3-D Internet for Learning
February 25th, 2008 by trottahe
This past week I added the two-day, online conference 3-D Internet for Learning, co-sponsored by IBM, Arizona State University, the Federation for American Scientists and the Kauffman Foundation. An estimated eighty participants attended the event held in >Active Worlds. Along with providing many resources I am still checking out, the speakers spoke to a number of topics that had relevance to my Ed.M. project on virtual ecosystems.
As we start to plan out our virtual marsh environment I thought about the comments made regarding the “recreation” of “real places” so prevalent in many of the virtual world builds instead of immersive spaces unconfined by gravity, weight, climate, atmosphere, and other limitations. A salt-water marsh just looks like a muddy tangled field of weeds, which most residents in Second Life would find very boring. However, it is really a very complex ecosystem that is most often transparent to real-life observers. It would be very cool to recreate this microscopic web of life nursery in ways students would normally not see from the microscopic level.
James Gee talked about assessment in virtual worlds, a topic near, and dear to my heart lately. He felt educators were bringing old world assessments into new world environments and called for assessment to be part of the experience in the virtual world. In games such as World of Warcraft, tasks move from the simple to the complex through knowledge domains. Game identity is anchored in the skills and talents one acquires as the world is experienced through shared activities and reflection with other inhabitants. A natural help system is built into these systems though mentors and embedded experiences. Educators using virtual worlds to create learning spaces for students need to take these concepts from online multi-user games and incorporate them into the space if they hope to ensure the best learning outcomes possible. I’ll be thinking of ways we can provide continuous assessment and collaborative reflection in our marsh environment as we go forward with our project.
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