2019 #VWEDU: #DTA: Digicoach for project-management in self-managed teams: (Note: skills to be learned in doing these tasks)

Digicoach for project-management 
in self-managed teams:
(Note the skills to be learned in doing these tasks)
10/19/2019

Outline of how Digicoach could coach student teams in project management and participation in self-managed teams.  This article is explicitly licensed Public Domain (CC0).

The Empty Classroom

• Project-based learning teaches project-management skills as well as content.
• If projects are assigned to groups, team-management skills are also needed.
• Projects will pose problems, so problem-solving skills will also be needed.
• The practice of these skills is a major benefit of project-based learning.
• Scholarly articles for Project-based learning
• Project management (search)
• Collaborative learning (Wikipedia)
• Collaborative learning (search)
• What is Design Thinking?
• Design thinking
• The Digital Teaching Assistant (DTA) for MUVES (virtual worlds): Summary

2019 #VWEDU #DTA: Suppose the real objective in school is to pass multiple-choice tests. Can a digital TA handle test-based learning?

Suppose the real objective in school is
 to pass multiple-choice tests. 
Can a digital TA handle test-based learning?

If passing a multiple choice test on the content in a reading assignment is the objective, most of the learning can be automated.   It may not need any educators except to keep the system current.  The rest could be handled by managers and proctors.

The Empty Classroom

• #VWEDU Education in Virtual Worlds. Summary
• The Digital Teaching Assistant (DTA) for MUVES (virtual worlds): Summary

Test-based learning

• It is a legitimate concept:
• Test-based learning (search)
• Scholarly articles for Test-based learning
• Are they still doing that?  
• I don't know.  Probably not in corporate training
• Corporations want results, not test scores.
• But maybe in education.  
• Test-based learning is easy to provide.
• And achievement is easy to measure.
• You just pick some books and provide some lectures
• Then you give tests on what the students remember.
• You could automate all of that.
• Give links to online books and video-captured lectures.
• Use multiple-choice tests drawn from an existing database.
• Maybe give online study sheets that have the answers to likely test questions.
• You don't need teachers.  Just a test manager.  And a test proctor.
• You don't need educators for superintendents and principals.  
• You could use retired military officers instead.  
• Students take tests online with school-supplied computers so they can't cheat.
• You need a proctor to make sure they aren't cheating.  
• There are limitations.

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Advantages of test-based learning

• Most content and test items remain reusable for a number of years
• Most content and test items could be used across a whole nation.
• Almost all content could be made available on the browser.
• Students who have their own laptop would only need to come to school on test days.
• The money saved on buildings could probably buy every student a laptop.
• Assuming tests once a week, a school building might handle far more students.
• Students who could stay on task would require no live teacher. 
• Or at most an online teacher who could answer questions. 
• In time a digital TA could be developed to handle common questions.
• This method could dramatically lower costs.  
• And it might produce students with great skill at reading text and answering tests.
• If there ever is a market for those skills.

Limitations of test-based learning

• You can't use it in the lower grades.
• In grade school, you have to teach useful skills: Reading, writing, arithmetic.
• People learn skills by practice. 
• To get little children to practice you have to give them tasks. 
• You can still use tests to assess those skills.
• But you have to wait till they are older to use tests to force them to "study."
• Especially when what they are studying is boring and of no obvious value.
• "Studying" does give practice in reading boring texts and listening to boring lectures.
• Why high schools teach tolerance for boredom and what they can do about it.
• Maybe that is still good college prep (as it was when I went to college).
• But I doubt that it is part of any job description.
• So if you want the students to have marketable skills, you need to think of other learning objectives.

Would they really set that objective?

