A Love for Learning

I’ve been intrigued with this Second Life concept since I first heard of it within this past year.  (It’s been around since 2003, so, yes, I am a little slow!)  I’ve been a little hesitant to try it because I’m, admittedly, a little afraid of avatars.  (Plus I’ve always thought that people who get into virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft are just a little strange.)

But the constant buzz I’m hearing in education circles is making me stand up and take more notice.  Second Life is a 3D virtual world that is created by its users.  It was designed  by Linden Lab (using the Linden programming language) in San Francisco in 2003, and now there are millions of inhabitants in this “world”.   It’s free to join with a basic avatar, which affords you the opportunity to walk around and visit the different areas within Second Life as well as interact with others.  There are other levels of membership which come at a cost and that give you the opportunity to build or to buy, sell and trade whatever product or service might have to offer.  You can check out the plans for yourself if you’re interested.  You can purchase Linden dollars at Second Life’s exchange center.  One of my resources said that $5 US dollars will get you $1250 US Linden dollars, but not having been in the world myself, I’m not sure how accurate that is today.  

Second Life is a Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE).  It gives you the opportunity to do things that are not possible in real life.  You can fly, visit Ancient Rome (complete with gladiators), orbit around Saturn or perform in a Shakespearean play in front of a real audience.  Several companies own real estate in Second Life:  NBC, Coca Cola, Dell, Apple, Best Buy, and Toyota among many more.  Colleges and Universites also have space there, using it as a recruitment center, an orientation space for new students or for educational purposes.  NYU, Harvard, Columbia University, Virginia Tech, Ohio State and UCLA are a small sample of some of the universities that have real estate on Second Life as well.  When you first join Second Life, you are taken to Orientation Island where you learn how to move about and interact in this virtual world.  From there you can visit anything from  libraries, museums, and science centers to the inside of a computer to imaginary cities in the sky as well as parks, dance clubs and everyday places.  You can collaborate, talk and build things with people around the world.

So what is the potential impact on education?  I’d recommend viewing this You Tube Video for some initial ideas.   First, it immerses students in their own learning, and second, it lets them experience rather than just read/write about different times, places, events, or phenomenon.  A history or literature teacher might enjoy giving students the opportunity to travel to a different time and place and take on the role of a merchant, baker, peasant, etc to really experience that time period.   Science or math teachers  might enjoy having them track and analyze real-time data.  Those in management classes can learn a lot from the opportunity to really create a business.  Architect and engineering students can get a sense of building, and the artistic students can really practice applying their design skills.  There are worlds and islands for really any content area or subject of interest.  It’s almost like students can get apprenticeships into just about any career.  There are even outreach and advocacy centers which promote the interests of special needs groups.  For example, there is a place where you can “experience” what it’s like to have schitzophrenia. 

More than anything, Second Life has the potential to improve students’ communication, collaboration and problem-solving skills as they truly interact in this virtual environment.  It likewise is yet another place for teachers to network and share resources with other like-minded individuals.   For example, ISTE (the International Society of Technology Educators) has real estate in Second Life.  I’ve been told by Jo Ann Mattson that it’s a good idea  for “newbie” to learn where some safe, reliable areas are before you go off exploring too much.  (You can search by topic and map before you delve in, and then you save the SLURLs for later.)  It’s important to remember that there all all kinds of situations out there, and we certainly might not wish our students (or even ourselves) to stumble upon inappropriate ones.  She also told me that schools can buy their own real estate that can be completely private, and that makes it more interesting to me.  Otherwise I’m not sure what kind of permission slips we’ll have to fill out to take them around Saturn!

Here are a few more resources and examples which might be of interest:

•  Best Practices in Education’s Wiki:  post after the 2007 Second Life in Education Conference
• Another wiki:  Second Life in Education
• Article from eSchool News
• 2006 article from CNN
• Chemistry Activities in Second Life
• Ohio State’s Second Life (from You Tube)
• “What You Should Know about Second Life” from NYU
• Sloodle (Combines Open Source Moodle combines with Second Life)

Second Life holds some exciting possiblities for educators.   Now I just have to get over my fear of avatars!!

This week I learned that you don’t even have to leave your living room sofa to attend a professional development conference!  I love that!

JoAnn Mattson provided our class with a link to the K-12 Online Conference from October 2008.   Its theme was “Amplifying Possibilities”, and I certainly saw lots of possibilities just in this format of professional learning and sharing.  To view some of the offerings post-conference, you simply have to click on the schedule button at the top, and you will be provided with several choices according to the day they were presented.   I attended a workshop about  Trailfire because I didn’t even know what it was.  The page offered a bio about the presenter, April Chamberlain, and when I selected the audio, I was greeted with pleasant music and a soothing voice teaching me about this tool.  I really liked having this audio tool because I could pause and rewind as needed.

I learned that Trailfire is a free tool that allows a “guide” to mark a virtual trail through the path one  is researching.  Your trail can be public, private or shared with just a select group, and is shared via a web link.  It is a web-based tool that requires no downloads.  You can search for a trail (with a subject of your choice) through the Trailfire web site or your can access a trail from the link that is sent to you.   You can also create your own.   In order for this to work, you have download 2 easy-access icons onto your toolbar.  One marks the website as you are searching; the other allows you to view the Trailfire toolbar.   Marks are also interactive, and you can ask questions and make comments.

