Empire State College participated in the annual Saratoga ArtsFest in June 09 with its exhibit Art Across Boundaries: Virtually Real and Really Virtual.

This event used the Second Life platform to simultaneously feature artists performing at the festival while their Second Life avatar broadcast their performance in real time through Second Life at the 28 Union building on ESC Island. Taking advantage of the global use of SL, the event began with classically trained vocalist Jaynine Scarborough (Juliane Gabreil) performing live in Germany, while her music streams live in Second Life through her virtual avatar. Large projection screens allow an audience in Saratoga to watch the Second Life avatars performances, while participants in Germany could watch the live performance and the SL performance.

Next, professional Argentine tango dancers David Wolf, of the Saratoga SAVOY, and Jackie Lin Wong of TangoPulse  performed several dances ranging from the traditional melody ‘Lo Pasado Paso’ by Fransisco Canaro to the more contemporary ‘Cuoro Sacro’ by Andrea Guerra. Finally, the event ended with Sonny and Perley  performing international cabaret. Their performance included Perley singing Brazilian melodies in Portugeuse, French melodies, as well as songs in English.

The event was held at the Empire State College (ESC) Alumni House, at 28 Union location in Saratoga Springs, and the  ESC Alumni House virtual counterpart. The virtual audience included members from three continents.

This course asks students to work with a math partner age 6-12 years of age throughout the course term.  By teaching their partners, the student will be able to deeply process, understand and master math topics such as algebra, geometry, number sense, logical thinking, probability and statistics.

Students also rely on a learning style survey and participate in reflective journaling throughout the term.  The course offers constant choices from allowing students to select learning activities that meet their individual needs and interests to determining which online tutorials and resources should be explored to create their own learning path.  The survey:

1.  Allows each student to determine their dominant style of learning,
2.  Demonstrates which learning strategies should be employed to ensure success, and
3.  Highlights which study skills and problem solving skills should be embraced.

The  use of a social networking site, delicious.com, provides an opportunity for each student to search, store, organize and share links related to their particular learning style and math-related needs for use during and beyond the course term.