Group items tagged

Here is how it works: The students in a history class, for example, are divided into small groups of five or six students each. Suppose their task is to learn about World War II. In one jigsaw group, Sara is responsible for researching Hitler's rise to power in pre-war Germany. Another member of the group, Steven, is assigned to cover concentration camps; Pedro is assigned Britain's role in the war; Melody is to research the contribution of the Soviet Union; Tyrone will handle Japan's entry into the war; Clara will read about the development of the atom bomb. Eventually each student will come back to her or his jigsaw group and will try to present a well-organized report to the group. The situation is specifically structured so that the only access any member has to the other five assignments is by listening closely to the report of the person reciting.

To increase the chances that each report will be accurate, the students doing the research do not immediately take it back to their jigsaw group. Instead, they meet first with students who have the identical assignment (one from each jigsaw group). For example, students assigned to the atom bomb topic meet as a team of specialists, gathering information, becoming experts on their topic, and rehearsing their presentations. We call this the "expert" group. It is particularly useful for students who might have initial difficulty learning or organizing their part of the assignment, for it allows them to hear and rehearse with other "experts."

What is the benefit of the jigsaw classroom? First and foremost, it is a remarkably efficient way to learn the material. But even more important, the jigsaw process encourages listening, engagement, and empathy by giving each member of the group an essential part to play in the academic activity. Group members must work together as a team to accomplish a common goal; each person depends on all the others. No student can succeed completely unless everyone works well together as a team. This "cooperation by design" facilitates interaction among all students in the class, leading them to value each other as contributors to their common task.

Techniques for grading student performance in a simulation In most cases, professors need to grade the performance of a student in a simulation for the experience to be considered official. While ultimately this grading is probably just as arbitrary as grading a paper, at least grading a paper has the benefit of history on its side.

Write a paper about the experience in the simulation.

Keep a journal during the experience.

Linden Lab only allows adults in the Teen Second Life who have had a background check completed, and who are either educators responsible for an education project in the Teen Second Life, developers assisting in the development of projects in the Teen Second Life, or the person responsible for managing activities on business islands in the Teen Second Life.

Yes, you can use the RegAPI, create your island, and bring teens onto this island through your own website. You can form groups that include teens and IM and exchange objects with teens who come in through your RegAPI. However, in this case, the Teens will NOT be able to leave your island and visit other spaces, including the Teen Second Life "mainland" (Teen Second Life). In this "closed island" model, you can form groups, IM your teens, and exchange objects with them; but all these activities are limited to your island. If teens want to participate in Teen Second Life, they'll have to create a separate account (teen.secondlife.com).

At this time, we do allow businesses to purchase islands in Teen Second Life and create educational content with which the Teen Second Life members can interact. We do restrict the ability of Teens to communicate with Adults, and we do not allow any selling or other commercial activity. You cannot sell in the Teen Second Life, and you can't exchange L$ with teens. If your island is not a "closed island" you cannot exchange items with Teens.

“I thought, ‘Gosh, this is amazing! You can teach classes in it’,” he recalls. The first time he taught a course registered in Second Life, Professor Washburn, a.k.a. Duncan Innis, led a 15-week, one-hour lecture to 25 students in the island’s amphitheatre.

There is no audio, just words flashing on screen like an MSN chat session. The discussion veers from “fluff journalism” to magazine branding. Nobody raises their hand to voice an opinion; an avatar makes a typing motion in the air if it wants to comment. Professor Washburn and his students often interrupt each other, since you can type whenever you want.

The learning curve that comes with Second Life is a drawback mentioned by all professors, online communications personnel and students, and this is one factor that makes some universities reluctant to use the program. Jason Toal, who works at SFU as an experience designer, spearheads most of the university’s projects in Second Life. “If you’re going to use Second Life for your course, you need to spend at least the first couple of classes teaching your students how to use it,” he says. “You have to walk them through what it’s all about, how to hook it on your computer.”

Virtual worlds, as digital learning objects appear to provide a space for constructivist learning at its best, facilitating more student engagement than the simple discussion boards comprising most online courses.

that students will become as motivated by virtual worlds as they are by video games.

There is now a page on assessment within Second Life in the Second Life Skills section of the EPED website which includes a couple of different assessment rubrics for student work in Second Life. One is aimed more at assessing a traditional class which has some presentation of the work in Second Life. The other is aimed much more at a fully in-world assessment where the students create a fully interactive build and are assessed on all aspects of it. It also forms a useful check-list for educational builds of all types! If you have comments, please feel free to add them in the comments here. If you would like to add additional content, let me know and I will add it for you.

ou can hear the text which people are writing to the textchat as a human voices! You can stream using Second Life voicechat your chat text by a human voice of your selection - man or woman voice, any language, accent, age etc. (basic english voices included, fairly usable, but for better results it's needed to get professional voices from internet) You can even use speech recognition and convert in text what you are telling to the microphone!

And what exactly is E.V.A.? Is is a special software voice interface for Second Life (for MS-Windows platform and S.A.P.I. 5 only so far). Simply said - it is a "text to speech" and "speech to text" software interface connected to the SL text chat, an enhancement of the Second Life integrated voice chat or is even usable without it.

