Reflections on Teaching and Learning with MUVEs

Check out these two interesting posts on virtual immersive environmnents!

Virtual Immersive Environments: From Theory to Practice
http://pdginnovates.wordpress.com/2010/02/07/virtual-immersive-environments-from-theory-to-practice/

and

Virtual Immersive Environments: From Theory to Practice, Part 2: A Matter of Life and Death

http://pdginnovates.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/virtual-immersive-environments-from-theory-to-practice-part-2-a-matter-of-life-and-death/

Second Life: another world in which to teach and learn

2010-02-12T17:42:00.001-08:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Second Life: another world in which to teach and learn

View more presentations from Simon Bignell.

Museums in Second Life

2010-02-12T17:28:00.000-08:00

A Second Life for Your Museum: 3D Multi-User Virtual Environments and Museums

New technologies involve new methods of teaching, learning and training.

2010-02-12T17:03:00.000-08:00

An interview with Tony Bates.

Issuu

2010-01-11T10:56:00.001-08:00

A great tool to publish your works. You may check mine at this link:

http://issuu.com/search?q=&in=user&st=document,page

Learning to teach in Second Life

2009-12-08T06:32:00.001-08:00

There's a revised and updated version of the paper "Learning to teach in Second Life" presented at EDEN Open Conference in Porto, Portugal (15-17 October).

http://issuu.com/AMacedo/docs/learning_to_teach_in_second_life_1_

TEFL - 2nd International Conference

2009-11-22T11:03:00.000-08:00

TEFL - 2nd International Conference on Teaching English as a Foreign Language - 20 & 21 November 2009

http://www.slideshare.net/Angelina1/teaching-english-as-a-second-language-in-second-life

SIIE 09

2009-11-22T10:37:00.000-08:00

The 11th edition of the International Symposium on Computers took place in Coimbra, Portugal, November 18-20, 2009.

You may check the paper Socialisation in distance education using virtual environments at

http://www.slideshare.net/Angelina1/siie-09

http://siie09.dei.uc.pt/pdf/programa_detalhado_SIIE09.pdf

EDEN Seventh Open Classroom Conference in Porto 2009

2009-11-22T10:28:00.000-08:00

Conference Award
LEADING INNOVATIVE PRACTICE
presented
at EDEN Seventh Open Classroom Conference, Porto, 2009

http://www.eden-online.org/eden.php?menuId=491

http://www.slideshare.net/Angelina1/learning-to-teach-in-second-life

Learning to teach in Second Life

2009-10-18T12:17:00.001-07:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Learning to teach in Second Life

View more presentations from Angelina1.

josemota | TweetPhoto

2009-10-18T12:11:00.001-07:00

josemota | TweetPhoto

Shared via AddThis

Denmark 2009

2009-09-12T15:34:00.001-07:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Denmark 2009

View more documents from terrya.

Design for Learning in Virtual Worlds

2009-09-12T15:30:00.001-07:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Design for Learning in Virtual Worlds

View more presentations from Steven Warburton.

FUMSI - Second Life for Business: Ten Techniques

2009-07-01T12:04:00.001-07:00

FUMSI - Second Life for Business: Ten Techniques

Shared via AddThis

Setting up Sloodle

2009-06-11T02:38:00.001-07:00

Another challenge...

Building a basic educational scene in a Holodeck

2009-05-15T07:40:00.000-07:00

Summary: Advantages and disadvantages of building scenes in a Holodeck (2in1 Holodeck)

Situation: (the setting in which this case study occurred)
To solve a task in the MUVEnation project and realize how to build a basic educational scene, its advantages and disadvantages.

Task:(problem to be solved, or the intended effect)

To build a basic educational scene for a hands-on workshop, where all the participants should have their own building space and a tip jar.

Actions: (What was done to fulfil the task)
I visited several places where I found some objects that were useful for my scene. At Edunation, I got a very useful powerpoint presenter. At Xstreet SL Marketplace, I got some lovely bean bag chairs. It was a pity that they didn’t have the hands-up and hands-down script. It is helpful for the tutor to visualize when a participant has questions during a workshop and doesn’t interrupt so abruptly the flow of a workshop.
I got other useful objects from other places such as: Language translator, a tip jar and I built the floor with individual textures that aimed at showing the participants each working space. To help to create the setting, I also used an image viewer with landscaping pictures.
As the final result, I think the environment is practical, functional and cosy at the same time.

