2020 #VWEDU: #DTA: Participatory learning in virtual worlds. The project wall for teams For projects and project based learning (PBL) Can you do that online?

Participatory learning in virtual worlds

The project wall for teams

For projects and project based learning (PBL)

Can you do that online?

Engagement comes from active participation.  Working with a team on a project offers that potential.  Teamwork is a learned skill.

• Watch on YouTube

• Project
• Project planning
• Gather ideas
• Organize ideas: objective, resources, products, actions
• Supports sharing ideas and brainstorming.
• Project-based learning (PBL)
• Got a big project? Give it a wall.
• Using a Project Wall to Support Gold Standard Project Based Teaching
• Traditionally done on a wall, blackboard, or whiteboard.
• How can we do it online?

• Update 12/24/2020 The Dickens Project 2020 Edition. DivaCanto: channel on YouTube. VWBPE2021: RECONNAISSANCE Call for Proposals.

2020 #VWEDU: Outreach: Show the use cases. If we want more educators in virtual worlds, we need to focus on outworlders.

2020 #VWEDU: Outreach: Show the use cases.  

If we want more educators in virtual worlds, 

we need to focus on outworlders.  

Use cases illustrating the value of learning in a simulated environment with content fitted to the learning objectives.  

• Watch on YouTube

Signature Safety is a full-service environmental, health and safety (EHS) consulting firm with offices located in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Our clients span the spectrum of industries, from warehousing and distribution facilities to construction managers; from manufacturing to maintenance contractors; from municipal governments to construction subcontractors.

• Buck Institute of Education
• Era of the entrepreneurial educator. The unbundling of education opens the gate for entrepreneurs.
• Team project-based learning (search)

• Update 12/24/2020 The Dickens Project 2020 Edition. DivaCanto: channel on YouTube. VWBPE2021: RECONNAISSANCE Call for Proposals.

2020 #VWEDU: LIBR: A different kind of lecture. Dickens and the London of his time. You can have a lecture without an auditorium. You can even do without slides.

A different kind of lecture.  

Dickens and the London of his time.  

You can have a lecture without an auditorium.  

You can even do without slides.

Victorian shops instead of power points about the Victorian era.  We digitals are accustomed to time travel.   

The  Dickens Project

Click image to enlarge

• The Dickens Project presents the New and the Familiar, beginning December 4
• Victorian London in the time of Charles Dickens
• The Dickens project includes research about Dickens and his time.
• This presentation is an overview of these research projects.
• The projects are presented as shops in a simulation of Victorian London.
• Community Virtual Library (CVL) collaborates with Seanchai Dickens Project 

• Update 12/24/2020 The Dickens Project 2020 Edition. DivaCanto: channel on YouTube. VWBPE2021: RECONNAISSANCE Call for Proposals.
  

2020 BIZ: Preparing instructions for a skill? Include a JIT glossary Use hypertext to let users control what they read.

Preparing instructions?  

Include a JIT glossary   

Use hypertext to let users control what they read.

How to use common capabilities of digital text to provide instructions aimed at helping users learn now to use a digital product.  

 

Instructions are part of the product

• The problem with instructions: people are different.
• They have different levels of preparation.  
• They are going to do different things.
• And they can't hold a dozen steps in memory just by reading the list.
• Once you hear lecture about swimming, you never forget what you learned about lectures. Talking is not teaching.

Some basic concepts in instruction

• We have packages of knowledge labelled with a word or phrase.  
• Glossary: Index of specific information about important terms in re relevant context.
• JIT learning:  Give just what the learner needs to do the action implied by the term.
• Hypertext:  Software-supported links to further information
• Search on page: Search your current web page for a word or phrase.
• Adaptive learning   Adjust the content to match the skills and circumstances of the learner
• Skill learning:  Learning to do something efficiently
• Use case: A common use that the instructions are designed to support.

• Update 12/24/2020 The Dickens Project 2020 Edition. DivaCanto: channel on YouTube. VWBPE2021: RECONNAISSANCE Call for Proposals.

