Learning in Virtual Worlds Conference

"Virtual worlds are opening up fantastic possibilities for students and lifelong learners....... "

"A Regional Conference, 'Learning in Virtual Worlds' to be held on 21st April 2009: A collaborative event between RSC Northern and the Univeristy of Sunderland and sponsored by The Higher Education Academy."

http://www.rsc-northern.ac.uk/

Kathryn & Ferdinand will be presenting on "The GCU Experience." We'll be talking generally about GCU's SL initiative - CU There - and discussing some of the pilot teaching projects that are currently taking place within GCU. We'll report on some of the different pedagogies the projects use, and look at the emerging results and issues from the projects where we have already had students in-world. We'll also touch upon staff development and student induction. And then we'll take a peek at a potential future for 3D technologies...

Hey, thats us, that is!

Now published on Virtual Worlds Watch, the [infamous] podcast interview of Ferdinand & Kathryn...

http://virtualworldwatch.net/2009/02/16/kathryn-trinder-and-ferdinand-francino/

Enjoy!

#cevw09 Peter Twinning on Curriculum Issues.

Test pic for Michael :-)

Teaching and learning with MUVEs’

[Re post from Facebook]

Teaching and learning with MUVEs’ -

To members of Second Life for Educators

Posted on Facebook on: 21 October at 10:29

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The European funded MUVEnation project has just launched ‘Teaching and learning with MUVEs’. This is a one year postgraduate programme, delivered online, for future and in-service teachers who want to use innovative methods and tools to address learners motivation and participation issues in compulsory education. What impact can 3D virtual worlds, such as Second Life, really have on our learning and teaching settings?
http://muvenation.org/about/programme-description/

The course is free, but there are only 80 places. Participants will receive a formal letter or certificate of completion from their assigned institution For a full overview of the programme description and objectives please visit. We have four levels of participation - from the full course to those who are more experienced and would like simply to observe and participate in discussions
http://muvenation.org/about/programme-description/

The programme will be taking place in Italy, United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Belgium and France. If you are interested in participating then please see the registration details here on the site, the closing days for applications is the last week in October.
http://muvenation.org/participate/

We look forward to hearing from you,
The MUVEnation team

"Let's junk the myths and celebrate what we've got"

An article in the Grauniad by Jeff Jarvis - http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/sep/29/digital.media.new "Let's junk the myths and celebrate what we've got"

Yes, good, excellent...but he doesn't go nearly far enough. His 'complaints' are farily minor, and we've had all these about Web 2.0 & Second Life, but just look at some of the others we've received recently about SL - scantily clad women, porn, sexist, racist, unaccessible, as well as, yes, more minor complaints that we hear with each new technologuy that comes along - it is too technology hungry, it is uncontrollable ("can we stop the students from going to x, y, z?"), it is impossible to police, it is flash-in-the-pan, it is a game with no educational value....

So, can we junk these myths in the way that Jeff Jarivs does? And what other myths are out there regarding Web 2.0, Second Life and similar online virtual environments?

Come on, comments are open, let's get these things off our chests, move the argument on, find out what are the *real* issues, and discover what are the *real* gems to celebrate for learning & teaching.

Accessibilty and Second life

Accessibilty came up a wee while ago at one of our taster sessons, and many others have been enquiring if any movement had been made on this issue. It is of course an issue we take seriously, but one that, as it was for the web and the intenet, is taking longer to develop than, perhaps, we feel it should. However, we knew that there would be solutions out there as demand grows.

An article was brought to my attention this mornig (thanks Gwynn), posted by Eloise Pasteur (who does a lot of development and scripting work in Sl for education. Many of the 'teachers tools' in the area next to the Redundnt Tech Hut on GCU Island are by Elouise)

http://eloisepasteur.net/blog/index.php?/archives/190-Second-Life-text-to-chat-software-E.V.A..html, and the original post at: http://tentacolor.com/2008/08/30/the-scripted-leading-the-blind/

Second LIfe Tutorials

For those still new into Second Life, or just considering registering, here is a recent find. I've not been through them all yet, but they look pretty comprehensive: http://sl-adventures.com/village/hut1_movingAround.html
The website also includes SLUrls to the island where you can practice these activities.

For those of you further into SL, the 'Deeper aspects' section may be of interest: http://sl-adventures.com/deeperAspects.html?106158