The second part of her presentation was an opportunity to actually follow a trail and to explore its features.  April had comments pop up throughout to lead your through and demonstrate how the tools works.  This second part helped me a lot because I wasn’t sure what was meant by the guide, and I wasn’t clear on the purpose behind the tool.  It seems to be another social networking tool where others can help you make sense of resources.   The guide is really the person who created the trail orginally and essentially leaves annonations about each website as well as directions about where to go from here.  These comments can be followed by others.   Others who follow the trail can ask questions and make comments along the way, too.   It’s another great way to network and share knowledge with others. 

The tool is not just for students.  The examples she showed were mainly meant for technology teachers, and she concluded her presentation by taking us to her wiki about Collaborative Web Trails.  Here there were more ideas about how to use this in the classroom and for your own professional development.  She also encouraged discussion and comments.  An instant network of like-minded professionals was born!

“Attending” this conference did not take much of my time, and I gained a lot of resources and insights from it.  The conference can be attended at times convenient for your own schedule, and you can learn at your own pace.   I would highly recommend this type of professional learning to others.  And I think I’m going to go explore her wiki and Trailfire a little more, too!

Over the past couple of days I’ve been exploring the online community Tapped In.  I must admit I was a little lost when I first got started.  I felt a bit like I was stuck in the lobby of my building in my first few forays.   I’m certainly not an expert yet, but in my more recent efforts to explore, I found that this really has a lot to offer teachers. 

From Tapped In’s About page, they define themselves to be:  “a Web-based learning environment created by SRI International to transform teacher professional development…Tapped In enables providers to offer high-quality online professional development experiences and support to more teachers cost-effectively. Through Tapped In, educators can extend their professional growth beyond courses or workshops with the online tools, resources, colleagues, and support they need to implement effective, classroom-centered learning activities.”

Essentially, it’s a virtual community where educators can join in discussions, share resources and “attend” conferences in subject areas and topics of interest to them.  When you first join, you can create your own office, a “room” in the building, if you will.   Mine is on the 13th floor.  I’m hoping that’s not a bad sign!   If you enjoy the virtual aspect, you’ll like the fact that you can change your office’s look and feel.  I changed from the home office look that was automatically generated to a comfy office with a sofa.  Your office is a place where you can store notes (keeping them private or publishing them for others to see), upload files, post links, engage in a discussion or use a whiteboard (which can also then be saved as notes.)   You can also then create passageways out of your office into other people’s offices.  I created several passageways for technology-related topics, but I didn’t get to explore them all yet.  I can remove the ones I may not find useful later on.  I also tried to create several math-related offices, but I can’t find them at all!  I’m still a novice at this for sure.  I also locked the door for now, but I’m not exactly sure what kind of power that has.

Once I finally got out of my own office, I did find some good resources.  I went to the calendar where events are listed.  There was an interesting “workshop” (I’m guessing that was the idea) today from Learning from Lyrics.   I wasn’t able to attend it when it was actually occuring, but I went back to it later, and I found some neat lesson plans and resources about how to integrate modern music into lessons.  Most of the lessons were for Social Studies or Language Arts, but it was most interesting.  I can definitely share what I found with others and use it as a springboard for my ideas in my own classes.  I tried to download the chat transcript for it, but I wasn’t having much luck with that.  Needless to say, I added this room to my favorites, and I did the same with the NETTS main office and a room about Web Design.  All of these provide files, links, discussions, notes that might prove helpful for me in my own desire to teach these topics.  It really has a lot of potential.  I also think it is a place where you can meet with students to have discussions or present ideas.  It seems like there is enough security for this to be safe for K-12 students.  I’m thinking it might work really well for someone who is going to be out for an extended period of time or as a way to offer online courses or special workshops in the summer.

We’ve been learning in our  Web Technology (Classroom 2.0) class at Fontbonne that there are several levels of participation when it comes to online communities:  linking, lurking, learning and leading.  I certainly am just in the lurking phase at this point.  I’m willing to check things out that others are doing, but I’m still a little reluctant to get too involved.  Perhaps with a bit more experience and confidence, I’d be willing to engage and contribute more.  Tapped In is certainly a friendly learning environment.  You are encouraged to sign up for a live tour with someone when you first join, and you can chat whenever you need a little help.  You might be interested in lurking too…or even more!

Here is a good video on blogs.

This week I explored a free screen capture tool called Wink from Debug Mode.  I’d recommend it for teachers (or even students) who wish to make a little tutorial for others on the computer.  It definitely had some bugs  (despite its name!).  More than once I had some corruption of files, but I think it might work best on small, short projects.  It was rather user-friendly, and you just need a little patience with the bugs.  (Patience is a must when it comes to technology!)

I created a tutorial for my Algebra 1 students to remind them how to find a linear regression equation from raw data.  The project can be found here:  lin-reg