2020 #VWEDU LIBR: Flipped webinar for educators. A distributed conference. Short presentations, followed by focused discussions. With plans for outreach.

Flipped webinar for educators.

A distributed conference.   

Short  presentations, followed by focused discussions.

With plans for outreach.

Overview of draft plans for a flipped webinar.

You can't find the front 

of the room

Flipping the webinar

• The plan is based on audience participation.
• Starts with "What do you want to know about?"
• Uses online tools to get questions from the audience.
• Uses online tools to present those questions to contributors.
• Uses online tools to show presentations offered by contributors.
• Meeting organizers select presentations for their meetings.
• Presentations run about 10 minutes, followed by a discussion period.
• Presentations and discussions may be live-streamed and saved as videos.
• These may also be converted to text and published as a blog.
• With some editing and referee work, the products might be published as proceedings of a distributed conference.

Benefits

• Efficient sharing of knowledge among online educators.
• Broadens the networking In the online professional learning community (PLC).
• Outreach from educators in virtual worlds to other online educators.
• Aggregated activity gets better visibility than individual activity.

• Update 12/24/2020 The Dickens Project 2020 Edition. DivaCanto: channel on YouTube. VWBPE2021: RECONNAISSANCE Call for Proposals.

2020 #VWEDU: #DTA: The online school as employment agency. Studying online may offer online work opportunities to students.

The online school as employment agency.  

Studying online may offer online work opportunities to students.

Where would you look for people to work online?  People already online, of course.  How about an online school?  Students already online and probably interested in finding work.  

Learning online 

to work online

Work online

• Online work (search)
• Online jobs (search)
• Online careers (search)
• Online work for college students (search)
• The future of online work (search)
• Employment for beginners
• Courses leading to employment

• Update 12/17/2020 The Dickens Project 2020 Edition. VWBPE2021: RECONNAISSANCE Call for Proposals.

2020 #VWEDU: VW: OSCC (OpenSimulator Community Conference) Exhibits: Educational experiences on offer. Experiences? Yes--In virtual worlds students don't just sit quietly and listen.

OSCC (OpenSimulator Community Conference) Exhibits:
Educational experiences on offer
Experiences? Yes--
In virtual worlds students don't just sit quietly and listen.    

Examples of how we create educational environments in virtual worlds.  Will an environment hold attention better than a textbook?  Maybe that depends on the environment.

Dinos in the shop

Educational?

• Only if students are learning to tell facts from fiction.
• If I were using the scene, I would ask students to report on that issue.
• Jurassic Park
• Era of the entrepreneurial educator. The unbundling of education opens the gate for entrepreneurs.
• OSCC hypergrid address: cc.opensimulator.org:8002
• At any arrival point , look for a big sign offering teleports to exhibit areas (5)
• OPENSIMULATOR COMMUNITY VIRTUAL CONFERENCE: December 5-6, 2020. Presentations Dec.5 on education in OpenSim
• OPENSIMULATOR COMMUNITY VIRTUAL CONFERENCE: December 5-6, 2020. Presentations Dec.6 on education in OpenSim

• Update 12/17/2020 The Dickens Project 2020 Edition. VWBPE2021: RECONNAISSANCE Call for Proposals.

2020 #VWEDU: #DTA: Micro-schooling in the neighborhood and schooling online. What do classrooms cost?

Micro-schooling in the neighborhood 
and schooling online.
Division of labor  

Microschools (pod schools) are developing along with home schooling. They also take some of the load off the big box schools.  They can augment their teaching with online courses and microlearning.   This may be a winning combination for entrepreneurial educators.

The Empty Classroom

• What do classrooms cost?
• What else could you do with that money?