• They would not admit to it. They would insist they are preparing students for life.
• But it is hard to find "reading text and answering tests" in any job description.
• The text and tests may deal with content relevant to some jobs.  
• The students may come away able to talk about what people do in those jobs.
• But employers know there is a difference between talking about and doing a job,

Project-based learning

• Project-based learning requires doing something, producing a product.
• Scholarly articles for project based learning
• Project-based learning (search) 
• Project-based learning (Wikipedia)
• #VWEDU Education in Virtual Worlds. Summary
• Project-based education could produce useful results for the learner and for society
• MALET showcase: Making and Tinkering – Stop Motion Animation Project: By: Marian Read
• Virtual worlds can host challenge-based learning
• Problems are interesting puzzles. If you are ready. Otherwise they are stoppers
• Challenge: Hero's Journey. Game. Learning. Schools. Can you connect these?
• Challenge-based education and self-managed learning: on the same team!
• Learn by challenge in virtual worlds: Games, projects, Maker Model

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Visit me on the web

• Drop by my web offices Weekdays: 12:-12:30 Central time (US)
• Cybalounge and 3DWebWorldz (Orientation room)
• I will be in both places, so you may need to speak to get my attention.
• Web-worlds, 3D virtual worlds running in a browser. Summary
• And we can visit the Writer's Workshop on the Web
• Don't register -- enter as guest.  

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License

• Original text in this blog is CC By: unless specified public domain
• Use as you please with attribution: link to the original.
• All images without attribution in this blog are CC0: public domain.

• Second Life, Linden, SLurl, and SL are trademarks of Linden Research Inc.
• Annotated screenshots made with Jing
• This blog is not affiliated with anything.   Ads are from Google.
• Selby Evans in Kitely and hypergrid, Thinkerer Melville in Second Life

2019 #VWEDU: The virtual online campus: Can a grid handle the load of students?

The virtual online campus:
Can a grid handle the load of students?

A quick assessment of how well OpenSimulator grids can handle the loads that would be imposed by virtual world campuses.  This article is explicitly licensed Public Domain (CC0)

The Empty Classroom

• Two loads to consider: class size and total concurrent users. 
• A Digital Teaching Assistant (DTA) in MUVE (virtual world): What would it do?
• A digital teaching assistant (DTA) in a virtual world. Can it be done?

• #VWEDU update 7/25/2019 Firestorm splits into OpenSim and SL versions. LEA closes

2019 BIZ: ART: WW: A commercial art gallery in a web-world? Is that possible? What are the problems you have to solve?

A commercial art gallery in a web-world?  
Is that possible?  
What are the problems you have to solve?

A commercial gallery sells the work of artists.  In a web-world it would display art for sale and take orders for physical delivery.   Issues: What is the physical delivery? What is the advantage over flat web-pages?  

 The gallery of Don Margulis

Web-gallery advantages over physical places

• Tiny building and maintenance costs compared to physical places.
• Anyone with a browser can go there from anywhere in 30 seconds.
• It is accessible to elderly and mobility-impaired people.
• Artists can organize festivals and galleries based on art genres rather than on location.
• The gallery can be open 24/7.  
• The art work itself is at no risk of damage or theft.  

• #VWEDU update 7/25/2019 Firestorm splits into OpenSim and SL versions. LEA closes

2019 #VWEDU: Community Virtual Library (CVL) opens in Kitely. A view of the space station and its teleporters

Community Virtual Library (CVL) opens in Kitely.  
A view of the space station and its teleporters

Community Virtual Library (CVL) branches out to Hypergrid and OpenSimulator with locations on 2 opensim grids.  One of the library services is hypergrid gates to places of educational interest.  

• Watch on YouTube

• What does a library do in a virtual world?
• When you are on the internet, you don't need a book collection.
• When you have Google search at hand, you don't need a card catalog.
• You can select, recommend, and link to the best reading content.
• You can identify other things that people want to find and show the way.
• Two things of interest in virtual worlds: communities and places.
• In the physical world, even local communities may be a half-hour away.
• And the places you want to visit are a half-day and $2000 away.
• In OpenSim, hypergrid, everywhere is about 39 seconds away.
• So you can use lists of communities and recommended places.
• And video archives of virtual world conferences.

• #VWEDU update 7/25/2019 Firestorm splits into OpenSim and SL versions. LEA closes

2019 ART: LEA closes. Art has opened in OpenSim. Looking forward

LEA closes. 
Art has opened in OpenSim
Looking forward

A virtual art exhibit closes.  OpenSim grids remain open for art--new or recovered from elsewhere. 

