EDUCAUSE | Web Seminars Contributed by EDUCAUSE and Second Life

Powerful But Not a Panacea: Virtual Worlds as a Tool for Situational Learning

ckeller — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:28:40 -0600

Once relegated to the fringes of the games industry, virtual worlds such as Second Life are now viewed as a promising instructional platform. College instructors use this emerging technology to teach courses on topics ranging from architecture and anthropology to history, literature and computer programming, and a growing number of Fortune 500 companies conduct employee training in virtual worlds. In 2007 alone, educational institutions were responsible for the creation of more than 1,200 islands in Second Life.

While many educators are excited about the potential of virtual worlds, others are deeply wary. Some fear that virtual worlds are a faddish technology that actually degrades student learning. In this presentation, Professor Aaron Delwiche of Trinity University suggests that there are grounds for both enthusiasm and skepticism. Virtual worlds are certainly not an educational panacea, and they present many challenges for students, instructors, and administrators. When coupled with thoughtful strategies grounded in situated learning theory, however, these emerging technologies can be very powerful educational tools.

Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0

ckeller — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 12:58:50 -0600

Since the 1990s, we’ve been putting our Web courses in boxes, mastering enterprise course management systems, and striving for single sign-on seamless integration between all Web-enabled business and academic environments in each of our colleges and universities. Sometime around the turn of the century, however, explosive innovation on the open Web began to turn a “read only” environment into a “read/write” environment. With the development of RSS as a syndication platform, the read/write environment began to support and foster a very powerful, loosely coupled information architecture across the World Wide Web. In 2004, a group led by Tim O’Reilly gave this phenomenon a name: Web 2.0.

In this seminar, Campbell will explore the concepts behind Web 2.0, some of the individual tools and services (Flickr, Facebook, Second Life, del.icio.us) that are commonly listed under this rubric, and the implications of this phenomenon for teaching and learning, particularly in higher education. He will also present several ways in which he and his colleagues have used Web 2.0 tools and services, both as teachers and in their own learning, and comment on the good, the bad, and the ugly results. If time permits, he will also speak to the relationship between Web 2.0 and the open source software movement. Finally, he’ll offer some thoughts on what Web 3.0 might look like, and why educators should care.

Emerging Worlds: Transformative Technologies for Teaching and Learning

ckeller — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 09:19:26 -0500

Web 2.0 projects have rapidly expanded into a world of social media. From blogs to podcasts, millions of people have published and shared a growing amount of digital content. At the same time virtual worlds have grown in popularity, from massively multiplayer games like World of Warcraft to metaverse projects like Second Life. How do these two movements apply to higher education? Where do Web 2.0 and the metaverse connect? What trends are emerging for the near future?