Question: How is program getting text from the SL? Will I need to setup something in prefferences? Answer: Yes, you will need to enable chat logging at the Comunication tab in SL prefferences panel. Program is reading the text from the chat log file

Rose Luckin, Professor of Learner- Centred Design at the London Knowledge Lab and a visiting professor at the University of Sussex, is working on a study examining the internet's impact on pupils' critical and meta-cognitive skills. “The worrying view coming through is that students are lacking in reflective awareness,” she says. “Technology makes it easy for them to collate information, but not to analyse and understand it. Much of the evidence suggests that what is going on out there is quite superficial.”

This year, researchers at University College London reported the results of a five-year study into the “Google Generation”. When they examined the behaviour of those logging on to the websites of journals, e-books and other sources of written information, they found widespread evidence of “skimming activity”. Users viewed no more than three pages before “bouncing out”. This wasn't just the norm for students. “The same has happened to professors and lecturers. Everyone exhibits a bouncing/flicking behaviour, which sees them searching horizontally rather than vertically. Power browsing is the norm.”

This study examines students’ reactions to the virtual biosciences laboratory developed in Second Life® (SL) at the University of East London. Final year undergraduates and masters students studying biotechnology took part in a trial of a virtual Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) experiment in Second Life and evaluated their experience by anonymous questionnaire. Learning gains were measured at various points during the study using pre- and post-tests, and interaction with demonstrators was monitored and compared during the real life (RL) practical. Both groups showed a significant increase in learning gain over the pre- and post-tests, although no difference in gains between the two groups was detected. However, students who conducted the PCR experiment in SL required significantly less demonstrator assistance during the subsequent RL practical. The SL practical was well received by students, with 92% of participants reporting that they would like to use the system again and many requesting other experiments to be made available in this manner in the future.

The aim of this study was to determine whether conducting the PCR experiment in the virtual world of Second Life produced similar learning gains to those observed in the physical world laboratory and to see if working in the Virtual Lab enhanced students understanding of the experiment. The student perceptions of the Virtual Lab as a teaching mechanism and the perceived impact on their learning was examined through questionnaires.

The SL group completed a pre(virtual) Lab quiz and then individually registered for Second Life to create an avatar under instructor supervision. Each student completed some orientation exercises on UEL Island to become adequately skilled in using the Second Life environment (e.g. flying, putting on clothing etc.). The student avatars then met in the Virtual Lab to perform the PCR experiment. This was initially demonstrated by a member of staff before each student completed the virtual experiment themselves. Throughout this teaching session the students received face to face and virtual communication from their instructor.

Role-playing doctor inside Second Life? Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London has developed a region in Second Life that aims to design game-based learning activities for delivery of virtual patients that can drive experiential, diagnostic, and role-play learning activities supporting patients’ diagnoses, investigations and treatment. One of my Twitter friends, Andrea Vascellari, thinks this is a “terrific example that demonstrates the value of virtual worlds like Second Life” and is interested in other folk’s thoughts after watching this video:

At George Washington University in Washington State, a graduate-level course in instructional design was created by David Cillay, an assistant dean for distance education, as reported on TMC.net. The course was taught completely in Second Life, with the students, using their avatars, communicating with Cillay and one another through the course’s island (learning space) in Second Life. Cillay was impressed with the level of text and voice interaction between the students, even if they were only avatars onscreen. The students discussed what ‘instructional design means’ and took field trips to other SL locales such as a nuclear power plant.

Across the pond, City College Norwich in the UK is forging ahead with its own island. The location will give users a virtual tour of the campus and access to training and job vacancies. The school also hopes, down the line, to develop an educational presence. “Second Life has fantastic potential for learning,” said Dick Palmer, the principal, “which we will be starting to use more fully next year. For example, our new diploma students will come from lots of different areas, but Second Life will allow students to get together in an informal learning zone. We are excited to be embarking upon such an innovative initiative.”

After the experiment with virtual education at GWU, Cillay offered three recommendations to those thinking of entering the virtual education realm: - Temper your expectations. “There’s a tremendous wow factor for people just discovering ‘Second Life,’ ” he said. Students need some time to adjust and learn how to move and operate in that world. - “Understand what your expectations are,” Cillay said. Rather than expect huge gains in a classroom environment, consider it a first step in educational experimentation. - Give yourself and the students time to explore. “Do some research ahead of time, so you know the environment and find out what other educators are doing there,” said Cillay.

From next year, lectures at Glasgow Caledonian University will encourage the student nurses to test their knowledge and skills by entering the virtual world of Second Life and create their own online character, known as an avatar. The student nurses can then assess a range of virtual patients which lecturers have programmed in advance with a variety of ailments. Nursing lecturers hope students will use an avatar to explore the virtual hospital in Second Life and treating the virtual patients. This will allow the student nurses to practice their theory in a safe environment without fear of making mistakes.

'Avatars have been created to represent typical patients and they can interact with our nursing students' avatars to allow them to carry out patient assessments. Each patient can be controlled by a tutor or by artificial intelligence and has a different history and reason for being admitted to hospital, as well as the ability to respond to a broad range of questions. The assessments are recorded and can be analysed later with the student's tutor.'