Results: (What happened? Was it a success? What contributed to the outcomes?)
I managed to build the scene after long hours of errors and trial
It is almost a success because I managed to build the scene, save it and rez it on demand
The tutorials that were made available to us, especially Marga’s were quite useful as I am a visual learner, so it is much easier when I can see how to make things and try to make them

In spite of not being able to rez the powerpoint along with the other objects of my educational scene, I decided not to stress and rez the scene on demand and then rez the powerpoint and include it there:)

Lessons learned:
Second Life needs to be improved. I am not sure if it is the one that is going to be used in Education but so far it is a useful resource. Nevertheless, the Linden Lab needs to improve it as the lag and crashes decrease motivation and increase frustration and lead people to give up exploring Second Life.
Many building activities, such this one, can be very time consuming what is a great disadvantage as nowadays people need things that are user friendly and time savers.
On the other hand, Holodecks can save a lot of time as you have several settings at the same place. It is very useful for almost all the educational activities and also business. Whenever I create another scene, I will make sure that I
- Reread all the instructions very well
- Try to do it with a colleague

To sum up, Holodecks and tools like Buddy Builder can be very useful to set the adequate environments to teach and learn but they have to be more user friendly and a resource to save time.

Keywords: create/build, task, skills, design

Description of 2in1 Production Holodeck (a Second Life tool)

2009-05-15T07:32:00.000-07:00

Name: The 2in1 Production Holodeck

Context/Learning context: It creates an immersive setting for the content you want to create / deliver. It can be used for several activities according to the user's purpose as it allows you to incorporate several tools within your scenes (Production Holodeck version only). See the categories below.

Category in which you would adscribe the tool:
1. Delivery of learning material
2. Communication and interaction
3. Cooperation and collaboration
4. Creation of content
5. Individualisation of learning paths
6. Assessment, feedback and tracking
7. Group-organisation and self-organisation
8. Reflection and meta cognition

What it is: A Holodeck stores Second Life scenes and lets you load them from a menu whenever you want. The old scene is cleared and the new one appears. Scenes can include any prim objects including furniture, pose balls and particle generators. (http://www.insidethisworld.com/the-holodeck.html)

Target user: Teachers, students, business people...

What it does:
It allows you the choose the scene according to the content that you are working with.
If you have a Holodeck Production version, you can build your own scenes and add it to the Holodeck.
You can also create or buy holodeck-friendly objects and ad it to your scenes (Production holodecks only).
It can be used as:
- Homes
- Information Kiosks
These can now be scripted to revert to an introductory scene if avatars are absent for a fixed period.
- Merchandising
Retailers can sell their goods right off the Holodeck floor. Customers would use the menus to select the product category they're interested in, instead of having to walk or fly around. It also lets you display merchandise in different ways, for example,customers could look at all the beds, choose one they like and then rez a new scene full of matching bedroom furniture.
- Photographic and machinima scenes
- Instantly change backdrops and or poseballs
- Rentals
A builder can buy a Production Holodeck, then create scenes and deploy them in Simple Holodecks that are rented out. You might also buy one of our scenes and use it multiple rentals.
- Portfolios
You can use the Holodeck to show off a building portfolio. Saves looking through inventory and the client can view content at their own pace.
(http://www.insidethisworld.com/the-holodeck.html)
- It can also be used as a learning space. You can create it according to the content yo are going to deliver and make students feel immersed in the content.

How it works: (user interaction)
The 2in1 combines an Interior Production Holodeck with an Exterior Production Holodeck. You control the rezzing of the rooms with the control panel on the wall.

The notecards that control the menus are in the wall panel halves.

Scenes are stored in the floor panels; interior in the green, exterior in the blue.

When you select a scene, the Holodeck rezzes an invisible prim in the middle of the floor that holds information about the position of the objects. Once a scene is rezzed, make sure you don't move that prim or shift the scene in any way or you wil have trouble rezzing it correctly again.

