Second Life and Education

It looks vaguely cool, somehow game-like.

Is it 'teacher friendly'? Can you control the attention of the class in a virtual situation.
Could be used for for discussions, immersive learning, problem based learning, various forms of experimental and experiential learning.

Links-
http://www.slideshare.net/olga.caprotti/mathematics-education-in-second-life/

http://blogs.ala.org/yalsa.php?c=1&more=1&pb=1&tb=1&title=second_life_best_practices_in_education

On the other hand check out this article.

Drew Murphy at the K-12 OnLine Conference

go to- http://k12onlineconference.org/


“Step by Step- Building a Web2.0 Classroom”
40 min - Oct 13, 2007

Take charge of your web 2.0 experience, make it concrete for novices.

Ten essentials skills
Explore and Participate
1. tabbing vs windowing
2. bookmarking (archiving)
3. sign up and log in (join something!) participate
4. comment and review- again participate

Deconstruct and Reconstruct
1. cut and paste- essential, learn key commands
2. emphasize and align- give it meaning, be consistent, size, bold, alignment
3. images and uploading- show people how to do it, file size, export and reduce

Connect and create
1. Linking (hyperlinks) how to make
2. Slideshows- entertaining
3. Embedding and Iframing- from display and show to teach and perform

Drew uses chatworld, expression, zoho, wikispaces.

The web is hugely abstract, our job is to make it more concrete.

Why web 2.0 for teachers-
saves time (but takes time to learn)
provides lesson options
enhances class interactions
improves student behavior
makes teaching more rewarding

tappedin.org

first impression- where am I? lots of political threads, relativism, etc. a little new agey? just a first impression.

"Tapped In is the online workplace of an
international community of education
professionals. K-12 teachers and librarians,
professional development staff, teacher
education faculty and students, and
researchers engage in professional
development programs and informal
collaborative activities with colleagues."

Uses 'rooms' to build connectivity between educators to share resources. You can also create groups and invite k-12 students to join provided you take responsibility for their conduct.

Animation Videocast

Let's see how this one works. This is a demo of an animation program called Gif Builder. I produced the videocast using Snapz Pro on my new MacBook. I'm learning all kinds of new things as I migrate from the PC platform to the MacOS.