Best Practices in Education

More than fifty university students from Switzerland and Australia were virtually brought together in groups of four to analyze a marketing case study. Each team member was assigned a role, Marketing Manager, Operations Manager, Finance Manager and Market Expert. Information on the case was distributed throughout a Second Life location and each member of a team had to locate information relevant to their role in the virtual world environment. Analysis and a proposed solution from each group was only made possible by effective information sharing and collaboration within groups. Presentations took place in Second Life and the best solution from each country awarded a prize. In our fifty minute presentation we share the details of implementing this approach to case-study learning and discuss the strengths, weaknesses and improvements uncovered during our first implementation. We also discuss with the audience how this method could be transposed to other areas. The possibility may be offered, to those interested, to visit the platform where the simulation took place to experiment it by themselves.Best Practices in Education

Tips for Vitual Teachers such as Tools of the trade, how to handle students, class clowns, griefers, hecklers, and how to market the class.Best Practices in Education

The 2010 National Educational Technology Plan identifies immersive media as among the most powerful emerging technologies for learning. This session describes our research in designing and studying immersive virtual worlds, as well as augmented realities enabled by mobile devices, as resources for instruction and for assessment, as well as student motivation. isites.harvard.edu/chris_dede Best Practices in Education

The Smithsonian Latino Virtual Museum (LVM) is a cross-platform immersive education initiative based on bilingual mixed media experiences created to enhance visitor's knowledge, understanding and appreciation of Latino Cultural Heritage through innovative and engaging online experiences. Learn more about LVM as a virtual museum model for digital learning and outreach through a brief behind the scenes discussion with Melissa Carrillo, LVM creative director and founder. Ms. Carrillo will be joined by research scholar from the Smithsonian National Museum of American Indian (NMAI) Cynthia Vidaurri and LVM lead artist Stacy Fox to share behind the scenes best practices curating in virtual spaces and the power of virtual worlds as learning spaces. Other special guests include artist/poet/musician Nancy Lorenza Green and writer poet/founder of Mouthfeel Press Maria Miranda Maloney.Best Practices in Education

Educators must keep abreast of new learning technologies. Pedagogical learning technology products include: self-paced elearning courseware; digital media referenceware; collaboration-based or social learning; simulation- or game-based learning; cognitive learning; and mobile learning. These learning technology products may contain one or more of the following content: packaged orcustom content; value added services; hosted or installed tools and platforms; and personal learning devices. Use of these learning technology products in academic settings varies widely from country to country. This information is based on market research by Ambient Insight.Best Practices in Education

John Lester (aka Pathfinder Lester), Chief Learning Officer, ReactionGrid Inc. talks about Jibe as a multiuser 3d virtual world platform accessible via a web browser or standalone client. Best Practices in Education

David W. Deeds, as IT Manager/Teacher for Changchun American International School in Jilin Province, China, has been using 3D virtual worlds in K-12 (international) school education for three years: Second Life, OpenSimulator, Quest Atlantis and Minecraft. By the time this presentation is given, Alice and Unity3D might be included in the list as well. Although used primarily for the International Baccalaureate Organization’s Technology and Information Technology in a Global Society courses, 3D virtual worlds have been featured as part of English and, perhaps of particular interest, several cross-curricular efforts with Art, Music and Science classes. He used Second Life as an integral part of computer science and English courses for three years in a university and college setting before switching venues to K-12 schools. David was invited to present on his work with 3D virtual worlds at seven international educational technology conferences during 2011, among them the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education’s Global Learn Asia Pacific in Melbourne and ED-MEDIA in Lisbon. He also presented inworld to the Bavarian Center for Gifted Children on the strengths of 3D virtual worlds regarding not just gifted or talented but also special needs education. After describing the classes conducted using the different environments, he’ll use a “What Worked, What Didn’t” format to discuss both lessons learned and plans for future classes. In Second Life he’s Deed Davids. Come visit his Second Life K-12s Inworld cybercampus: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Teaching/79/199/21/.Best Practices in Education

Peek inside two project-based programs within NIAUniverse: daVinci Worlds and the RealWorld-InWorld NASA Engineering Design Challenge (RWIW). Within daVinci Worlds, middle and high school students team to synthesize and organize their learning by constructing knowledge spaces in this virtual world setting. In RWIW, college engineering students virtually mentor middle and high school students to refine NASA-inspired engineering design solutions. Steps of the engineering design process are displayed and models built InWorld. For those interested, a tour of NIAUniverse will follow this presentation. To join the tour, you will need to download NIAUniverse. Temporary usernames/passwords will be shared.Best Practices in Education