Installation art by Gracie Kendal

• This is not a painting. Gracie Kendal

Articles about LEA and LEA closing

• LEA linden lab (search)
• LEA linden lab closing (search)

Art in OpenSimulator

• OpenSimulator already has a thriving art community.
• With a lot of artists and content from LEA:
• Artlandia: Spiral Silverstar, Gracie Kendal, Alpha Auer, Freewee Ling
• Much of the art that was in LEA can be transferred to OpenSim grids.
• And OpenSim grids can easily host all the recoverable art from LEA.
• I am offering at least 20 sim-sized plots (256X256) in Kitely.
• Interested? Contact me (Selby Evans) in Kitely or as a comment on this article.
• Here is my place: Creative Collaborators
• Note that in OpenSim, you can save your sim as a file (OAR).
• An OAR stores everything you created and can be reloaded on another grid.
• You can give or sell  an OAR file.

• #VWEDU update 7/18/2019 Firestorm splits into OpenSim and SL versions. LEA closes

2019 #VWEDU: #DTA: Digital coaching is needed for the DTA: Do we have the technology for that?

Digital coaching is needed for the DTA:  
Do we have the technology for that?   

Preliminary analysis of the functions of a digital coach in a MUVE and consideration of how some of those functions could be provided by a digital coach using current technology.  Future articles will cover more functions and more details.  This article is explicitly licensed Public Domain (CC0).

The Empty Classroom

Survey the requirements

• The Digital Teaching Assistant (DTA) for MUVES (virtual worlds): Summary
• A Digital Teaching Assistant (DTA) in MUVE (virtual world): What would it do?
• Just-In-Time (JIT) learning in virtual schools, maybe with DTA coaching. 
• We need to know what we want from Digicoach in a MUVE
• We can start with coaching activities in education. What do coaches do?
• Educational coach 
• Academic coach
• homework coach (Wikipedia)
• Homework coach (search)
• Instructional coach (search)
• Two levels:(1)  improve study practices;(2) help with learning specific content.
• The Difference Between Tutoring and Academic Coaching
• Here I take up improve study practices.
• Online education, sure. But why a virtual campus? Why in a virtual world (MUVE)?

2019 EDU: TKR: Learning something? Use your head. Learning Skills

Learning something?  
Use your head.   
Learning Skills. 

You can learn how to learn.  Sure.  Learning is a skill.  Not something they usually teach in school.  Not an obvious skill, like being able to read.  Actually, learning calls for a collection of skills and habits.  And it calls for smart choices about the best way to use those skills and habits.

• Learning how to learn | Barbara Oakley | TEDxOaklandUniversity
• Use your head! They always tell you that. They never tell you how

-

• How easy is it for you to learn new things?
• Do other people seem to learn new things more easily than you?
• Do other people use learning skills that you are not using?
• Below is a list of skills that people commonly use.
• See if you are using all the skills you could use.

• #VWEDU update 7/18/2019 Firestorm splits into OpenSim and SL versions. LEA closes

2019 #VWEDU: BIZ: Education builds skills. Skills are assets. Assets are marketable if you can show them. Your portfolio shows your skills.

Education builds skills. Skills are assets. 
Assets are valuable if you can show them.  
Your portfolio shows your skills.

A portfolio (or at least a vita listing publications) is the mark of a professional.  Colleges should be teaching portfolio development and maintenance.  More than that, they should be publicizing the portfolios of their graduates and upcoming graduates.

The Empty Classroom

• What does a classroom have to do with your professional portfolio?
• Trick question.  You don't put class notes in your portfolio.
• Your portfolio fills with things you did.  
• And you probably did them elsewhere.
• That's why I show the classroom empty.  
• The students should be out doing things.
• And creating record of what they do:  That's what makes a Career portfolio

Portfolios and online presence

• Teachers build portfolios (search)
• Your transcript shows what grades you got; your portfolio shows what you can do.
• Get Started with a Digital Teaching Portfolio
• Career portfolio
• Building an Online Presence More Important Than Ever
• Building an Online Presence as an Educator
• Building Online Presence for Educators
• Teachers, Build Your EdTech Portfolios
• Top 5 Items Every Teacher Should Have in Their Professional Portfolio

• #VWEDU update 7/18/2019 Firestorm splits into OpenSim and SL versions. LEA closes

2019 #VWEDU: #DTA: Just-In-Time (JIT) learning in virtual schools, maybe with DTA coaching. Language as an example

Just-In-Time (JIT) learning 

in virtual schools,

maybe with DTA coaching.
Language as an example
Updated 1019/2019

Some suggestions on how to use virtual worlds to provide JIT Learning.  Further suggestions are offered on how a Digital Teaching Assistant ( DTA) and game-based learning could be incorporated for more efficient learning. 
This article is explicitly licensed Public Domain (CC0).