How it looks:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/morgenstring/

Where to get it from: https://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&MerchantID=17124 or just contact Loki Clifton

What permissions it has: (copy?/modify?/transfer?) It allows copy, modify but no transfer

What it costs: The demo version is free

My personal experience/ my personal story about using this tool:

I managed to build the scene after long hours of errors and trial.
It is almost a success because I managed to build the scene, save it and rez it on demand
The tutorials that were made available to us, especially Marga’s were quite useful as I am a visual learner, so it is much easier when I can see how to make things and try to make them.
In spite of not being able to rez the powerpoint along with the other objects of my educational scene, I decided not to stress and rez the scene on demand and then rez the powerpoint and include it there:)

Holodecks in Second Life

2009-05-03T08:30:00.001-07:00

Delivering a Hands-on Workshop

2009-04-15T17:48:00.000-07:00

After analyzing some workshops, it was my turn to deliver one and here's the report of that experience.

This story is about a newbie who had to prepare a hands-on workshop in Second Life and reflect upon the advantages and drawbacks of delivering a workshop in Second Life.

Situation: What was the setting in which this case study occurred?
Last summer I decided to join Second Life and understand its potential for teaching and learning. I felt a bit lonely, and without knowing what to do, where to go… then a friend told me about MUVenation and the course “Teaching and Learning with MUVEs”. I was really excited as I thought it could be a great opportunity to learn in context, by doing, with my peers and mentors, so when I got the news that I had been selected for the course, I was really very happy.
So one of our tasks was to attend some hands-on workshops, evaluate them in order to deliver our own.
After watching some workshops and reflecting about good practices, I chose a topic and prepared it: How to use the tube (a prim) to build table and a stool.
In spite of preparing everything in advance, there are always some problems that we can't control like some technical issues that prevent us from doing everything as planned. For instance, just a bit before the workshop, I began having trouble with my Internet connection. I was crashing and had to opt by a mobile Internet access which quality isn't the best as you know. Also II wasn’t able to rezz a tube because my upload bandwith was with problems. Even my voice was heard with cuts, interruptions but the notecard reader solved this problem. I didn’t use text chat because I wanted to be able to look at the participants and focus on their progresses and/or problems to help them out. At the end of the workshop, I helped some participants getting a notecard reader and explained to them how it worked so that they could use it during their workshops.

Task: What was the problem to be solved, or the intended effect?
My aim was to design, deliver an interesting and useful workshop that enhanced the participants to understand how prims work and create nice objects, like a table and a stool, just with one prim each.

Actions: What was done to fulfil the task?
To perform the task, participants would manipulate a tube, by setting the different parameters, in order to create a table and a stool. Finally participants would texture them.
I explained the task and gave the instructions both through chat voice and a notecard that was being shown by the notecard reader. At the beginning of the workshop, a folder containing several textures and a poseball for the stool was given to each participant.
At the end of the workshop, the notecard was given to all the participants. I also have to thank Dracut Renneville, a great instructor for inspiring me and helping me out.

Results: What happened? Was it a success? What contributed to the outcomes?
All the participants managed to create a table and a stool. Some still struggle with pose ball for the stool so we will meet in-world to try to solve this issue.
All the participants managed to create a table and a stool. Some still struggle with pose ball for the stool so we will meet in-world to try to solve this issue.
I think that what contributed to the outcomes were several factors:
- Previous preparation and checking (Special thanks to Jerit Weiser who tried the chairs to see if they were working properly, if the text displayed on the notecard reader was perceptible and gave his opinion on the setting).
- Using written text so that participants could visualize the instructions.
- Short and clear instructions.
- Managing the communication: hands up to ask questions.
- Few issues/topics in each session.

Lessons learned: What did you learn from the experience?
I learnt that we can overcome SL technical drawbacks and that with patience and calm “we can”, I mean, by being assertive, not being afraid to ask for help, and collaborating we can have good results.
Next time, I will try some collaborative work between the participants, may be pair work to start with.

Keywords: tube, table, stool, poseball, link objects, SL, workshop

Module 2 - Activity 1: Analysing hands-on workshops

2009-02-22T15:19:00.000-08:00

Workshop implementation: delivery of instruction

Workshop Two
One hour workshop whose aim was to listen to chat channels and communicate between scripts.

Workshop design: planning and preparation
Spatial design and layout: Emulation of RL. The class was held in a big room and all the avatars were sitting on chairs in a row.

Instructional design: The pre-requisites were stated and also the learning objective, outcome and goal were structured.

Organisation of instructions and discourse: At the beginning of the class a notecard was provided with all the instructions, so they were pre-prepared. The communication was held through local text chat. At the same time, the information was shown in a board (slide presenter).

