the sizes of the eggs. So you can reduce them in scale so they won't look like they came from monster hens.

And there you go. Happy Easter Egg decorating.

You can pick up the Easter Egg kit at ISTE Island (129, 61, 30)

Bixyl Shuftan