More than fifty university students from Switzerland and Australia were virtually brought together in groups of four to analyze a marketing case study. Each team member was assigned a role, Marketing Manager, Operations Manager, Finance Manager and Market Expert. Information on the case was distributed throughout a Second Life location and each member of a team had to locate information relevant to their role in the virtual world environment. Analysis and a proposed solution from each group was only made possible by effective information sharing and collaboration within groups. Presentations took place in Second Life and the best solution from each country awarded a prize. In our fifty minute presentation we share the details of implementing this approach to case-study learning and discuss the strengths, weaknesses and improvements uncovered during our first implementation. We also discuss with the audience how this method could be transposed to other areas. The possibility may be offered, to those interested, to visit the platform where the simulation took place to experiment it by themselves.Best Practices in Education

A Funeral For Teen Second Life: A Presentation From Beyond the Grave on the Future of Mixed-Age Education in Second Life. Eulogizing Teen Second Life over the open casket of his Teen Grid Avatar, GlobalKids Bixby will share his deep grief over the loss of Teen Second Life. Meanwhile, a surprise guest will celebrate the end of Linden Lab grid for teens and herald the new age of mixed-grid education in Second Life. Best Practices in Education

This session explores how women college students negotiate in virtual worlds. Aimee used feminist methods to identify how women in an undergraduate communications class understand the psychological and contextual factors which influence their establishment of identity and interaction in a Second Life learning community. Preliminary findings suggest that issues of avatar choice and control, time and responsibility, and technical competence emerge as influential factors. This session provides insight into the instructional design of Second Life learning experiences in order to support equal access and participation for all learners. Best Practices in Education

You can’t be online all the time that your students are online. Most projects in teaching and learning in immersive environments begin on a shoestring. You don’t have a lot of support from your school or institution. You need to find ways to support the work the students and participants will be doing. Just meeting in an immersive environment is not enough. You need other ways to share, collaborate, and create content together. If you are part of a K-12 or university system that utilizes a content or learning management system, you may already have some of the support tools you need to surround your students with synchronous and asynchronous methods of collaborating and communicating and producing content. But do those systems have all the tools you need? Could there be more options out there? This presentation will showcase tools for collaborating, sharing, creating content, managing your learners, and offering the most engaging synchronous and asynchronous support tools to your immersive experience.Best Practices in Education

World of Warcraft is typically played “alone together:” Players solo game content while chatting with friends in voice or text. However, from the beginning MMOs (massively multiplayer online games) have been built around the assumption that playing together, particularly playing with strangers, is inherently good. Game designers have evolved rules, penalties and incentives to push players together, whether they want to group or not. The ‘pick up group’ or PUG, is a product of social engineering, with its designers attempting to teach vital social, civic and political skills in the game space. This examines designers’ motives for countering demands for solo play, the player experience of encouraged sociability, and trends in the engineering of social play. http://video.foxnews.com/v/4511179/video-game-class-offered-at-arizona-state-university http://www.statepress.com/2011/01/17/professors-hold-class-in-%E2%80%9Cworld-of-warcraft%E2%80%9D/Best Practices in Education

Elisabeth Hayes and John Carter McKnight describe an interdisciplinary university course that introduces students to community and governance in two virtual worlds, Second Life and World of Warcraft. Focus was on the collective class project, the formation of a class "guild," and how the combination of face-to-face meetings, along with guided and self-directed experiences in both worlds, affected the students' engagement and learning. Best Practices in Education

It has been about 150 years since the documents we now know as course syllabi were first used in academia. The documents are rooted in the traditions of the information delivery and management models of education. See examples of next generation syllabi. The re-imagined course guides leverage 21st Century technologies and cognitive theory to provide a course communication and planning center. These documents blend the principles of Informatics, Experience Design, Cognitive Theories of Multimedia eLearning and Constructionist concepts to create living interactive resources which initiate the 'conversation' with students in a clear, approachable manner.Best Practices in Education

Steve Zapytowski gives an overview of the vSTEM (Virtual Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) project at Kent State University - progress so far and still planning for the future as part of iLIVE (Institute for Learning in Virtual Environments) Best Practices in Education