Physical organization of learning material: The instructor gave instructions through written local chat and asked participants to click on a box to get the class supply: a notecard with instructions.

Business model: The class was free.

Maturity level / Development version: I think it was tested before, but it was a bit confusing and some of the participants get lost.

Comments: I felt frustrated because it took much more time than foreseen and we didn’t have time to check how it worked with our object.

____________________________________
Workshop implementation: Delivery of instruction

Assessment of prior knowledge: None (Basic level)

Pre-prepared activities to meet the knowledge requirements: None

Prior knowledge: Not recalled

Preparation of user interface and viewing controls: No instruction

Technical preparation of participants: None

Conversational flow: Ordered and controlled progressively by behavioural rules, interaction policies, textual codes, scripts and communication tools.

Communication dynamics: Tutor > Learner (mostly) and some Tutor > < Learner.

Movement of learners and teacher: Constrained sit/position for learners and free movement for teacher.

Presentation of outputs and results: Illustrated at varying of the stages of development but as it was taking longer, the instructor accelerated the pace of the workshop and said that he wanted us to see and then we would do it on our own.

Delivery of learning material: At the beginning of the workshop through a giver device, a box that contained the class supplies.

Use of tools to deliver both content and instructions: Basic SL chat facility.

Use of media to enhance teaching: Basic use of SL text chat, sense of virtual embodiment and a image presenter.

Concurrent learner activity: Activity exclusively centred within the 3D world.

Personalisation of learning: Sometimes the instructor attended participants’ questions.

Pedagogical approach: Directive, focused on procedures, result oriented.

_________________________________________

Implementation of the workshop: follow up and evaluation

Provision of guidance, suppport and feedback: On demand via local text chat or private IMs.

Monitoring of student progress: Gathering of informal feedback and visualization.

Quality of feedback: Informative

Assessment model: None

Comments: As the content of the workshop is a bit complex, I think the instructor should have set more time, have got some helpers so that the participants could create the scripts as shown and experiment their individual objects instead of being based on theory. ____________________________________________________

Implementation of the workshop: recall and transfer of learning

Recapitulation: None, but it was in the notecard to be used after the workshop.

After session resources: None

After session activities: None

Comments: It was an activity that presented a very interesting multi-tool built as a single script but it wasn’t very simple and required more time to create them and try the artifact. Some participants got lost and left before the workshop was over.

Module 2 - Activity 1: Analysing hands-on workshops

2009-02-22T11:03:00.000-08:00

This task implied to attend two workshops and evaluate them by using the analysis grid "Second Life practices in learning and teaching activities" developed by my mentor, Margarita Perez-Garcia (MENON Network, Belgium) and Dr. Steven Warburton (King's College, London, UK) who made it available to all MUVEnation participants.
In order to complete this task, I attended several in-world workshops and chose two to describe and reflect upon. It is very important tp observe others and reflect upon their practices in order to improve our own.

Workshop One

One hour workshop whose aim was to create a lamp and bedside table.

Workshop design: planning and preparation

Spatial design and layout: Emulation of RL. The class was limited to 10 participants, with a individual space for each one to create the objects. Participants were sat on individual chairs. on a Sandbox.

Instructional design: The pre-requisites were stated and also the learning objective, outcome and goal were structured.

Organisation of instructions and discourse: At the end of the class a notecard was provided with all the instructions, so they were pre-prepared.

Physical organization of learning material: The instructor gave instructions through written local chat and asked participants to click on a lamp to get the class supply: some textures for the objects. At the end of the workshop, the instructor gave a notecard with the description of the workshop to each participant.

Business model: The class was free.

Maturity level / Development version: It was tested in advance, I think, because the instructions were very clear and all the participants managed to build the lamp, the bedside table and textured them as well.

Comments: The instructor was very clear, interacted with participants, helped them and everyone managed to get a lamp and a bedside table.

________________________________________

Workshop implementation: Delivery of instruction
Assessment of prior knowledge: None (Basic level)

Pre-prepared activities to meet the knowledge requirements: None

Prior knowledge: Not recalled

Preparation of user interface and viewing controls: No instruction

Technical preparation of participants: None

Conversational flow: Ordered and controlled progressively by behavioural rules, interaction policies, textual codes, scripts and communication tools. the instructor often paused and interacted with the participants helping them out.

Communication dynamics: Tutor / Learner (mostly) and some Tutor / Learner - Learner / Tutor.

