2020 #VWEDU: How could we staff a digital campus? The MGE method can get an existing faculty comfortable in a digital world

How could we staff a digital campus? 
The MGE method can get an existing faculty comfortable in a digital world
The Mind Gathering Experience© (MGE) method
A project by J. L. Mittag

How do you train your faculty to teach in a virtual world?  Here is an option.

A demonstrational campus
Mind Gathering Experiences

A school campus is made of people

• Online web pages cannot replace people.
• A dean  considers the idea of a digital campus online.
• "It's not like another campus across town. Where would I get faculty?" she says to herself.
• We interrupt this story to introduce another character, MGE so the dean (we'll call her Lorna Dean) won't have to talk to herself.   
• [More after the break.]

Mindgathering Experiences (MGE)

• MGE can offer virtual world onboarding services to teachers and leadership of membership organisations
• For more information, contact mindgatherers@gmail   
• Education in MUVEs (virtual worlds)
• Educational Technology (Wikipedia)

• Update 4/30/2020 Multi-college diversity in Kitely. OpenSim grids show growth during pandemic Kitely upgrades for better scalability

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• "You use the faculty you already have," says MGE.  
• "They won't go.  They don't know how to function in a virtual world.."  
• MGE:  "They can learn.  In eight to twelve hours, all in one week.  Over spring break.  And they might be able to count it as continuing education," 
• LD: "All in one session?"
• MGE: "Probably not.  More likely two or three sessions over two or three days. Much like an online continuing education session."
• LD:  "Why would they be interested in teaching online?"
• MGE:  "Expands their skill set, lets them teach from home, gives pandemic protection,  low carbon footprint, cuts noneducational costs."

Campus building interior 

Probably a commons area

The case for digital places

• Why online education?
• Online education, sure. But why a virtual campus? Why in a virtual world (MUVE)?
• Affordances of virtual worlds can make a more effective presentation. From OpenSim Community Conference (OSCC)
• Seven major educational affordances from virtual worlds and how they can work together

A schedule on the wall

Click image to enlarge

• You don't need other people to look at a schedule.
• Not unless you want to coordinate schedules with them.

The coming digital campus

• The coming digital campus. Access management. Public and controlled access. Campus security without campus police.
• The online campus: Your campus on the internet. Meet fellow students, work with them.
• An online school needs a digital campus. Not just for classrooms, but for many of the services currently offered on a physical campus
• Language learning: What could a virtual (online) campus offer?
• A campus grid for a graduate school. An independent grid using the Kitely organization system
• The virtual online campus: Can a grid handle the load of students?
• Online education, sure. But why a virtual campus? Why in a virtual world (MUVE)?
• Teachers don't need to learn how to build in virtual worlds to teach there
• A campus on the internet. A front office on the web. A school on a laptop

In the lecture room

Click image to enlarge

• Mission:  bring organization staff into digital worlds

RAAM--Rapid Avatar Assimilation Model

• Just like the old campus:  Control the environment and what they can do there.

Familiar administrative oversight

• And the digital system is everywhere.

The secret of the registration wizard

Click image to enlarge

• New educational term: Batch Registration: for schools and organizations in virtual worlds

Campus event area

Maybe hold dances there

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Visit me on the web

• Drop by my web offices Weekdays: 12:-12:30 pm Central time (US)
• I am available for free consulting on any topic in this blog.
• 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

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• Selby Evans in Kitely and Hypergrid, Thinkerer Melville in Second Life