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!

We’ve been exploring the use of media in the classroom this week, so I ventured onto the two sites, Teacher Tube and Slide Share.  I found some good stuff!

I decided to stick to one topic, and since we’re learning about sharing and collaborating on work, my focus was on Fair Use and Copyright.  I especially wanted to find some good information about the Creative Commons License since both my students and my colleagues are just learning about this.  I myself only heard about it within the past year through a class at Fontbonne and a technology conference or two.  I’m much more tuned into it now, and I see the cc symbol a lot more often now.

The first video from Teacher Tube is called A Fair(y) Use Talk, which is just an introduction to what is meant by copyright and fair use using a zillion clips from Disney Films.    It was created by Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University and it part of the Stanford Center for Internet and Society.  (Because it is a fairly large file, please use the link above to view the video.)
 

Here’s an instructional video on Teacher Tube from the Creative Commons people themselves, explaining how this new licensing works: 

 (The link is included in case my embedding skills aren’t finely tuned yet!)

Finally, Slide Share had several presentations about the Creative Commons License.  This one is from ericcc and was a Creative Commons Presentation for the July 11, 2007 Yahoo! Creative Talk.

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Happy viewing (and learning)!
 

Once again, I bow to Google, the superpower of the Internet.  I just signed up for a Google account, and I’ve been exploring two online applications they offer that might be useful in the classroom.

The first was Google Notebook, an online tool that allows students to take notes during class as well as document web pages that are pertinent to the topic.  Accounts are free, and a notebook icon can be added to your browser’s toolbar to make accessibilty very easy.  I set up an account to try out some of the features and found that it has a lot to offer.  My students all have laptops which they generally use in every class.  This system would be ideal for them.  (And it would also be very ”green” by saving notebooks!  I love that!)  Websites that teachers routinely use in the midst of their class could seamlessly be added to the student’s notebook.  When on the site, you can simply click the notebook icon, and you have the opportunity to save the link in your notes or even add a specific clip from the page. 

Google Notebook had many promising features.  You can create a new notebook for each class, and those notes are accessible from any computer.  Students can tag their entries and add formatting that can help highlight key points.  There’s a search bar to find all the notes which contain that keyboard.  Another simple but helpful feature is that every entry is automatically dated.  This can really help students to sort and organize their notes.  They also have option to share their notes with others and collaborate to make a more complete record for themselves.  Finally, you can send a file to Google Docs which gives you the option to print it.

I have just two concerns about this application.  Actually, I’m anticipating others at my school having some concerns about it, too.  Mainly the issue is privacy and ensuring that our students are safe.  There is an option to make the notebook public.  There’s a chance students would unwittingly give out too much information in this notebook, and there’s really no way for a teacher to control that feature.  All we’d be able to do is to advise them, and we all know that they don’t always follow our advice!  Also, I would imagine that teachers would be wary about having their students typing the entire time they are in class since they could certainly be doing many other things other than taking notes.  I don’t know if we can avoid that completely, and probably the best way to combat that is to find ways to engage them more in the class.  Our school is going to be using SynchronEyes next year (one of the SMART products), which gives teachers the ability to set the parameters of a students use of the Internet or even the programs they use, so I think this may alleviate that problem a bit.  Overall, I think it’s a worthwhile application for our students to use.

An equally promising application was Google Sites (once known as JotSpots I believe).  Another free application (with possibilty to upgrade), it also can be accessed from any computer.  It’s very simple to use, and the interface is similar to any commonly used word processor.   No HTML knowledge is needed to get all the features of a conventional web site.   I can see this being utilized well in a class to work on a long-term project or to establish a place where students can add links, collaborate or share tips and ideas.  They may also provide students a way to display portfolios of their work.  I’m the moderator of Student Council, and I would love to create a page for our club to help facilitate communication and promote our activities within the school.  Again, safety is a concern, and we don’t want to put too much information out there for all the world to see.  This application, however, had a lot more security features which I liked.  The creator of the web site can control who edits and even views the site.  You can also be informed via email anytime a page is changed.  I’m not sure how practical it would be to allow all 600 students + teachers to view the site, but it’s worth investigating.  Google Sites shows a lot of potential for the classroom.

Technology and education must be intertwined at all times.  The use of technology should be smoothly integrated (never forced)  into the daily life of the teacher, students and school community members.  I don’t believe we should use technology just for the sake of using it.  Rather, it should always be used as one of many tools that has the power to enhance a topic, engage a student, present an idea, promote critical thinking skills or serve as a method to practice a skill. 

As educators, we want our students to be prepared for the world in which they are living.  Technology will unquestionably and irrevocably be a part of this world throughout their lives.  The more opportunities we give our students to interact with different forms of technology, the more prepared they will be to use them effectively and, more importantly, to use them ethically.  I want my students to leave our school being literate on every level, strong and confident in both their values and in their sense of self, and able to navigate their way in the global society of which they will find themselves.