EDUCAUSE | Contributed by Organizations or Campuses; Articles, Papers, and Reports; and Second Life

Envisioning the Educational Possibilities of User-Created Virtual Worlds

elilly — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:03:10 -0500

Educational games and simulations can engage students in higher-level cognitive thinking, such as interpreting, analyzing, discovering, evaluating, acting, and problem solving. Recent technical advances in multiplayer, user-created virtual worlds have significantly expanded the capabilities of user interaction and development within these simulated worlds. This ability to develop and interact with your own simulated world offers many new and exciting educational possibilities. This article explores the technical capabilities and educational potential of these new worlds. Additionally, it presents and illustrates a model, which uses interaction combinations, to identify course content and topics having educational applications in virtual worlds.

Sizing Up Second Life

elilly — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 12:14:17 -0600

Higher ed learns how to live in a virtual world.

Sharing, Privacy and Trust in Our Networked World: A Report to the OCLC Membership

ckeller — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 17:11:59 -0500

The practice of using a social network to establish and enhance relationships based on some common ground—shared interests, related skills, or a common geographic location—is as old as human societies, but social networking has flourished due to the ease of connecting on the Web. This OCLC membership report explores this web of social participation and cooperation on the Internet and how it may impact the library’s role, including:

The use of social networking, social media, commercial and library services on the Web
How and what users and librarians share on the Web and their attitudes toward related privacy issues
Opinions on privacy online
Libraries’ current and future roles in social networking

The report is based on a survey (by Harris Interactive on behalf of OCLC) of the general public from six countries—Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States—and of library directors from the U.S. The research provides insights into the values and social-networking habits of library users.

Second Life: It's not a game

drupal — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 09:53:47 -0600

"Fortune's David Kirkpatrick reports on why IBM's Sam Palmisano and other tech leaders think Second Life could be a gold mine."