Back to the neighborhood school

• One-room school (Wikipedia)
• Micro-schooling (Wikipedia)
• The one-room school had one teacher specialized in education and management of children.   
• That teacher assigned work to each student and saw that they did it.  
• At the elementary level it was obvious that children learned from what they did.
• The consolidated school allowed specialized teachers for each subject.
• That meant long trips, busses and long travel times.
• It also encouraged the view that children learned from what they were told or read.
• (They do remember some of what they experience that way, but probably don't learn how to use it.)
• Micro-schooling supported by online teachers can give the best of both schools
• The micro-school can handle a wide age range.  
• Adult supervision is needed, but not for content.  
• The adult needs to be skilled in managing children and tech.
• Online instruction specialists can handle the content.
• Online instruction can support thousands of students: Sesame Street
• Online instruction can offer a choice of instructional methods
• (If it is important to match learning styles, online can accommodate.)
• The microschool can provide computers with needed security and maintenance. 
• And it can provide good internet service with adequate bandwidth.  
• All based on an established economic principle: Division of labour

After the break

• Where would the money come from? 
• What is currently available?
• What about the "core curriculum"?
• Will learning online prepare young people for future work?

• Update 12/17/2020 The Dickens Project 2020 Edition. VWBPE2021: RECONNAISSANCE Call for Proposals.

2020 #VWEDU: The flipped webinar of virtual worlds, a place for exchanging information. No cost, no reservation. Come as you are. Meet the online educator community.

The flipped webinar of virtual worlds,, 

a place for exchanging information.  

No cost, no reservation.  Come as you are.

Meet the online educator community.

The online Professional Learning Community will be flipping webinars.  

A flipped webinar in a gallery

The online educator community

• Develop your online professional learning network (OPLN) in virtual worlds. The community in your laptop. Always ready. always handy
• We can flip an art webinar into an art gallery.
• Virtual worlds are social virtual reality.
• The flipped webinar: Discovering online learning. The potential is huge, but you gotta know the territory.
• The flipped webinar: a strawman plan for the online Professional Learning Community (PLC)

What is the flipped webinar?

• Flipped classroom  (The focus shifts from the teacher to the students.)
• Flipped webinar (The focus shifts from the speaker to the participants)
• Oh there will be knowledgeable people there all right.    
• They just won't take up your time telling you what they think you need to know.
• They will expect you to indicate what you want to know.  
• Then they will tell you what they know about that.
• And probably give you web links for more information.
• They won't expect to ge paid for sharing what they know.  
• They view the flipped webinar as a place for exchanging information.  
• That means they seek the information they want to seek.
• And give the information they want to give.
• Nobody expects to get paid for this, so no charge is needed.
• And virtual space has no practical limits, so no reservation needed. 

After the break

• Who is flipping webinars?
• What are the flipped webinars about?
• How can I find the ones I am interested in?
• How do I get to them?

• Update 12/17/2020 The Dickens Project 2020 Edition. VWBPE2021: RECONNAISSANCE Call for Proposals.

2020 #VWEDU: OSCC (OpenSimulator Community Conference) exhibits: Rockcliffe University Consortium and the MALET program. SUNY, Empire State College

OSCC (OpenSimulator Community Conference) exhibits: 

Rockcliffe University Consortium and  

the MALET program. SUNY, Empire State College

Two organizations with important activities in virtual worlds. OSCC exhibits will continue to be accessible until the next OSCC.

Rockcliffe display at OSCC 

• OSCC:OpenSimulator Community Conference
• OSCC hypergrid address: cc.opensimulator.org:8002
• At any arrival point , look for a big sign offering teleports to exhibit areas (5)
• RockCliffe University Consortium
• MALET: Master of Arts in Learning and Emerging Technologies

• Update 12/17/2020 The Dickens Project 2020 Edition. VWBPE2021: RECONNAISSANCE Call for Proposals.

2020 #VWEDU: LIBR: The flipped webinar: a strawman plan for the online Professional Learning Community (PLC)

The flipped webinar: 

a strawman plan for the online 

Professional Learning Community (PLC)   

To match a typical academic seminar, you have to flip it to depend heavily on inputs from the participants. We can manage that well online.  

• Watch on YouTube
• A work group at work in a digital place.
• Planning for the flipped and persistent webinar. Guided by the participants. Informed by a panel. Organized by 3DWebWorldz
• The flipped webinar: Discovering online learning. The potential is huge, but you gotta know the territory.