The Empty Classroom

Just-in-time learning

• JIT Learning: Just-in-time learning, instruction provided just when it is needed.
• Popular for corporate instruction.  Obviously beneficial for learning.  
• A big advantage in Hypertext.  Click for help with unfamiliar words.
• Not practical for book learning--you don't need to know it when it is right in front of you.
• But consider the instruction manual: The Secret of the Instruction Manual
• You read it, start work, and soon realize you don't remember what to do next.
• Conveniently, you still have the manual at hand, so you get JIT learning.
• And once you do it, you really know how to do it.  
• To use JIT learning in school you create conditions where the student needs the  learning.
• A Digital Teaching Assistant (DTA) in MUVE (virtual world): What would it do?
• The Digital Teaching Assistant (DTA) for MUVES (virtual worlds): Summary

2019 #VWEDU Online education, sure. But why a virtual campus? Why in a virtual world (MUVE)?

Online education, sure.  
But why a virtual campus?  
Why in a virtual world (MUVE)?
Updated 10/19/2019

A campus is much more than a collection of classes.  Any physical campus offers a number added services. Here I consider which of those services should be carried to the virtual campus as we move from virtual classrooms to complete educational institutions in the digital world. This article is explicitly licensed licensed Public Domain (CC0).

Universal campus (Kitely)

• MUVE (virtual world)
• Ok archtecture.  Beginning architects can design and build in a virtual world.
• And landscaping.  Make a model of the finished product.  
• Rapid prototyping for an entertainment park, Mike Mchugh 
• Architecture: Virtual Library of Birmingham
• A Digital Teaching Assistant (DTA) in MUVE (virtual world): What would it do?
• A digital teaching assistant (DTA) in a virtual world. Can it be done?
• Digicoach can support homework in virtual worlds with JIT learning, immediate feedback
• The Digital Teaching Assistant (DTA) for MUVES (virtual worlds): Summary

What does a campus offer beyond classrooms?

• Commons area for students to study together or socialize
• School library (and librarians to help people find what the need)
• Conference rooms where students can work together on projects.
• Laboratories (where students often work together).
• Sponsored educational events
• Sponsored cultural events
• Sponsored competitive events
• Sponsored intellectual events
• Dormitories for students living on campus
• In loco parentis
• A virtual campus should offer some of these things.
• Details after the break 
• This article will be updated as other articles are published.

2019 #VWEDU: #DTA: A digital teaching assistant (DTA) in a virtual world. Can it be done?

A digital teaching assistant (DTA) in a virtual world. 
Can it be done? 
Updated 10/19/2019

The  Digital Teaching Assistant (DTA) in a virtual world (MUVE) :  Desired functions and present possibilities.  Some important functions can readily be supported by current technology.  Others may well be possible now, but will need some planning.  This is the sedond article of a series on the subject. 
This article is explicitly licensed Public Domain (CC0).

The Empty Classroom

No DTA either

Any journey starts with knowing why you want to go there

• A Teaching Assistant (TA ) can handle routine classroom chores 
• If those services can be offered by a computer, they could be offered widely.
• Teachers would have more time to do what they do best.  
• Skills embodied in a DTA  can be made available to millions.  
• The DTA will reliably perform the same skills for all of the millions. 
• The DTA can have options to accommodate people with disabilities.
• A DTA can provide just-in-time teaching, and distributed practice.
• A DTA can select instructional content to fit learning styles.
• A DTA can give individualized and student-centered learning.
• A DTA is available any time, wherever the student can use a laptop. 
• Education for the future should prepare students to use computers as assistants.
• A DTA  would be a natural way to augment instruction in a virtual world. 
• The internet, a browser, and search capability are available with a click.
• A Digital Teaching Assistant (DTA) in MUVE (virtual world): What would it do?
• The Digital Teaching Assistant (DTA) for MUVES (virtual worlds): Summary

Who would be interested?

