Posts made by Therese Weel

Hi Folks,

Another busy week.

I'm taking tomorrow off - my day job. In addition to enjoying the spring sunshine and some off-leash time, I'll be catching up and updating the mind maps and wiki. 

Tia is on a trip to the UK,  She made a quick pittstop at the internet cafe in the airport to tell us all is fine. She sent the message via Scope!  Tomorrow, Friday,  she will be presenting at a conference sponsored by our first guest Ron Edwards of Ambient Performance.  

Ron has assembled an impressive array of speakers who are interested in mobile learning including our last minute entry  Tia (yea!) who will be presenting on Industry player and discussing Serious Games and Virtual Worlds in a corporate learning context.

Obviously, Ron is very busy with this conference but I will be working on  enticing him back next Tuesday to spend an hour with us in the Virtual World There. Stay tuned.


Therese

The Seriously Mobile Summit is Friday, 20th April, 2007

http://www.ambientperformance.com/Information.htm

Supporting Mobile Workforce Capability 

“Creativity is no longer about which companies have the most visionary executives, but which have the most compelling
architecture of participation. That is, which companies make it easy, interesting and rewarding for a wide range of contributors to offer ideas, solve problems and improve products” - Tim O’Reilly, O’Reilly Media

Speakers:

Tom Glocer, CEO, Reuters
Charles Jennings, Global Head of Learning, Reuters

Fabrizio Cardinali, CEO, Giunti Labs “Personalised Ambient Learning”
Nigel Paine “21st Century Learning”
Jay Cross “Informal Learning Goes Mobile”
Ron Edwards “Mobile Strategies”





Getting people to the right spot at the right time can be a challenge.
After that keeping everyone together with our feet firmly on the ground is another challenge.  Odysseus "Dan" Chandra was a maverick.

I'm sorry you missed the experience ladies.  It is a common experience and one which we need to overcome.  All the more reason for Odysseus to repeat the experience some time real soon (nudge nudge)

Odysseus "Dan" Chandra is a maverick. He showed us the educational objects he  collected and deployed for the CURA project   (Community- University Research Alliance).  A chat box, a movie, a sky platform with audio globes and a holodeck.  We also got  Cura t-shirts to wear which is good because it was a snowy winter's day.

The comment which stands in my mind from the experience was-  "This is what the web should be"

If you took snapshots of the experience please post them in the forum for all to enjoy.

Thanks Dan - The tour was exciting and eye opening.

A noteable site  that I've come across that has quite a bit of information on education and virtual worlds is simteach

http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

One of the many good resources they have is this section

Teen Second Life Educational Projects

  • EdBoost A Campus: TSL project where students script the contents of the island and adults teach computer programming.
  • Global Kids Island - Global Kids Island in the teen grid is a place for teen residents to learn about important social and world issues. The island recently hosted (winter, 2006) a digital media essay contest, the SL version of the Save Darfur charity wristband campaign, a photo show from Global Kids Leaders, Camp Gk (summer, 2006, Fall 2006 UNICEF A World Fit For Children Festival, the Henry Jenkins lecture/dance party, and interactive, experiential workshops led by GK staff on issues related to digital media. In the fall of 2006, a real world machinima program and a real-world gaming program, both using TSL, were launched in NYC. Information about all of these projects - teen posts, comics, video, press coverage and more - available at our web site.
  • Kids Connect Island - Kids Connect is a series of workshops for young people in multiple locations, teaching them to connect and work together via performance, storytelling and collaboration by both theatrical and digital means. In our pilot program in summer 2006, participants connected and created with other students in New York and Amsterdam via video streaming and on Kids Connect Island in the teen grid. Guided by artists and educators from theatre and new media, they learned skills like VJ-ing, Playback Theatre, digital storytelling, and 3D modeling. In teen SL, they met and collaborated to build a hybrid city combining aspects of both New York and Amsterdam. Within that common space, they created a performance that occurred both live and online simultaneously.
  • Pacific Rim Exchange - PacRim X is a collaboarative project between two school districts, one in California, and one in Japan. The island will be private and only open to exchange students from the two school districts, and their teachers. The blog will catalog the progress of the project.
Thank you for these worthwhile and fitting resources. I'll get them into the wiki at my earliest opportunity.

I have been exploring second life with the help of these links.  I agree Corinne the tough part is finding the good places to go and perhaps finding people to go there with.

I explored Svarga last night and made my first SL friend.  I was up in the clouds editing my appearance when a fellow avatar spied me from the tower and flew up to see what I was up to.  The  conversation centered around my wardrobe choices. 

I found it interesting how much more personal and direct the conversations can be in SL compared to discussion forums.  There is certainly an opportunity to enhance lavalife with second life. blush

First of all I'm impressed with an 11 year old who can go into a virtual world to look at ideas for sustainability and share her insight and the value she sees.

I love your comment  about shared learning between the SL creators and the visitors and also between teacher and student.  Such a wonderful dynamic. 

Thanks for sharing your experience Margot.