Virtual Learning Community

In this 31 minute podcast we feature a conversation from the ELI 2008 Annual Meeting. The topic is Second Life and virtual worlds. How can virtual world participation help students become active learners? How can instructors approach virtual worlds with an eye toward their own curriculum. Are there any privacy or safety issues that must be breached in getting your students on Second Life? Particpants in this discussion include:

The full program is now available for the ELI 2008 Spring Focus Session, "Real-World and Technology Rich: Learning by Doing, Learning in Context," being held March 18–19 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Register by February 19 to save money with low, early-bird rates.

Some of the featured sessions and speakers will include:

This 18-minute podcast recorded during the EDUCAUSE 2007 Annual Conference features Joanna S. Robinson, Research Associate, Great Northern Way Campus speaking on "The Pedagogy of Participation: The Conjunction of Physical and Virtual Learning Spaces."

The session abstract:

Do physical spaces differ fundamentally from virtual learning environments? The Center for Digital Media in Vancouver, B.C., is constructing a physical complex simultaneously with a virtual campus in Second Life. We will explore the results that arise from engaging prospective students in the "modding" (modification) of a virtual space with architectural implications for the physical structure.

I appreciate the comments on my last post.

In terms of student privacy I already include in my syllabus a statement that the other students in the class will see student posts in the Bb discussion board and I suggest that if a student is uncomfortable with that circumstance that they should withdraw from the class (nobody ever has).

In terms of legalities, I wonder if an obvious answer is to simply use Wikipedia as the class site. I start an article and show the students how to add, edit, etc. Would the legal onus then fall on Wikipedia and not on me?

I began this trip through a window of opportunity you almost could say, between two potential terrorist attacks. Well that is how they were considered by the authorities and rightly so. On the day before I was to fly, a bag of white powder was discovered left on a plane and it threw Adelaide airport into a spin with delayed flights. I flew out the next morning to Sydney at the early hour of 6.00am with a routine departure. Only hours later more white powder was discovered and the spin turned to chaos with such bad delays people actually missed international connections. Me I got out in the corridor of quiet in between. I never heard of the disruption of course until I got to Hawaii.

My connection was made smoothly in Sydney and the flight to Honolulu was great. I think this is about the 15th time I have done this but it never looses its appeal, especially returning to the islands were our family lived for nine years. As the plane approached Honolulu aiport it was close to midnight local time and I knew the graveyard stopover was upon me. What I mean is that I was destined for Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii a different island to that of Honolulu and the connecting flight was not for 6 hours after we landed. Not enough time to get a room but long enough to cause you to miss a night's sleep so there appears a community of people huddled around the airport terminal waiting for the first interisland flight the next morning. It gets even funnier when you see travellers wheeling their trolleys around this large airport looking for power outlets to recharge their laptops because the battery was flattened on the long flight across the Pacific.

Learning Inquiry:
Jason Nolan and I have been contracted to be editors-in-chief of the new journal Learning Inquiry. It is being published by Springer Science Business Media starting in 2006.

Here's what it is about: Learning Inquiry is a refereed scholarly journal which is devoted to establishing the area of "learning" as a focus for transdisciplinary study. The journal's goal is to be a forum centered on learning that remains open to varied objects of enquiry, including machine, human, plant and animal learning as well as the processes of learning in business, government, and the professions, both in informal and formal environments. The audience for this journal will be anyone interested in learning, understanding its contexts, and anticipating its future. Learning Inquiry will strive to strike a balance between presenting innovative research and documenting current knowledge to foster a scholarly dialogue on learning independent of domain and methodological restrictions. Manuscripts should be written for an audience that is general in scope, and submissions can include essays, research articles, forums, review articles, and book reviews that document the state of knowledge and developments in the field. The journal will also present special issues that identify the central areas of learning enquiry to provide focus for future research.

And there was much rejoicing.

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yay! signed, sealed, and sent.

Report Shows Widespread Use of E-learning Among Nonprofits - Isoph:
The first-ever Nonprofit and Association E-learning Survey shows wide and growing adoption of e-learning among nonprofit organizations and associations, with more than 54 percent of total respondents either using e-learning or planning to in the next 12 m

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interesting report... given the billions flowing through nonprofits every year, it is surprising a few universities don't target them more.