Group items tagged

"Learning how to "live" in a virtual world. Absorbing information. Setting up an Educational venue. What is a virtual world? A virtual world is "an online electronic presence that imitates real life in the form of a personal presence through someone's avatar (the alter ego which is a graphical representation of themself in the virtual world)". Sue Gregory "

Interesting graphic on the front of this site that visualises some of the current and emerging tools for online teaching in higher education.

"This site has been created to support the Virtual History Centre - a 3D virtual world for Victorian Students which is designed to support immersive learning. It has been developed by the History Teachers' Association of Victoria, the Public Record Office of Victoria and the State Library of Victoria and was funded by the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development's Fuse Project. "

Virtual World History project: Port Nepean, Victoria. This virtual world has a history focus and is supposed to be interactive.

Virtual World History project: Port Nepean, Victoria. This virtual world has a history focus and is supposed to be interactive.

"ur Best Practices in Virtual Worlds Teaching Guide produced by University of Derby and Aston University in collaboration and funding from the Higher Education Academy Psychology Network and JISC is now available in soft and hard copy. The guide features tips and advice on setting up teaching in virtual worlds using problem-based learning methods. It's designed primarily for those teaching Psychology, humanities and the social sciences but will be useful to anyone starting out teaching using virtual worlds. "

The Australian Virtual Worlds Workshop 2008 aims to present a balanced overview of online virtual worlds for educators, professionals and academics. Important Dates * Submissions Open: June 2nd 2008 * Submission Deadline: August 1st 2008 * Email Notification: September 15th 2008 * Workshop Dates: 28th and 29th November 2008

Twinity - Powered by Real Life Twinity is a 3D online world that links the real with the virtual world based on realistic replicas of the world's most vibrant metropolises in 3D. * Create the virtual you * Build a digital home anywhere in the world * Explore our first virtual city: Berlin * Meet real people & go out and have fun The first members are already exploring Twinity. Want to join the fun? Join the Beta! Join the Beta News

The technology of virtual worlds is opening up a new universe of possibilities in promoting and teaching a love of history. The "Stepping into History" conference is your chance to learn about, and experience for yourself, the power of virtual worlds at the service of history.

Cram, A., Hedberg, J., Lumkin, K. & Eade, J. (2010). Learning through Design and Construction in Multi-User Virtual Environments: Opportunities, Challenges and an Emerging Project. In Proceedings of Global Learn Asia Pacific 2010 (pp. 1185-1194). AACE. Retrieved from http://www.editlib.org/p/34325.

Another amazing Google Project. From the archaeological areas of Pompeii to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, Google's World Wonders Project aims to bring to life the wonders of the modern and ancient world. By using our Street View technology, Google has a unique opportunity to make world heritage sites available to users across the globe. Street View is a hugely popular feature of Google Maps which is already available in dozens of countries. It allows users to virtually explore and navigate a neighborhood through panoramic street-level images. With advancements in our camera technologies we can now go off the beaten track to photograph some of the most significant places in the world so that anyone, anywhere can explore them.

"ITSE is one of many academic organizations that is using the virtual world of Second Life to make it possible for global participants to share their knowledge. This brief tour of ITSE island and a snippet from a recent presentation, gives viewers some idea of how educators might leverage this virtual world for learning."

An overview of ImmersED estate - a Open SImulator sim for educators to learn about the use of virtual worlds in education by actively engaging in learning exercises there. open and available for testing - please come by and kick the tyres! Built in OpenSim, hosted on ReacitonGrid.

Realism, Retention and Relevancy… In a Virtual Heroes world, textbooks and lectures are replaced with complete interactivity, excitement and serious fun! Our Advanced Learning Technology (A.L.T.) platform has re-invented the way medical, military and corporate professionals can enhance performance and unleash potential. Our technology facilitates the linkage of learning objectives to measurable performance outcomes. Our studio's proprietary approach to interactive instructional design and experiential learning simultaneously inspires and educates. We invite you to explore our Website and your organization's untapped potential.

Just coming down from the Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education conference. Held Friday, Saturday, Sunday Second Life time there was a great range of sessions, largely in traditional conference settings over several sims. What a helluva lot of planning and effort went into this. Even more impressive considering they had 16 weeks to pull it off.

A very basic, gentle intro to virtual worlds given to academic staff (newcomers) during learning and teaching week. Sets out the affordances and social drivers that are seeing increasing use of Second Life in education

"What Makes a Great Teacher? Image credit: Veronika Lukasova Also in our Special Report: National: "How America Can Rise Again" Is the nation in terminal decline? Not necessarily. But securing the future will require fixing a system that has become a joke. Video: "One Nation, On Edge" James Fallows talks to Atlantic editor James Bennet about a uniquely American tradition-cycles of despair followed by triumphant rebirths. Interactive Graphic: "The State of the Union Is ..." ... thrifty, overextended, admired, twitchy, filthy, and clean: the nation in numbers. By Rachael Brown Chart: "The Happiness Index" Times were tough in 2009. But according to a cool Facebook app, people were happier. By Justin Miller On August 25, 2008, two little boys walked into public elementary schools in Southeast Washington, D.C. Both boys were African American fifth-graders. The previous spring, both had tested below grade level in math. One walked into Kimball Elementary School and climbed the stairs to Mr. William Taylor's math classroom, a tidy, powder-blue space in which neither the clocks nor most of the electrical outlets worked. The other walked into a very similar classroom a mile away at Plummer Elementary School. In both schools, more than 80 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches. At night, all the children went home to the same urban ecosystem, a zip code in which almost a quarter of the families lived below the poverty line and a police district in which somebody was murdered every week or so. Video: Four teachers in Four different classrooms demonstrate methods that work (Courtesy of Teach for America's video archive, available in February at teachingasleadership.org) At the end of the school year, both little boys took the same standardized test given at all D.C. public schools-not a perfect test of their learning, to be sure, but a relatively objective one (and, it's worth noting, not a very hard one). After a year in Mr. Taylo

"MissionV is providing a highly creative, totally immersive, game based learning environment for primary and post primary students. We're putting the focus on 21st century skills, helping chidren to become original digital creators with 3D modeling and programming skills. MissionV allows high potential students from all backgrounds to connect, create and collaborate in a 3D world entirely of their own making."

Ray & Coulter (2010) supports this stating that currently, teachers as a collective, do not see the potential for technologies to aid in the development of new knowledge, active engagement and linkage of knowledge to a real-world setting.

use this virtual social network phenomenon to teach a global generation of elementary age children to safely and effectively use the Internet to build proper character traits and skills, and who will then work together to create a better world community.

Copyright is just as valid in the virtual world. Make the time to do your research first.

is this trashy reporting or can it really be valid? provked some thought...