Capturing Moments Through Machinima Dr. Phylis Johnson and partner Lowe Runo show educators and others the potential of making machinima that moves beyond the mundane to a new level of storytelling that will captivate audiences, especially students. What is it that makes a good story, and how can that be expressed through machinima? The authors borrow examples from their forthcoming book grounded in numerous interviews from the machinima community, as well as filmmaking research and experience, to reveal the fantastic and furious nuances of this expressive medium that borrows from animation, cinema and television, but has emerged with its own character. This presentation also shares an overview of the state of the machinima practice in virtual worlds. See: http://slmachinimaarts.ning.com/ http://promag.ning.com/ http://www.machinimaguild.com/Best Practices in Education

Coming Unhinged and Feeling Whole: Carbon Based to Virtual World Dialogue Scott & Larry are both experienced facilitators and have created the Veteran – Civilian Dialogue; a social healing project designed to bring together veterans and civilians, in equal numbers, to talk about the impact of war upon both groups. In September 2010 they brought the VCD to the virtual world of Second Life and were amazed at the emotional impact and restorative effects these "virtual" sessions had on the participants. Best Practices in Education

Find out about the fascinating neuroscience work being done with special EEG headsets to map emotions, engagement and thinking by monitoring brain patterns. Dr. Gibosn's team is from the School of Social Transformation, Equity Alliance at ASU,Arizona State University Best Practices in Education

Last year the sky fell in, or did it. Peggy explores all the new worlds of opportunity and online spaces for learning. There is no stronger advocate for innovation with K-12 kids education than Peggy so don't miss this inspiring presentation. Best Practices in Education

To experience, it's about being there; to learn, it's about doing there. This keynote takes us into the world of architecting learning experiences. Randy explores top ten 3D interactive, immersive learning experiences drawing from experiences in the Virtual Biodome, a year-long learning immersion resulting in a Certificate in Virtual World in a joint partnership with the iSchool and the Professional Continuing Education arm of the University of Washington. He will punctuate the emphasis on doing in his award winning virtual world interfaces that utilize 2b3d's unique decision support learning techniques. Best Practices in Education

The truth about Botgirl Questi and her real and unreal view of the world, identity and virtual lives - and also how this is influencing education and life-long learning.Best Practices in Education

Suzi Mazzenga (SL: Xirconnia Morphett), Instructional Design Specialist - "Drawing on Second Life Experiences to Enrich the First Life". Suzi poses the question, "Is your avatar a virtual extension of the real you?" and discusses using Second Life to expand imagination, enhance group dynamics, increase self-awareness by becoming your exact opposite, and how to apply to knowledge gained in Second Life to your first life. Correction: The title overlay in the video has a typo in the speaker's SL name. It should be Xirconnia Morphett.Best Practices in Education

Jonathan Richter (Wainbrave Bernal SL), Research Associate, Center for Advanced Technology in Education, University of Oregon - "Creating a community of practice and searchable database of learning objects in Second Life - The SaLamander Project". Jonathan invites educators in Second Life to join The Salamander Project, an initiative to locate, categorize, and evaluate learning objects in Second Life through a community of practice that ultimately creates a searchable database of learning objects in Second Life.Best Practices in Education

Jeffrey Corbin (Zazen Manbi SL), Director of University of Denver's Science School in Second Life, Physics and Astronomy Department, University of Denver - "SciLands in Second Life". Jeffrey introduces SciLands, a micro-continent in Second Life dedicated to providing a top notch educational experience in the physical and natural sciences to all the citizens of Second Life. The SciLands micro-contintent includes the Science School islands created by University of Denver, the International Space Museum, NASA Collab Facility, Nanotech Island, NASA COLAB, and more.Best Practices in Education

Chuck Hamilton (SL: Longg Weeks), IBM Center for Advanced Learning, and Holly Stewart (SL: Ada Alfa), Virtual Universe Community and 3D Internet Division - "IBM Keynote". Chuck and Holly take questions from the educator community and discuss IBM's experimentation with virtual worlds and interest in the future 3D internet.Best Practices in Education

Peggy Sheehy (SL: Maggie Marat), Instructional Technology Facilitator and Media Specialist at Suffern Middle School; Catherine Parsons (SL: Victoria Gloucster), Assistant Superintendent Pine Plains Central School District, and Kevin Jarrett (SL: KJ Hax), Part-Time Faculty Walden University - K-12 Panel: "To Affinity and Beyond: Fostering meaningful and productive relationships in a virtual reality environment". The panel discusses affinity relationships formed in the virtual world and how they can enhance educational objectives, including the rapidity of relationship forming and levels of intimacy developed in online environments.Best Practices in Education

