One of FireSabre's biggest projects, and most long-running, is the Suffern Middle School on Ramapo Islands, a private estate in the Second Life™ Teen Grid. Ramapo Central School District Suffern was the first school or school district to develop a presence in Second Life™, This project is now entering its second year online and adding three new regions. We at FireSabre are proud to have supported the Ramapo Islands project last year, and to continue our work together as the new school year begins!

The Ramapo Islands project has been mainly the brainchild of Suffern media specialist and instructional technologist Peggy Sheehy (Maggie Marat in SL -- that's her with Philip Rosedale at SLCC 2007). Peggy writes about happenings in Ramapo and her experiences with online education in her weblog. (Be sure to check out this cool video she put together, using software recommended by fellow educator Kevin Jarrett of Walden University. Kevin, aka KJ Hax in SL, also keeps us up to date on educational development in SL.)

Rather than just transposing existing course material, Maggie is creating an amazing curriculum for her students in Ramapo, making excellent use of SL as an educational medium: aside from core subjects of science and math, as well as a foreign languages program, students are learning multimedia skills through Second Life™ machinima; using avatar creation and modification in lessons about body image in Health class; and even holding a literature discussion series including the seminal virtual reality novel Snow Crash, and how it relates to students' experience in SL!

Congratulations Peggy on your excellent and groundbreaking work in Second Life™!