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Randolph Hollingsworth

Teaching using scenario based simulations in Second Life - Case study - 0 views

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    6 minute video Author: Simon McIntyre The University of New South Wales
James OReilly

SL Languages - 0 views

  • eappraisal of the use of translation as an aid to teaching
  • and a r
milesmorales

What You Have To Know About Homeschooling - 1 views

Homeschooling can be a good way for your children to learn, but if they don't have a good teacher, then your homeschooling efforts will be worthless. A good teacher is one of the most important asp...

started by milesmorales on 14 Aug 14 no follow-up yet
milesmorales

Homeschooling Tips That Will Really Help You Out - 0 views

Kids in public schools face many hurdles today, the bulk of which we never had to deal with when we were young. The best way to help your kids avoid these pitfalls is to homeschool them, and the he...

started by milesmorales on 19 Aug 14 no follow-up yet
Eloise Pasteur

Advantages of Second Life over web-conferencing - Eloise's thoughts and fancies - 1 views

  • Advantages of Second Life over web-conferencing
  • Experience - whereas video is a one-way, passive experience, SL is a group one. This is a completely different dynamic, if the presentation makes use of it. If they just passively show a video, they might as well be on the web. Think of it, when done well, as comparing sitting in a movie vs at a comedy show where the audience can yell out comments that are instantly worked into the skit. Collaboration - participants get a completely different experience when they 'see' each other. It is more involving and interactive. This gives the speaker a chance to gather instant feedback, adjusting the presentation on the fly. There is even software for SL that allows participants to give feedback at specified times via their keyboard. Also, we find that "leaders" emerge in virtual focus groups, who often bring out information from others but don't dominate as they might in a "real" focus group. Screening - starting with a larger group, sub-groups can be created based on criteria such as beginners, those giving great feedback, gender, etc. These avatars can be instantly transported into other prepared rooms or SL environments for follow up, further Q&A, take a tour, etc. Also, participants can click on each other's profiles and learn about each other, something many like to do.
  • Spatiality - in a three-dimensional space people can move, and use proximity and distance to each other or to objects (for example for group building, voting by feet, to 'physically' separate collaboration tasks from one another, or just to non-verbally communicate preferences). In video conferencing, all you see is somebody else's mimics. There is no concept of space at all - which is crucial, however: remember Nonaka's Ba. Embodiment - being virtually embodied as an avatar can augment the feeling of co-presence, the feeling of being there together with your colleagues, peers, or collaboration team, etc. Directing your virtual representation, you visualize where your attention is at every point in time. In a video conference, nobody knows if you are paying attention or just looking at a totally different application on your screen. Configurability and scriptability - a virtual world can be more than a container for space, physics and avatars. Realized as a reactive, interactive and maybe even intelligently behaving environment it can harbor, support, and augment rich user experiences.
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  • 'Applying it right' would mean here: not to use the virtual world as just a fancy chat system with some visuals in the background provide real interactive experiences instead not to make as many people as possible sit down and watch yet another 2D powerpoint presentation in a 3D world encourage them to use / make them use the new possibilities offered by the system (move, discover, create, modify, interact, ...) not to try to teach them how to use all the menus in the SL software rather let the interactive objects speak for themselves on a simple click (->establish new forms of 'dialogs') leave 2D 'flatland' (info walls, in-world powerpoint presentations) embrace 3Dimensionality
James OReilly

Second Life - The Long Goodbye « That'SLife - 18 views

shared by James OReilly on 05 Sep 10 - Cached
amazonecho liked it
  • There comes a time when you have to admit you were wrong, or perhaps misguided, or simply that you were a little bit ‘out of time’, or perhaps – better said – that somebody let you down and maybe it wasn’t your fault. And this is one of those times, because it’s goodbye to Second Life for me, at least in its current incarnation – in terms of teaching and training – and I’d like to try and explain why…
  • the reason I did all this is not because I was convinced that SL was the future of education, but rather that I thought it was the future of the web (not SL, you’ll understand, more the notion of 3D)
  • here was still one thing that didn’t change – it was cripplingly difficult to get started with SL for the casual visitor (unlike, say, Skype or Adobe Connect) and the ‘first hour experience’ was terrible.
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  • you get a system which doesn’t lend itself to much use over and above the committed
  • On a scale of 1-100 I’d put SL at the 100 end of the scale in terms of people being willing to invest the time and effort…
  • The period in which I found myself having less time to invest in SL also coincided with the new viewer which brought HTML on a prim to SL and made a lot of tools (mine included) largely redundant. And I’m very happy about that – media is now much easier to use in SL, as is any web content, and this has changed the lives of many educators who now don’t have to fudge solutions in-world.
  • Of all the improvements (the changes to the forums, the blogs, the bloody shopping site and all the rest) why is it that the overall experience isn´t really that much better than it was two years ago?
  • I can’t help thinking I get more out of blogs and Twitter (in terms of professional development), and more out of other social platforms (and I’d include Elluminate and Adobe Connect in there too) than I can see myself getting out of SL these days.
  • “Second Life: Overcoming the Entry Barriers in Hogher and Further Education”
  • Looking back at that chapter now I can’t see a great deal of change, and those entry barriers are, at best, a real detractor in terms of getting educators in, but – at worst – they are very good reasons not to even start.
  • SL is too  demanding and too unreliable for most educators. It pains me to say this, but I just don’t think it’s improved enough, or become easy enough for most people to bother. There are better ways of doing most things you can do in SL in terms of education, and – almost five years down the line – as far as I’m concerend SL hasn’t delivered enough to make it worthwhile.
  • I still think the future of web interactions is 3D, and I still think avatars are a grand idea, and I still love the concept of a vast space to be wandered and enjoyed… but I have to conclude that in pure terms of investment (time and money) SL doesn’t make much sense, at least for most educators.
  • I think mobile has come on in leaps and bounds in the past couple of years, and the possibilities are very exciting. Plus, you don’t need high-end equipment and shedloads of patience with mobile, most of the time.
James OReilly

'The Objective of Education Is Learning, Not Teaching' - Knowledge@Wharton - 19 views

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