Gaming and learning is growing as more and more research is done on the subject and Second Life affords educators a basic gaming engine.Tonight we had a fun and educational NMC Teachers Buzz with Jeremy Koester (aka Jeremy Braver) leading a discussion on Gaming & Learning in Second Life using a small group math activity to get across the points he was making. He quickly got the participants to break out into small groups and follow instructions on a notecard. ... more » »
Today Bryan Mnemonic (aka Assoc. Prof. Bryan Carter) from the University of Central Missouri and Ali Andrews (aka Aline Click) of Northern Illinois University (NIU) told a group of SL teachers of their work with students in SL, and took us on a tour of some of the assignments and projects produces by learners in their composition classes in Second Life. Bryan has been teaching courses in SL for just over a year on the Island of Glidden, maintained by ... more » »
Dr. Bryan Carter has been using Second Life in his Composition II courses for several semesters now and has some ideas on what works well for his students and what he changed based on feedback and observations of his classes.
His classroom is located on the Island of Glidden, maintained by Aline Click from Northern Illinois University. She and her team have constructed a series of spaces where faculty from the University of Central Missouri and Northern Illinois can conduct ... more » »
Monday's Buzz field trip was excellent. Some 37 people gathered on the Casablanca sim to learn about the Virtual Morocco project of the Johnson & Wales University, in collaboration with the Moroccan Ministry of Tourism.
We were shown a number of builds including a souk, a mosque, a garden, a cafe and a lovely beach. This project began last Spring with Ann Enigma and her colleague Desty Kenzo. The students went to Morocco on a study trip. The purpose ... more » »
The Global Outreach Morocco team at Johnson & Wales University has partnered with the Ministry of Tourism of Morocco on an experiential learning project using Second Life to create a virtual Morocco.
Virtual Morocco contains monuments and experiences from Casablanca, Rabat, and Marrakesh, and includes space for projecting real-world events into the virtual environment. The goals of this multidisciplinary team project are to provide an immersive experience that educates visitors about Moroccan culture while enticing them to think about Morocco ... more » »
Today we had a fantastic field trip to Lyr Lobo's space in Arah with 33 avatars attending - a great turnout! Lyr was demonstrating a commercial tool, called Paradise Blanket (you buy the base tool and can buy additional modules) which rezzes complete 'scenes'. Both Lyr and the NMC are producing scripted tools to do something similar to this - a variation of a holodeck - so make sure you're subscribed to the Campus Observer for the latest news about ... more » »
We had a very vibrant and fast paced, 15-avatar meeting, on Labor Day about orientations to Second Life for teachers and students. My heartfelt thanks to my co-facilitator Heidi TeeCee and we look forward to others stepping up and leading the meetings! The full transcript of the meeting can be found on the Teachers Buzz section of the NMC Campus Wiki. The wide-ranging discussion covered education contexts within Second Life, current resources and needs, issues related to orientations, types ... more » »
The next biweekly NMC Teacher Buzz Meeting is this Mon 4 Sep (a holiday in the US we know). The meeting will be on the NMC campus at 9am SLT/PST (http://tinyurl.com/o33o5) to make it more EU friendly as requested last time.
Based on the summary from the brainstorm in our first session, the discussion topic for this week will be Orientations for faculty and students new to SL.
Hosts will be Nick Noakes (Corwin Carillon) and Heidi Trotta (Heidi TeeCee). Look for ... more » »
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