• Online schools and colleges
• Homeschoolers 
• Parents of children with disabilities
• Teachers of online classes
• Young people whose parents are not rich.
• The practical education. Avoid student debt. Go to college on the internet.

• #VWEDU update 7/11/2019 DTA in the MUVE. Competitive sports for online schools

2019 #VWEDU: Bring the virtual campus into the school: Kitely custom viewer login page

Bring the virtual campus into the school: 
Kitely custom viewer login page 

Every virtual world has a entry page: a flat web page that gets the users grid identity information and displays promotions, and announcements,  Schools do not like to send their students to a web page that is promoting games, adult content, or sexy clothes.   They would rather send their students to a page that carries announcements and promotion for the school.  Now, in Kitely, they can

The Empty Classroom

• Custom Viewer Login Page (Kitely)
• The Viewer Login Page appears in Firestorm when you select a  destination grid .
• Kitely Organizations are virtual grids, and so each has a Viewer Login Page.
• The main function of the login page is to let authorized users sign into the grid with name and password.
• Can Kitely handle several thousand students?
• Sure.. They would be spread over many regions, just as they are spread over many classrooms.  

• #VWEDU update 7/11/2019 DTA in the MUVE. Competitive sports for online schools

2019 #VWEDU: Virtual Exchange: International competition, grants, fund virtual youth exchange programs

Virtual Exchange: International completition,  
grants fund virtual exchange programs  
US and the Middle East + North Africa (MENA).

Virtual exchange supports cooperative learning experiences for youth in the US, Middle East, and North Africa.  Virtual may not imply virtual worlds in this case, but perhaps it should. 

The Empty Classroom

They are in the Middle East

• Going to the Middle East costs a lot and takes a lot of time. 
• Going to a virtual part of the Middle East costs nothing and takes 20 seconds.
• If you have collaborators there they can show you around the place.
• If you were learning the language, you could practice by talking to them.
• Or if they were learning your language, they could practice speaking that.
• You could have virtual places familiar to you and show them around those.
• All this without leaving your house.  
• Training and Collaboration in Virtual Worlds
• Architecture: Virtual Library of Birmingham
• Rapid prototyping for an entertainment park, Mike Mchugh

Press Release

Washington, DC, April 24, 2019 –– Today, the Stevens Initiative announced funding for five organizations that participated in an international competition to fund virtual exchange programs in the United States and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

About Virtual Exchange 

• Virtual exchange
• Articles about Virtual Exchange (search)
• JOURNAL OF VIRTUAL EXCHANGE
• Stevens initiative

• #VWEDU update 7/11/2019 DTA in the MUVE. Competitive sports for online schools

2019 #VWEDU: WRITE: Mystery Manor (1), a game of games. Solo solving, group roleplay, scene stories.

Mystery Manor, a game of games. 
Solo solving, group roleplay, scene stories.

A mystery adventure like Clue , but redesigned for solo play and set in a 3D place.  Unlike a board game, the 3-dimensional manor is a fully dressed set, suitable for many other stories.  In this article I report on the story-game presented by Suzy Silverweb.  In a later article I will probably report on other ways to use this elegant set.

Mystery Manor on Kitely

Click image to enlarge

• Derived from the game Clue (or Cluedo in some countries).
• Full avatars are on the wall in the Hall (for role-playing).
• Creator: Suzy Silverweb
• Web Site

Other mystery Manors

• Facebook Mystery Manor community
• Mystery Manor (Wikipedia)
• Mystery Manor (search)

Go there

• In Kitely use the Firestorm hop:
• hop://grid.kitely.com:8002/Mystery Manor/128/35/22
• Hypergrid address:
• grid.kitely.com:8002:Mystery Manor
• Paste the HG address into the Find bar of the World Map, Click Find, TP

• #VWEDU update 7/4/2019 Competitive sports for online schools. Libraries for education