Group items tagged

Business / training examples of virtual worlds (Second Life)

The Virtual Worlds Story Project (TVWSP) utilizes "Questing" to develop interactive, immersive, and educational journeys designed to explore specific ideas/themes, teach vital 21st century learning skills, and generate Narrative Synergy™ through story.    The goal of every Quest is to help each individual experience and express his or her Narrative Thread™ - that special spark of spirit that makes each of us unique.  Once identified and articulated, these threads or "strands of story" form the warp and weave of larger communities of practice*.

Procedures/Best Practices to follow before a sim-wide event (For estate managers/owners)

Overview of Science through Second Life - a Motorola grant funded science curriculum implemented in a 9th grade Brooklyn science class, Spring 2008. (Full disclosure - Co-designed by Cathy) A practical example of using a virtual world to supplement and support standards based high school science. Note the environments NPIRL (not possible in real life).

This award-winning website allows children to: * Interact with dozens of famous historical and fictional characters from the arts, literature and sciences. * Submit creative writings for others to read and comment upon. * Explore famous works of art and play art related games. * Undertake challenging quests that take kids into the world of classic literature, the arts and humanities. * Practice typing with typing-tutor games. * Learn best practices for staying safe on the Internet. The website is not free, and they have a Teachers Console for class management. They recently partnered with the San Francisco Opera to bring classical music to young adults.

Best practices and lessons learned in building Second Life Operating Room simulation. KUMC

Hospitals, medical schools and health foundations are staking out space in the online community Second Life, in order to train medical and nursing students in clinical skills and to improve hospital efficency and response to emergencies.

Like my last post, I found this "show" on Treet.tv as well. A great forum start with tons of excellent screencasts of SL interviews and presentations. The last few episodes of the show included:" 5 years of Creative Research in SL," " Maslow's Hierarchical Hideaway in SL," Teaching Math in Virtual Worlds," "Learning 3D: A New Educational Dimension," and "WoW (World of Warcraft) in Schools.

I haven't gotten a chance to check it all out, but this page offers a link to a math playground in SL as well as another website that utilizes web 2.0 to teach math. I think it is funny that we are learning about all of these in our educational technology program, yet my district blocks all the pages from being viewed. I wonder if in the world of cyber bullying we will ever be able to convince the district that there is use for programs like this in the general education curriculum.

I couldn't find the math playground in SL, but I loved the one on the website! If that site isn't blocked in my district, I am using it on Monday! This will be a great way to get my kids' attention and let them practice some skills they need work on.

For those of you interested in using virtual reality in teaching mathematics, here is a paper written by four professors about their experience in trying to find ways to make mathematics more interesting to their engineering students. They designed a virtual reality math lab to be taken with a math class. One of the most popular lab components was the flight of a soccer ball. In a 3D setting, the students could stop the ball in time and then practice their mathematical skills by plugging in coordinates that would project the flight of the ball. 20 out of 20 students said that they felt the lab had helped them to enjoy math more. The professors felt their overwhelmingly positive response would lead them to develop more math labs for their students in the future.