Movement of learners and teacher: Constrained sit/position for learners and free movement for teacher.

Presentation of outputs and results: Illustrated at varying of the stages of development. According to the instructions, participants were to see their objects being built and getting a shape, texture... and the other participants' too.

Delivery of learning material: At the beginning of the workshop through a giver device, a lamp next to the instructor.

Use of tools to deliver both content and instructions: Basic SL chat facility and a notecard giver.

Use of media to enhance teaching: Basic use of SL text chat and sense of virtual embodiment.

Concurrent learner activity: Activity exclusively centred within the 3D world.

Personalisation of learning: The instructor helped participants to keep in track and everyone was working at the same pace.

Pedagogical approach: Directive, focused on both concepts and procedures, process oriented.

_________________________________________

Implementation of the workshop: follow up and evaluation

Provision of guidance, suppport and feedback: On demand via local text chat or private IMs.

Monitoring of student progress: Gathering of informal feedback and visualization.

Quality of feedback: Informative and formative.

Assessment model: None.

Comments: The instructor paid attention to the participants, eliciting and claryfing doubts and offered individual help when it was needed. Everyone was able to create the lamp and bedside table what was very satisfying.

____________________________________________________

Implementation of the workshop: recall and transfer of learning

Recapitulation: None, but as it was in written text, participants could check the chat history and get the information they needed.

After session resources: Individual artifacts and a notecard with the instructions for the activity.

After session activities: None

Comments: As it was a basic activity of building an object with four prims and the instructions were clear, the participants understood it and are able to create this object with different sizes and textures, on their own.

Ice Skating at Mandalay Bay

2009-01-08T13:16:00.000-08:00

Alicia posted the following message at our MUVEnation Moodle forum:

Do you want to have some fun while trying a new activity and practicing your camera skills? Then head off to the Ice Skating Rink and experience skating a wonderland of ice forests, tunnels and castles. Visit the Ice Skate Rink at Mandala Bay http://slurl.com/secondlife/Mandalay%20Bay/243/200/24. Buy the free skates at the vendor and try one of the animations for single and couple ice skating.

So I decided to check it out and as she said it was great fun. Check the following:

Online peer collaboration

2009-01-01T09:43:00.000-08:00

Post in your blog about the collaboration in your sub group. You may want to think about some of these issues.

· Was it easy to define objectives and criteria?
· How did you distribute the work?
· How did you feel about your own participation?
· How did you feel about other participation?
· Were there any problems, or misunderstandings?

Collaboration is the basis for bringing together the knowledge, experience and skills of multiple team members to contribute to the development of a new product more effectively than individual team members performing their narrow tasks in support of product development.

Kenneth Crow (http://www.npd-solutions.com/collaboration.html)

First of all, as I have already posted in

MUVENation Course

Activity 1, section 3, module 1 - group 1.3 – Chestnut,

as all the Chestnut members seemed interested in the topic Teaching in Second Life but belonged to different fields, it was suggested to define subtopics according to our professional fields. So I searched for educational places related to teaching English in SL, Stefan searched for places related to Maths teaching.After searching for the places, I and Stefan met inworld and created our notecard / travel guide with two places each of us found. Unfortunately we forgot to take snapshots of our collaborative work inworld!

Then we agreed that Stefan would present it inworld as I had to be at school during Monday, 22nd December.

I think that we all would have participated more in another time of the year as we all were very busy with our professional duties and if we all belong to the same time zone. Nevertheless, I and Stephan managed to work in a cooperative and collaborative way. And, in my opinion, it was very meaningful and enriching as we shared our knowledge, helped and learnt from each other.

Taking into account this experience, next peer activity will be easier :)

Season greetings!

2008-12-30T16:17:00.000-08:00

Wishing you all a Happy Holiday:)

Here are some thoughts about this time of the year!

Oprah Winfrey

Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right.

Edith Lovejoy Pierce

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called "Opportunity" and its first chapter is New Year's Day.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

What can be said in New Year rhymes,

That's not been said a thousand times?

The new years come, the old years go,

We know we dream, we dream we know.

We rise up laughing with the light,

We lie down weeping with the night.

We hug the world until it stings,

We curse it then and sigh for wings.

We live, we love, we woo, we wed,

We wreathe our prides, we sheet our dead.

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,

And that's the burden of a year.

Have a great New Year!