The online Professional Learning Community 

• PLC (Wikipedia)
• OPLN: Catching events in your online PLN. Meetings about online learning. Like webinars except they are free with no registration. More like collaboration than a lecture.

Elements of a flipped webinar

• Webinar management
• Crowd-sourced agenda
• Crowd-sourced expertise
• Distributed meeting.

This reminds you of

• Flipped classroom
• Agile software development
• Design thinking

• Update 12/10/2020 The Dickens Project 2020 Edition. VWBPE2021: RECONNAISSANCE Call for Proposals

2020 #VWEDU: Security for online education. Can a place be easy to access and still be secure against griefers? That's one reason why we need a digital campus.

Security for online education.  
Can a digital campus be easy to access 
and still be secure against griefers?  

Security on the digital campus:  The school controls who can enter, where people can go and what they can do.  But there are online risks.

• FERPA 
  
• A digital school (and should) can have its own entry page.
• It can limit entry to authorized persons 
• It can control where they can go and what they can do.
• If can restrict web access to authorized sites
• And students are safe at home or in the neighborhood micro-school.
• They need to learn about online risks.
• But they need to learn that wherever they go to school. 
• The coming digital campus. Access management. Public and controlled access. Campus security without campus police.
• Draft plan for teaching elements of digital citizenship: How to become a digital guard. Game elements for digital self-defense. Sure you can improve it.
• Mitigating Cyber Security Risk with Scenario-Based Games 
• School security (Wikipedia)
• Can you put a high school next to a porno place? Not even in a virtual world. But there are solutions
• Can virtual worlds meet network security requirements? Some can and some still have problems.

• Update 12/10/2020 The Dickens Project 2020 Edition. VWBPE2021: RECONNAISSANCE Call for Proposals

2020 COMEDY: Fall. 2020: Lauren's place, occasional comedy (NSFW)

2020 COMEDY:  Oct. 2020: Lauren's place,   
Tuesdays at 5:00 PM Pacific NSFW

Sept-Oct collection of comedy from Lauren's place:   WyNott,  Catboy, Amouretta, Jamie, Lauren's Players

• Watch on YouTube

• Occasional comedy (NSFW)
• Place:  http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cookie/122/242/23
• Our Comedy Channel
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGw_HANVLFY&list=PLmXCeJpxLXokSPNK_UVR1rS9qHSfJJsNM
• JOKE BANK - POPULAR JOKES
• Joke search

• Update 12/10/2020 The Dickens Project 2020 Edition. VWBPE2021: RECONNAISSANCE Call for Proposals

2020 #WVEDU: WW: 3DWW Manual, CybaLOUNGE manual, Virtual Worlds Teaching Manual, JIT design. Instruction meets hypertext.

3DWW Manual, CybaLOUNGE manual, 

Virtual Worlds Teaching Manual, 

JIT design.  Instruction meets hypertext.

New people in virtual worlds need instruction manuals.  Just-in-time design makes learning much easier than it was with the old paper manuals.  Here are some manuals.

Get the manual in 3DWebWorldz 

Click image to enlarge

Organized instruction for virtual worlds

• 3DWebWorldz Manual  (Inworld: help button, upper right)
• CybaLOUNGE  Platform Wiki (inworld: question mark, upper left)
• Virtual Worlds Teaching Manual
• JIT learning design

• Update 12/10/2020 The Dickens Project 2020 Edition. VWBPE2021: RECONNAISSANCE Call for Proposals

2021 #VWEDU: Digital Literacy: Cyberbullying, the Learner Bureau of Investigation (LBI), and Sargent Guru: A strawman plan

Digital Literacy:  Cyberbullying, 

the Learner Bureau of Investigation (LBI), and Sargent Guru:  

A strawman plan  

A draft (strawman) plan illustrating how a detective role-playing scenario can be used to teach about cyberbullying and several life skills at the same time. 