Dr. Cynthia Calongne (SL: Lyr Lobo), Professor of Computer Science, Colorado Technical University - "The Amusement and the Maze Game Class Projects". Cynthia discusses adult learning and the iterative process her students used to create interactive game projects in a programming course taught using Second Life.Best Practices in Education

Kathy Schrock (Kathy Dryburgh-SL), Administrator for Technology for the Nauset Public Schools - "Guide to SL for K-12 Educators" - Kathy takes the audience on a tour of sites in Second Life that demonstrate innovative teaching and learning practices and sites for professional development for K-12 educators. (Narrated by Starr Sonic of SLCN.tv)Best Practices in Education

Bill Mosely (SL: Pirate Shipman), Professor of Computer Studies at Bakersfield College and Adjunct Faculty at Pepperdine University - "The Big Picture of Education in Second Life". Bill presents a case study from the Masters in Educational Technology Program at Pepperdine, and discusses the outcomes from his use of Second Life as a supplement in the course. He also asks the question, "How should we teach in a virtual world?" (Narrated by Starr Sonic of SLCN.tv)Best Practices in Education

Lindy McKeown (Deckah Mah SL), Digital Strategy Project Officer for the University of Southern Queensland - "Action Learning in Second Life". Lindy explains the pedagogy of Action Learning and discusses its potential impact in 3D online environments. The focus is on doing, experiencing, and reflecting on the material, and using virtual worlds as a place to bridge the knowing-doing gap. (Narrated by Starr Sonic of SLCN.tv) Best Practices in Education

John Jamison (Virtual Bacon-SL), Director, Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning at Colorado Mountain College - "Two Years of Introducing Educators to Second Life in 60 Minutes, or: Tips for Dinosaur Wrangling". John discusses the obstacles to introducing Second Life to faculty, administrators, and even IT staff, and gives tips for those who are looking to build support for SL projects on their campus.Best Practices in Education

Barry Joseph (Globalkids Bixby-SL), Director of Global Kids Online Leadership Program - "(Educator's) History of the Teen Grid - A Global Kids Choose-Your-Own-Best-Practices Adventure". Barry delivers a brief history of the Global Kids program on the Teen Grid in Second Life, and demonstrates a tool they developed to incorporate audience participation into Second Life presentations. Best Practices in Education

Ken Hudson (SL: Kenny Hubble), Loyalist College - "Loyalist College in Second Life". Ken traces his first stumbling steps as a newbie through his experience taking a Harvard law class in-world, and talks about how he developed a program in Second Life that has had a transformative effect on students and faculty at his real world institution.Best Practices in Education

Sarah Robbins (SL: Intellagirl Tully), co-author of the forthcoming "Second Life for Dummies" book - "Engagement in Second Life Learning". Sarah discusses the problem with student engagement in higher education and how educators might use virtual worlds like Second Life to recapture students' attention both in and out of the classroom.Best Practices in Education

Chris Collins (SL: Fleep Tuque), co-chair of the SL Best Practices in Education 2007 conference and IT Analyst at the University of Cincinnati - "An observational survey of educational institutions in the virtual world of Second Life". Chris delivers a preliminary report on an observational study of 170 educational institutions with a group or land presence in Second Life as of May 2007. The study focuses on features of the virtual campuses and how land space is being used in Second Life. The study was co-authored by Dr. Nancy Jennings (SL: Sweetpea Sunnyside), also of University of Cincinnati, who could not be present at SLBPE.Best Practices in Education

Jackie Gerstein gives an informal and casual tour of her surprising and fun build in Second Life that lets learners explore the concepts of Maslow's pyramid of human needs at their own pace Best Practices in Education

Maggie Marat and Lucus Gillespie share their success story of how they engaged at-risk students in learning, team building and collaboration with a WoW after school program Best Practices in Education

Terry Beaubois has been successfully using Second Life for teaching architecture and community design to a state-wide distributed group of universities in Montana Best Practices in Education

Using virtual simulations for training is not exactly a new concept for the military, but Andy Stricker, Distributed Learning Architect at Air University shows us how they are using virtual worlds to teach leadership using 3D games in Second Life. Best Practices in Education

Randall Holmes, a mathematician, has started to use Second Life to teach basic math to students and shares a lot of the nuts & bolts conclusions about how well it works. Best Practices in Education

Authors of "Learning in 3D" Karl Kapp and Tony O'Driscoll share their thoughts about why they believe this book is needed and some insights from selected chaptersBest Practices in Education