virtual learning environment

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:

In this 15 minute podcast, we feature an interview with Julian Lombardi, Assistant Vice President at Duke University and Executive Director of the Open Croquet Consortium. Croquet is a powerful new open source software development environment and software infrastructure for creating and deploying deeply collaborative multi-user online applications and metaverses on and across multiple operating systems and devices.

In this 21 minute podcast, we feature an interview with Ulrich Rauch, Director of Arts Instructional Support & Information Technology at The University of British Columbia. He has recently been involved in a project called Ancient Spaces at UBC, which uses gaming and virtual world technology to recreate locations from antiquity. He also participated in a session at the EDUCAUSE 2007 Annual Conference entitled, "Indigenous Cultures: From Observing to Experiencing, from Videography to 3D VR Immersion".

Ulrich Rauch organizes the implementation of educational technologies for instructors, students and staff in the Faculty of Arts at the University of British Columbia. As the director of a technical and an instructional support unit, and as trained sociologist, Ulrich combines his experience as an instructor with his perspective on learning technologies to research and apply e-learning strategies in support of collaborative learning.

Sex, commerce and stalking.  In recent discussions on our campus on the use of Second Life as a learning environment, these were some of the first things people noted as concerns.  Sex was a problem just because it was there to contend with - whereas it is not much of a factor in our current LMS!  It was also thought that some of the economic arguments about Second Life being an "authentic" environment (because of the real economy) were questionable; i.e. what is so "authentic" about commerce, and is that the kind of "authenticity" we want to emphasize in our courses.  And stalking is a bad thing, of course...

I did not share these concerns about Second Life.  In ways I find both reassuring and depressing, sex, commerce and stalking are all part of life on campus anyway, and in these regards Second Life does not differ much from life on our offline, physical campus (except that real sex is better and real stalking is worse than Second Life sex/stalking).

In this podcast of “ Cyberinfrastructure-Enabled Learning Environments for Gen Z,” Gary R. Bertoline, distinguished professor of computer graphics and assistant dean at Purdue University, discusses the ways cyberinfrastructure is positioned to revolutionize learning as it has already revolutionized scientific research. He outlines how computation, visualization, storage, and high-speed networks can bring together the best of traditional pedagogy with new paradigms that reflect our times.

This podcast presents a panel discussion with four experts on immersive learning environments (ILEs), covering the operational aspects of implementing an ILE, including infrastructure, user support, and pedagogical and policy requirements. The panelists for this session, “The Bar May Not Be as High as You Expect: Considerations in Implementing an Immersive Learning Environment,” were:

In this podcast of the presentation "Generation G and the 21st Century," Richard Van Eck, associate professor of instructional design and technology at the University of North Dakota, discusses the theory behind the effectiveness of games in teaching and learning; what the past can teach us about if, how, and when to implement digital game-based learning; and what this will mean for colleges and universities.

This was presented as a general session at Immersive Learning Environments: New Paths to Interaction and Engagement, the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative's Spring 2007 Focus Session, held at the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation in Raleigh, North Carolina, March 27-28, 2007. Additional resources from the event, including session recordings and audio interviews, video, presentation materials, and photos, also are available online.

It would be disingenuous to present only the good things about Second Life. The lagging, inventory issues, downtime, etc... One thing I've heard from a few people is that getting a response to an email is a challenge. Now, however, I have some proof of that. The most recent entry (top one) is from a few minutes ago.

***** ***** *****

Ok - trying again.

You say to write to this email address, but it doesn't seem as if it is being monitored. And if it is, why have I not even gotten the decency of a response.

On 3/19/07 5:14 PM, "AJ Kelton" wrote:

> Hello again,

> > I never received a response to my email and the problem continues. I was, > just now, sitting next to the computer that has SL running and saw the pop up > come up, I went to click on OK right away, but got the second "you are not > logged off" message.

> > Look forward to a response.

> > aj

> > On 3/14/07 11:44 AM, "AJ Kelton" wrote:

> >> Hello,

>> >> For the first few days, I'd get the blue "you will be..." pop up and then a >> few minutes would go by before being kicked off. Lately, however, I've been >> getting the "you will be..." at the same time as the "buh-bye!"

"It's been said that there are two types of computer users: Those who get this joke and those who don't."

Taken from the web page of Dot.Tunes, which you can find at http://dotpad.com. This application allows you to publish an iTunes playlist (or lists, or the entire library) to a web page for distribution to any device that can get music from a URL - such as an X Box, PDA, or, hopefully, Second Life.

If this works, it opens up a lot of possibilities for faculty members. The alternative that SL recommends is over $200 and is a full-featured application. It appears that Dot.Tunes does just enough so that it will work for what is needed. The possibilities are as limited as whatever the faculty members can put into iTunes.

There was no manual online (I was told its in the works) but they did have a forum to post questions into. I posted a question only to find that the first time you post, the posting needs to be moderated – a safety precaution I suppose. Within a few hours I got a note back from someone at dot.tunes indicting they would like for this to work and what was SL looking for in the feed. I provided the person with everything I new, or could find on SL, including URLs from services that already stream into SL. That was on Saturday and I’ve heard nothing since. TO be honest, I was surprised to hear anything over the weekend anyway, but I was hoping that they would at least post my request into the forum. Perhaps there are others out there who can help solve the puzzle.