I've just been in for the first time, and spent ages deciding what to wear... I enjoyed flying and falling.
How do you maintain anonymity if you can make your avatar look like you, if you have students/colleagues from the same institution 'in world' and if you tell people about what you do and what you hope to achieve? As soon as I put in a link to my website, my full name and address (through WHOIS) will be available.
I have no problem not being anonymous, but it seems a major feature of the project.
I suppose in terms of avatars, we don't know whether the avatar looks like the owner or not.... most take the opportunity to create an "interesting being" rather than a replica of themselves....[I think i am 6ft 9 in world - i'm no where near 6 ft in RL!].
We have a couple of groups all from the same school and haven't had problems with anonymity so far, obviously if the school group are logging in at the same time (e.g. during a lesson together) chances are they will figure out what each others avatar is called. However as the students all chose their avatars independently, as their teacher, even you do not know what they have chosen! On the wiki user pages we would suggest no personal information for students is uploaded....this includes school, DOB, address and other personal details. Although many students mention which yr group they are in or they say they are doing ALevels/GCSEs.
With respect to you linking to outside websites, i suppose it is at your discretion as a teacher, your students know you and yout students' parents know you....whereas most of us haven't met in RL. On the wiki, Faji Bing (Olly) has linked to our personal website where all our photos, blog and CVs are. Most people know my RL name as I am Admin (Becca), so sign off emails with my real name as opposed to Gaea! Most people also know where i work - so it isn't difficult to find my work address. I also know Yankee SParker (Kevin) has linked to his blog and Flikr pics of Schomers in-world and their RL owners doing work etc in his class. Students should be wary of what they link to....if they link to a blog/website - does it contain personal info and pics of them? if so this wouldn't be appropriate to link to from the Schome wiki. Some Schomers have "Second Life" blogs, where they log stuff just related to work.... Kathy Schomer's website is a good example of this as it doesn't divulge personal info nor RL pics.
http://katharineberry.co.uk/. Sorry for the long post