Exploring educational places

2008-12-21T11:14:00.000-08:00

MUVEnation Course
Activity 1, section 3, module 1 - group 1.3 - Chestnut

As all the Chestnut members seem interested in the topic Teaching in Second Life but belong to different fields, it was suggested to define subtopics according to our professional fields.

Then the search began. First I used the search engine Google. I used the key words “Teaching English in Second Life” and I accessed some interesting articles about the topic such as it can be found in the following links:
http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2008/03/using-second-li.html
http://esl.about.com/b/2008/11/05/teaching-english-in-second-life.htm
http://thegridlive.com/2007/08/29/teaching-english-in-second-life/
But there were no indications of SLurls.

Delicious wasn’t very helpful either or SLbrowser. Only with the search facilities in Second Life was I able to find the following SLurls that I advise people to explore.

So, I chose Teaching English in Second Life. I selected three islands as follows:

1- Virtlantis 122, 115, 23
This is a place where anyone can improve his/her English according to one's needs in an
autonomous way. All the island is worth visiting. For example: We can find a BBC Grammar
Challenge (Quiz, audio, grammar explanation)

2- Education UK 239, 52, 21
This island is also an educational place where we can find virtual WebQuests. It helps people
to design virtual WebQuests based on Bernie Dodge's work: a structured learning activity
which develops into several phases: introduction, task, process, resources, evaluation and
conclusion. They are suited for almost all subject areas.

3- English Village 140, 118, 110
It's a sim for language teachers where people can learn English in a very varied way: watching
a movie or TV, attending an event, going dancing (...) or just engaging in a chat. All in English.

To see some pictures of these inworlds, please go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/morgenstring/

Avatar appearance and identity

2008-11-30T09:52:00.000-08:00

Assignment:
In your blog, describe your experience playing with your avatar’s appearance: do you feel comfortable with your new appearance or is it going to take more work – share your reflections on this। How do you feel the changes you made to your avatar have affected your digital identity? How do you think your appearance affects your interactions with others and their interactions with you?

I think it’s funny playing with our avatar’s appearance. We are free to be whoever we would like to, to dress up the way we want, to have any kind of wigs, tattoos or piercings that in RL we wouldn’t have in formal contexts; at least I wouldn’t as I have a traditional, conservative image in RL.
I don’t think that the changes I made affected my digital identity because my purpose in SL is to see how it can be used for educational purposes so I never pretended to have a different identity from mine in RL.
In my opinion, our appearance affects the others’ interactions with us, at least in my particular case it happened.
When I created my account in SL I chose a default avatar, the professional woman. I wandered through several landmarks until I met an avatar who was very friendly and asked me to try a different skin. As I agreed , he offered me a skin, shape, hair and told me where to find clothes and accessories for free. When I saw myself with the new avatar, fancy clothes and accessories, I didn’t want to try anything else because I thought that avatar was like a piece of art, i. e. it was really beautiful ... :() The feedback I got from several avatars reforced my opinion :)
To sum up, I strongly believe that the way we project our social presence in SL affects the way we interact with other avatars and vice-versa. Nevertheless, until someone helps me to create an avatar that resembles me in RL, I will stick to the one that Victor offered me :)

The Story of my first steps in Second Life

2008-11-09T11:20:00.000-08:00

Please share here your stories about your first hours if life in Second Life। Reflect on your experience: How would you describe your first steps? What were the technical issues, if any? What did you feel about the avatar you chose? What was orientation island like? Could you find help as needed? Where did you go? Did you speak to other avatars? What would improve the experience, if anything? What previous knowledge and skills helped you?

My first hours of life in Second Life

After creating my account I was directed to the Orientation Island where I learnt the basic skills of navigating in SL, though I was a bit disappointed because I was hoping to have more information than the one provided.
Then I explored some landmarks. I met some avatars who gave me information on the way SL worked.
The avatar I chose was the professional woman. I would like to change it but I didn’t know how. Fortunately, in Vestibular Brasil I met an avatar with whom I talk about this issue and he gave me the shape, skin and hair that I’m wearing and explained to me how I could get free stuff inworld.
One of my favourite places is Shakespeare company. There I met some avatars who loved reading and the idea of creating a reading group arouse. The Bibliophiles Anonymous was born but my main problem is getting time to read for pleasure...
I think that one of the most positive aspects of SL is the fact that most avatars are friendly and helpful. However, SL should be more friendly user because it can be difficult to understand instructions in a foreign language and it is worse if you aren’t familiar with language programming, scripts, and so on.
In my opinion, there should be a kind of SL for educational purposes under the philosophy of Moodle. It should be opensource, free and with no need of language programming. For instance, in your inventory, you would have objects that you could edit easily as a chair with a pose and so on. At the moment, that’s one of the difficulties I feel. I was lent a space to train but I have difficulties in creating objects like a new floor, walls, and so on, so I hope to learn that from our activities inworld.

