Group items tagged

"The aim of this small project is to create a map of virtual world based scientific research and educational initiatives at UK universities. The map is being created by Birmingham-based virtual world specialists Daden Limited as part of this year's British Science Festival hosted at Aston University in Birmingham.Virtual Worlds such as Second Life, where users can socialise and connect on-line are already being extensively used by UK Universities and other educational and research organisations - but it can be hard to find out what is going on, and where. It can hopefully become a lasting resource for UK Science which can live on beyond the 2010 British Science Festival.The map is, appropriately, presented as virtual map inside of Second Life where visitors will be able to click on map markers to gain further information on each project, and to be directly transported to the science project location.Users without access to Second Life, or running projects in other virtual worlds, are not excluded from the project. All information will be available through this micro-site, which includes a browser based version of the Second Life map, and lists of projects in other worlds."

"Open Cobalt Alpha is the first step in a long term project to make available to all people a free and open source platform for constructing, accessing, and sharing virtual workspaces for research and education. This 3D multimedia wiki technology makes it easy to create deeply collaborative and hyperlinked multi-user virtual workspaces, virtual exhibit spaces, and game-based learning and training environments that run on all major software operating systems. By using a peer-based messaging protocol to reduce reliance on server infrastructures for support of basic in world interactions across many participants, Open Cobalt makes it possible for people hyperlink their virtual worlds via 3D portals to form a large distributed network of interconnected collaboration spaces. It also makes it possible for schools and other organizations to freely set up their own networks of public and private 3D virtual workspaces that feature integrated web browsing, voice chat, text chat, and access to remote desktop applications and services."

Hey guys. Just watched a live session online at Cisco w the developers of this system, still in development, but interesting differentiators vs 2Life, e.g. peer-to-peer, nested worlds, oh and its open-source. Thought yaz might be interested in tracking it.

"This is an initiative from the University of Otago, the University of Auckland, Wellington Institute of Technology, the University of Canterbury, and supported by Telecom NZ.  It is an open access national virtual world grid based on open source software.  It operates on NZ-based servers hosted at Otago, Auckland and Canterbury Universities, and leverages other national investments in IT infrastructure through deployment on the high-speed KAREN (Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network). The grid has been set up with an academic focus and will be used for research and education, as well as for proof-of-concept application deployments and testing.  The objectives of the NZVWG initative are to: Undertake both experimental and routine use of virtual worlds in teaching and research;Develop engaging, interactive in-world content customised for NZ use; andDevelop new context-specific plugins enabling interaction between the virtual and real (non-virtual) worlds. "

"This new learning environment - an augmented reality/virtuality - consists of distributed virtual spaces generated by social software tools, and of the real spaces and objects, in which locative content has been added with mobile devices. Augmented reality, the reality overlaid with virtual reality, and virtual reality, in which representations of the real world have been embedded and contextualised, is enabling interactions both in real and virtual spaces."

PIVOTE is a virtual learning authoring system for virtual worlds. It was developed as part of the JISC funded PREVIEW project, where it was used to develop training material for Paramedic students at St George's Hospital and Kingston University. Although based on the Medbiquitous Virtual Patient standard the feeling of all involved in the project was that the system could be used for any sort of structured learning in virtual worlds. The result was that JISC have funded the creation of PIVOTE - this open source project.

The objectives of the NZVWG initative are to:     Undertake both experimental and routine use of virtual worlds in teaching and research;     Develop engaging, interactive in-world content customised for NZ use; and     Develop new context-specific plugins enabling interaction between the virtual and real (non-virtual) worlds. 

Set of resources to mainly virtual tours - the moon, Louvre, Smithsonian etc and medicine and geography

Blending physical & virtual spaces Queensland University of Technology is currently developing OWL, a new web-based student response system, which blends the physical space with a virtual learning environment to create a live collaborative experience. Main Features: * Post comments* Reply to comments* "Like" comments* Poll students* Review archived sessions

"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."

A virtual lab to build experience with dilution, solution and lab technique.

A set of virtual labs. Costs $50 per student per semester.

Auckland Uni running Virtual Grid.

"The internet lets us share perfect copies of our work with a worldwide audience at virtually no cost. We take advantage of this revolutionary opportunity when we make our work "open access": digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. In this talk, Peter Suber - Director of the Harvard Open Access Project - shares insights from his new concise introduction to open access - what open access is and isn't, how it benefits authors and readers of research, how we pay for it, how it avoids copyright problems, how it has moved from the periphery to the mainstream, and what its future may hold. This event includes questions and responses from Stuart Shieber (School of Engineering and Applied Sciences), Robert Darnton (Harvard University Library), June Casey (Harvard Law School Library), David Weinberger (Berkman Center / Harvard Library Innovation Lab) and more."

"MITx will offer a portfolio of MIT courses for free to a virtual community of learners around the world. It will also enhance the educational experience of its on-campus students, offering them online tools that supplement and enrich their classroom and laboratory experiences. The first MITx course, 6.002x (Circuits and Electronics), will be launched in an experimental prototype form. Watch this space for further upcoming courses, which will become available in Fall 2012."

Virtual worlds in school using OpenSim.

Twenty-seven-year-old researcher, lecturer and journalist Jennifer Jones has a fluid but pared-down working approach. She openly conducts her work as a researcher and lecturer through her personal website, using her blog and Twitter, on which she has 3,000 followers. She works virtually as she travels between two university employers in the Midlands and the West of Scotland. Her inspiration comes from media activists and groups like Occupy, who use the free resources of the net to group like-minded people for action and discourse. All of her activity is open for scrutiny and for tracking - there are no pseudonyms - and she records everything she does on her website.

Twenty-seven-year-old researcher, lecturer and journalist Jennifer Jones has a fluid but pared-down working approach. She openly conducts her work as a researcher and lecturer through her personal website, using her blog and Twitter, on which she has 3,000 followers. She works virtually as she travels between two university employers in the Midlands and the West of Scotland. Her inspiration comes from media activists and groups like Occupy, who use the free resources of the net to group like-minded people for action and discourse. All of her activity is open for scrutiny and for tracking - there are no pseudonyms - and she records everything she does on her website.

real-time audio and video with a shared desktop - not a fully-featured virtual classroom but good quality audio and video, can have multiple video participants

Alternative to Splashtop?

"In preparing for a Moodle workshop--where the Moodle Glossary is prominently featured--I ran across some wonderful ideas for using Moodle Glossary as a part of one's virtual classroom."