Author: Mariis

CCK08 – connecting with 1200 others in an online course

Mariis2 Comments

Back from vacation I’ve been catching up on several blogs. Reading Fleep’s Deep Thoughts I was reminded of a very remarkable course given online by George Siemens and Stephen Downes on Connectivism & connective knowledge – CCK08. I’ve been hesitant in signing up for this 12 week course, because my calendar for the fall semester already is quite full. But … Today I signed up and here are the reasons why:

  • I teach learning theory, and Connectivism is in my opinion an increasingly important part of the general learning landscape (both theoretical and methodological) – especially when put in relation with new media/Web 2.0

  • I’ve been a devotee of both Siemens and Downes for quite some time now – and I think participating in a course facilitated by them will prove to be quite the experience :-)


·

  • As an online teacher I think it’s important, that I participate “on the other side” as a student once in a while – lots have happened especially on the tech side, since I last studied online in 2003.


  • Joining the course means joining a learning network, connecting with people from all over the world, who share the same interest – and this is actually one of the core principles of Connectivism!


  • I’m excited to see that Fleep and the Chilbo community will host and help facilitate a SL cohort for synchronous meetings – another great opportunity to use SL.


The course is free and it’s still possible to enroll – so connect :-)

/Mariis

“Women” rule SL

MariisLeave a comment

I just read a postcard from Jessica Shambora of CNN Fortune addressing the lack of women in the tech industry – a problem we also know here in Denmark. In this context Shambora has an interesting suggestion; women could turn to virtual worlds for guidance in gaining power. Based on a talk Second Life founder and chairman, Philip Rosedale is quoted for saying that

at secondlife.com, a 3-D online world created by its residents, women rule society in a way that parallels the Victorian age (as rulers of their households, women of that earlier era coordinated the social events where alliances were created between families, businesses, etc.).

And Rosedale continues saying that more men in SL choose to live as women than vice versa.

It would be quite interesting to see the data on which Rosedale is building these statements, and also if there’s a difference when cross-referencing with age, RL job, social status etc. And if the majority of users choose to have women-avatars, how can we know for sure that they (the women) are ruling SL?

Other than that, it’s my personal experience that especially virtual worlds and other social networking environments really do appeal to (RL) women and as such could facilitate more women both in tech industry and research :-)

/Mariis

3D Sweden in SL

Mariis2 Comments

On Ogle Earth I read about an interesting project in SL, where an accurate map of Sweden had been made, so I decided to go see for myself ..

And wauw .. Sweden 3D Map is worth visiting!


Here I stand in Germany looking at Scandinavia!

The creator is Magnuz Binder/Magnuz of Sweden an engineer, scientist, teacher, programmer, designer, artist and much more, from Stockholm, Sweden. And lukcky me! While I was walking around taking pictures Magnuz himself showed up, and I had the chance to ask him about the project …


Chatting with Magnuz of Sweden

Magnuz tells me that he spent about 50-60 hrs. building the map, and he continues:

But I’m still working on it. The neighboring country flags are new for today, as is the possibility to walk around here without stumbling on all those sculpted prims that forms the topography.

I aim at adding a search/browse and marker function for the municipalities/cities markers. I already added the capacity in the markers, but the interface isn’t done yet.

Plus, I hope to be able to add animated models of the major traffic routes, like railroads, roads, coastal carriers and airlines.

I ask Magnuz, how he expects people to use his map, and he answers:

Well, it could be one example of a tool in geography classes. I aim at building a small portfolio of interactive teaching aids here in SL, to give people some inspiration about what can be done.

I especially like the possibility to build “4D models”: 3D models where the watcher can slide the time ruler to see how things develop. I hope to be able to build some of those soon. Like cell division, evolution of buildings or cities, and such.

Magnuz has other ideas with educational puposes:

One idea I have is to build animations of reactions in enzymes. Only the active site then, since the whole molecule would cost too many prims. And of course the viewer would control the pace of the reaction, giving possibilities to stop or rewind it at interesting steps.

Magnuz also gave me some details on his scripting process, but since I don’t know anything about that, I suggest contacting Magnuz for further info on that topic ;-)

Magnuz has build other things in SL, e.g. a planetarium and it turns out that he’s quite interested in astronomy. You’ll find a newsletter about this on his website (click on Second Life).

I really was quite happy when leaving Magnuz – it’s just so great and satifying meeting people, who seriously try to use SL in both innovative and educational ways .. Yeah! I’ll be back to visit more of Magnuz’ creations :-)

/Mariis

Virtual Policy ’08 in SL

MariisLeave a comment

Today I attended part of the Virtual Policy ’08 conference on innovation and govenance in virtual worlds.


List of speakers July 22nd

Ren Renolds from The Virtual Policy Network explained that the purpose of both the network and the conference is to bring people together to stimulate converstions about virtul policy, especially intellectual property.

Richard Allan (European Director of Government Affairs CISCO) gave an interesting keynote addressing several important questions for our legislators to consider. Among other things Allan spoke about his personal use of different avatars in different situations – something which was highly commented both by RL and SL audience.
I guess this question whiter or not to present yourself in an anonymous way in virtual life causes quite polarized views. I personally still only have one avatar in SL, and this is primarily because I want my students and my other relations to be able to trust me, but I have to admit, that it’s a tricky issue .. and for sure something I’ll return to during my PhD.

The conference was streamed to us in the SGI Nexus Event Auditorium, but unfortunately especially the pictures were very poor – in fact very pixelly and multi-coloured. Anyway, the sound was ok most of the time, and I do think that’s the most important.

Annie Mullins (Vodatone/TeachToday), Andrew Burn (University of London), Anna Peachy (The Open University) and Andy Powell (EDUserv) discussed the learning potential of virtual worlds. Andrew Burn told of differentiated experiences, with improved effects in distance learning, the use of virtual worlds as new, expressive media and the possibility of virtual field trips and role play. And in general many positive reactions from different types of students, except some on-campus students, who really did prefer face-to-face encounters. In the midst of the discussion, we received a very interesting link to a paper on experiences with teaching in SL by Diane Carr.

Andy Powell spoke of the lack of “hard methodological evidence” of the effect/impact of learning in virtual worlds. There are plenty of good private teacher anecdotes, but for virtual worlds to truly become embedded in our schools/institutions we need hard evidence ..

Unluckily Linden Lab sent a message on region maintenance at the end of this session, so I chose to return to RL, but I’ll be back tomorrow to listen in on at least the discussion about intellectual property.

/Mariis