See Wesch's comments down in the comment stream.
I think he is correct in supporting a balance between good lecture and participatory pedagogy in the classroom
Virtual worlds are engaging, stimulating spaces where students can meet online for normal class activities, including lectures, discussions, case studies, projects, papers, exams, and labs. Classes are a mix of synchronous and asynchronous activity. A virtual world class differs from a traditional course management system, such as Blackboard or Moodle, due to the three-dimensional (3D) graphical setting, the use of avatars to represent the class participants, and the sense of presence that puts the learner within the scene.
"Get to know your audience by letting them decide which questions, suggestions or ideas interest them most. The voting box at the top of page focuses attention on submissions recently added and on the rise, making it simple and easy to participate. Include people in your preparation for lectures, interviews and hard decisions or work together to organize feature requests and brainstorm new ideas."
mentions: a popular TED talk Smith gave in 2006 and Time magazine’s
D-Lab, the project aimed to develop creative solutions to problems facing people
in the world’s least-affluent countries — and then hoped those residents would
embrace the solutions.
Awareness of D-Lab has grown in recent years, thanks in part to some prominent
mentions: a popular TED talk Smith gave in 2006 and Time magazine’s
selection of her in 2010 as one of the world’s
100 most influential people.
The program now employs about 20 people and encompasses 16 courses that reach
about 400 students each year. Even though D-Lab does little to publicize its
activities, staffers are increasingly hearing that this program was a major
reason why participating students chose to attend MIT.
thanks to a major new U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) grant to
D-Lab and MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, D-Lab’s instructors
and researchers will implement this strategy even more broadly — providing
greater continuity to projects around the world, says D-Lab founder Amy Smith, a
senior lecturer in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.
with the new USAID support, “we can harness the alumni of IDDS as a kind of an
extremely diverse and dispersed design consultancy,”
While some students have already managed to turn class projects into ongoing
organizations — building better water filters in Africa, bicycle-powered washing
machines in Latin America, and wheelchairs in India, for instance — the new
funding should enable more such activities, Smith says, by “incubating ventures
and training entrepreneurs.”
The emphasis has shifted,” Grau Serrat says, “more from designing for poor
people to designing with poor people, or even design by poor people.”
Another reason some students are applying to MIT. Undergrads are making a difference globally.
"the innovative MIT classes and field trips known collectively as
D-Lab, the project aimed to develop creative solutions to problems facing people in the world's least-affluent countries - and then hoped those residents would embrace the solutions."
"The program now employs about 20 people and encompasses 16 courses that reach about 400 students each year. Even though D-Lab does little to publicize its activities, staffers are increasingly hearing that this program was a major reason why participating students chose to attend MIT."
"All of D-Lab's classes assess the needs of people in less-privileged communities around the world, examining innovations in technology, education or communications that might address those needs. The classes then seek ways to spread word of these solutions - and in some cases, to spur the creation of organizations to help disseminate them. Specific projects have focused on improved wheelchairs and prosthetics; water and sanitation systems; and recycling waste to produce useful products, including charcoal fuel made from agricultural waste."
"All of D-Lab's classes assess the needs of people in less-privileged communities around the world, examining innovations in technology, education or communications that might address those needs. The classes then seek ways to spread word of these solutions - and in some cases, to spur the creation of organizations to help disseminate them. Specific projects have focused on improved wheelchairs and prosthetics; water and sanitation systems; and recycling waste to produce useful products, including charcoal fuel made from agricultural waste."
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