LBI scene under construction

Click image to enlarge

• Scene built with Rezmela Square Rooms
• Note the panels that form the project wall at the start.
• Each student may have a personal area for their own things. (Not shown.)
• Strawman plan
• Cyberbullying (Wikipedia)
• After the break:
• The Learner Bureau of Investigation (LBI)
• Sargent Guru
• Digital literacy. He did it in Classcraft. Like a detective story. Could you do it better in your favorite virtual world? Are your students the heroes who will solve this problem?

• Update 12/10/2020 The Dickens Project 2020 Edition. VWBPE2021: RECONNAISSANCE Call for Proposals

2020 #VWEDU: The Dickens Project presents the New and the Familiar, beginning December 4

The Dickens Project presents the New and the Familiar, 

beginning December 4

Seanchai Library brings you The Dickens Project 2020.

The Seanchai Library announces the opening of The Dickens Project 2020 Edition. The Project began as a special seasonal presentation of Seanchai Library in 2008.  It transformed into an interactive environment in 2012, then to a full region experience in 2017. This year's two regions are inspired by the Victorian world of A Christmas Carol and other beloved tales, offering a broad spectrum of opportunities to explore, discover, and participate.

• Update 12/3/2020 OSCC Dec/ 5-6. 2020. VWBPE2021: RECONNAISSANCE Call for Proposals. The Dickens Project 2020 Edition.

2020 #VWEDU: The unbundling of education. The free market gets a growing share of education. Parents get more control.

The unbundling of education.  

The free market gets a growing share of education. 

Parents get more control. 

The internet can deliver interactive educational experiences that go far beyond the passive experiences of books and videos.  The development costs for a particular experience can be spread over a large number of users and so can be much higher.  Thus the economics will favor creating educational experiences in bundles

The Empty Classroom

Unbundling education

• Unbundling (Investopedia)
• Unbundling means a change in which products previously sold together are separated and sold in their constituent parts.
• Education Is Unbundling—Three Key Trends to Watch

Higher education

• Unbundling of higher education
• University as a Service: The Future of Higher Education and the Great Unbundling
• What is unbundling in higher education and why is it happening?
• The Unbundled University: Researching Emerging Models in an Unequal Landscape.
• Scholarly articles for unbundling of higher education
• How Fast and Furious Will Be the Unbundling of College Education?

K-12 education

• CHARTER SCHOOLS AND THE UNBUNDLING OF K-12 EDUCATION SERVICES
• The unbundling of k-12 education

• Update 12/3/2020 OSCC Dec/ 5-6. 2020. VWBPE2021: RECONNAISSANCE Call for Proposals. The Dickens Project 2020 Edition.
  

2020 #VWEDU: Online library in 3DWebWorldz Part 4: Victorian era: Realism and Transcendentalism: Relevant to history, government, social studies, literature, and philosophy.

Online library in 3DWebWorldz Part 4: 

Realism and Transcendentalism:

Relevant to history, government, 

social studies, literature, and philosophy.

Miss Brenda discusses major intellectual movements of the Victorian era.  

• Watch on YouTube
• Participants: Jamie Jordan, Miss Brenda, Selby
• Links to Project Gutenberg 

Who would be interested

• Teachers and students of  history, government, social studies, literature, and philosophy.
• Librarians, book clubs, and writers

To visit the library

• To visit the library, click here
• Nothing to install, this runs in your browser. 
• No need to register.  Enter as a guest to see what is there.
• Better yet, bring a friend--you can talk in this library.
• Registration is free--that lets you pick an avatar an build a contact list.

• Update 12/3/2020 OSCC Dec/ 5-6. 2020. VWBPE2021: RECONNAISSANCE Call for Proposals. The Dickens Project 2020 Edition.

2020 #VWEDU: OPENSIMULATOR COMMUNITY VIRTUAL CONFERENCE: December 5-6, 2020. Presentations Dec.6 on education in OpenSim

OPENSIMULATOR COMMUNITY VIRTUAL CONFERENCE: 

December 5-6, 2020. 