2008-11-08T13:14:00.000-08:00

C। Do you see yourself as a pioneer? Do you think you are more innovative than others in your organisation? Do you think your organisation is lagging behind? Tell us how you feel about this.

In a certain way, I can consider myself as a pioneer because I like trying new digital tools with my students and I am open to change. At the moment, I am working with some students who need reinforcement in some curriculum topics and they are using Wikis to record their work and progress.
In my opinion, it is very important to use Web 2.0 as a way of helping students to develop competences that will be required in the 21st century, in our knowledge society as it is dominated by digital technologies.
Quite often the problem is that our schools don’t have the required infrastructures, equipments or resources to promote an active, digital learning with our students.
It is urgent to create the necessary conditions in schools and also train teachers to use these Web 2.0 tools and MUVESs (for instance, the computers at school don’t have the requirements to run SL. I have to use my personal PC when I want to work with it) in the most effective pedagogical way.

2008-11-02T09:41:00.000-08:00

B. We all explore new technologies, some grab our attention more than others, some seem revolutionary, others simply bore us. Tell us about that new tool, or set of tools, you have just discovered that really excites you, talk about the potential it has to change your work. What do you want to do with it?

Web 2.0 has tools that can be used in education and, depending on the way, they are used, they can enhance learning.
Some time ago I explored wikis and I really think they are a powerful tool to work in a collaborative way. It allows students, even when they are separated in time and place to work and get things done. I tried it with my students (13-14 years old) and they really enjoyed it. They used wikis to do a work based on a Webquest on Eating balanced food. They did some research on the Net according to the sites that I had previously selected and they did the tasks of the webquest on the wiki. They said that it was a different and interesting way of learning and working the curriculum in a collaborative way with their peers.

MUVEnation

2008-11-01T12:36:00.000-07:00

When I heard about MUVEnation I was very excited and really thrilled when I knew I had been accepted in the course as it has as objectives to help teachers acquire the necessary competencies to integrate massively multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) into their teaching practice ; by exploring the links between : virtual worlds, learning and motivation, active learning and pedagogical approaches that include socio-constructivism, situated learning, project based learning, learning by doing, game based learning, simulations and role-playing. (MUVEnation)
First we had to introduce ourselves, then create our blogs and finally do the pre-week assignment:
A. I am your friend. I don’t work in education. You are talking to me about the idea that we all learn from each other, in all kinds of contexts, and that this can often be richer than more formal classroom based learning. I am sceptical. Tell me about an informal learning experience you have had online in which collaboration was involved, show me a concrete example to help me to see what you mean.

Well, in fact I think that learning online can be very enriching. The experience I’m going to tell you about took place in a formal learning context which originated sharing and collaboration in an informal context when we shared issues related to our jobs.
I am doing my Masters in Pedagogy of eLearning and the first academic year was completely online. For the first time, I used a blog, a wiki and Moodle. One of the activities I found more enriching was our discussions in Moodle foruns. We also had to do some pair and group work and we used chat and sometimes we talked on the phone. As we were interested in having a good final work, we worked collaboratively, that is each of us had a task to perform but we discussed our parts in the group and our works were revised by all the elements of the group until everyone agreed with the final version. It was the first time that we did a powerpoint online and it worked nicely because we all were motivated and committed with each other.
At the same time, we used e-mail to share other documents about our subjects at school and talk about professional issues.
It was a great experience because I learnt a lot and I could work according to my pace and my free time, I didn’t have to travel go and forth and it was a very important experience to me which motivated me to apply to this course because I think that when people are motivated and interested in learning and sharing there’s no difference between face-to-face or online learning. Besides for people like me who like to think and reflect before answering, online learning is much better!

Virtual Worlds

2008-10-31T05:47:00.000-07:00

This blog will elicit my learning experiences with MUVEnation!