Tag: education
-
Second Life: conference, land sale
I’m happy to say that I’ll be volunteering at the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education (VWBPE) conference again this year. It takes place from March 9-12 in SL and OpenGrid and everyone is welcome to attend, no charge. Some of the sessions are also streamed live and recorded to watch later. And that’s where I…
-
Video game summer school
As someone who enjoys video games, even those I’m lousy at playing, it’s no surprise that I think gaming can provide unintentional learning opportunities. Of course there are games that target specific skills, but I’m seeing many ways that even the MMORPG I’ve been playing can be educational. That’s my second avatar in ArcheAge. Like my first, she’s of…
-
VWBPE conference, day 4 (part 2)
The final keynote was from Jay Jay Jegathesan (Jayjay Zifanwe), who spoke on “Building Global Communities Through Virtual Worlds”. He talked first about how he began in a virtual world, building an online version of the University of Western Australia. Winning a Google SketchUp Build Your Campus in 3D competition with his team helped them gain…
-
VWBPE conference, day 4 (part 1)
Today is busy for me offline, so my plan is to see two sessions at beginning and end of the day. I’ll split those into separate posts to remain relatively timely. The morning began with a talk by Susan Toth-Cohen (Zsuzsa Tomsen), “7 Years of Adaptation and Renewal in Second Life”. She has been using SL…
-
VWBPE conference, day 3 (part 1)
I’m splitting today’s posts about the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference into two parts, to take advantage of my afternoon break and not overload either post. I arrived at the first session, “Creating Dinosaurs & Earning Badges”, in my finest pteranodon attire, but since it was as anachronous as my normal shape, I…
-
VWBPE conference, day 1
The 8th Annual Virtual World Best Practices in Education conference started earlier today. Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg kicked things off with the opening keynote. The amphitheatre started filling up more than an hour before the event. I should be jaded after almost ten years in Second Life, but it was still exciting to see…
-
VWBPE conference this week!
The Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference runs from Wednesday through Saturday this week. I’m not an educator but this is a conference I strongly recommend. Most of the year, I read articles about how virtual worlds might be used to teach, inform, increase empathy, improve health, etc — usually based on studies run…
-
8th Annual Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference
This year’s conference is only a couple weeks away, so now’s the time to clear space on your calendar. If you’re interested in how educators are using persistent virtual worlds, this is the place to be. You can get a taste by watching video from some of last year’s sessions. I’ve attended for the past couple years…
-
Teaching for STEM equality: 80s time machine edition
Over the weekend, a friend showed me an old photo. It has a group of young kids gathered around a Commodore PET computer. At the keyboard, face unseen, is the only girl in the picture: me. It’s hard to mistake my early ’80s feathered pageboy haircut. I’d share the photo but I don’t have permission of the others; I…
-
The efficacy of gamification
On last week’s Drax Radio Hour [with Jo Yardley] featuring Canary Beck, there was a short debate about whether gamification would be a useful way to approach education for new SL residents. That got me thinking about the pros and cons of using gamification, so I reflected on a couple of personal examples, looked at a bit of…