Presentations Dec.6  on education in OpenSim

OSCC20 is here Dec 5-6 2020. A lot of presentations are in support of online education.

• Watch on YouTube

• OpenSimulator Community Conference 2020  will take place virtually on the OpenSimulator Conference Center grid on December 5-6, 2020.
• The OSCC focus:the developer and user communities of OpenSimulator software.
• Come see how we use these 3D collaborative spaces in amazing ways!
• OSCC hypergrid address: cc.opensimulator.org:8002
• Put the HG address in the Find bar of the World Map, click Find, TP
• You can usually get into a presentation even if you are not registered.
• Announcement
• Schedule
• Registration page
• Registration is free.  
• Presentations will also be live streamed and archived.
• News
• Era of the entrepreneurial educator. The unbundling of education opens the gate for entrepreneurs.

Come see how we use these 3D collaborative spaces in amazing ways!

• Update 12/3/2020 OSCC Dec/ 5-6. 2020. VWBPE2021: RECONNAISSANCE Call for Proposals. The Dickens Project 2020 Edition.

2020 #VWEDU: The flipped webinar: Discovering online learning. The potential is huge, but you gotta know the territory.

The flipped webinar:  

Discovering online learning.  

The potential is huge, but you gotta know the territory.

A webinar you can usually watch in a video.  That is like a class, not a like a seminar.  To match a typical academic seminar, you have to flip it to depend heavily on inputs from the participants. 

• Watch on YouTube
• A work group at work in a digital place.
• Planning for the flipped and persistent webinar. Guided by the participants. Informed by a panel. Organized by 3DWebWorldz

Webinars

• The advantages of online learning
• But that only applies when people are learning what they need to learn. 
• And it says nothing about the role on educators.  
• Unless we are talking about educators learning online.  
• Educators are doing that:  Online resources for educators
• More specifically:  Webinars for educators.
• And Online education conferences
• Many of these seem to be in the traditional lecture format.  
• That's when you pay for lecturers to tell you what they think you should know.
• Some of us oldtimers in virtual worlds have been holding flipped webinars.
• We just called them planning meetings or workshops.  
• But I suggest we start promoting them as flipped webinars 

Flipped webinars

• That's when the participants propose questions and topics.
• And other participants prepare relevant comments and answers.
• Preferably the questions and topics are prepared in advance.
• Crowdsourcing the agenda: an organizer picks and promotes the agenda.  
• A complete plan would call for:
• a bulletin board (or the like) for asynchronous communication,
• an online meeting time/place for synchronous discussion in voice,
• A place for publishing and archiving the results of discussions.
• The place for publishing might be a blog and YouTube channel.

2020 #VWEDU: OPENSIMULATOR COMMUNITY VIRTUAL CONFERENCE: December 5-6, 2020. Presentations Dec.5 on education in OpenSim

OPENSIMULATOR COMMUNITY VIRTUAL CONFERENCE: 

December 5-6, 2020.

Presentations Dec.5  on education in OpenSim

OSCC20 is coming Dec 5-6 2020. A lot of presentations are in support of online education.

• Watch on YouTube

• OpenSimulator Community Conference 2020  will take place virtually on the OpenSimulator Conference Center grid on December 5-6, 2020.
• The OSCC focus:the developer and user communities of OpenSimulator software.. 
• Come see how we use these 3D collaborative spaces in amazing ways! 
• OSCC hypergrid address: cc.opensimulator.org:8002
• Put the HG address in the Find bar of the World Map, click Find, TP
• You can usually get into a presentation even if you are not registered.
• Announcement
• Schedule
• Registration page
• Registration is free.  
• Presentations will also be live streamed and archived.
• News
• Era of the entrepreneurial educator. The unbundling of education opens the gate for entrepreneurs.

• Update 11/26/2020 OSCC Dec/ 5-6. 2020 Terra Nova, Utopia, Tangle, Craft and Kitely shine in user survey. VWBPE2021: RECONNAISSANCE Call for Proposals