Archive for March, 2008

Getting educational in Second Life

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Back in 2003, when Second Life arrived on the internets, I was not in a position to take part. My computer wasn’t fast enough and I didn’t have the time available. Since then, I resisted joining on the grounds that it seemed really materialistic and commercial. While there were indeed interesting things happening there, what I saw seemed too close to the social hierarchies of first-life.

Over time, and as I became more involved in education, I discovered the growing numbers of educators and world changers flocking to SL. This gave me a compelling reason to invest my time there. And I finally made the plunge this weekend - four years too late but better late than never. What I found there was indeed compelling.

So there I am in the image above (note: my avatar is temporary) enjoying a conversation with a few other educators in a professor’s virtual condo. Aftewards, Smartlak and I roamed around Eduisland, Athens and a few other places. Here are some photos I took of our first adventure.

Eternally grateful to Prentiss for help getting started. Great to meet Leigh, Mal, and Fred Special thanks to Knowclue for rollerskates and Leigh for the tour of your beautiful space. Hope to meet many more geeky big brains in SL and take part in some of the forward thinking education innovation taking place there.

Yours in-world,

Verdana Madrid

2 million reasons not to Facebook through class

From the start of elementary school until high school graduation, students spend two million minutes preparing for their future. Director Chad Heeter’s documentary 2 Million Minutes explores the dramatic differences between the way Western students spend that time versus students in China and India.

Teaching and learning 2.0: Turn up the good, turn down the suck

 

 

University of Texas professor David Parry is my idea of the future of education. According to Parry:

“The more we try to put those walls up, and say “I’m a professor, I only talk inside the class” the more irrelevant we become.”

I cannot agree more. This is what Paulo Freire was talking about when he talked about pedagogies of praxis (action v. theory). Especially in relation to the web. Continue reading ‘Teaching and learning 2.0: Turn up the good, turn down the suck’

Web Weekend Vancouver

mmwebweek.jpgI just returned from another wonderful Magazines Canada Web Weekend event where I presented my talk “Magazines2.0: User is King” to a dynamic and engaged group of Mags Canada member publications. Find out more about my presentation below …
Continue reading ‘Web Weekend Vancouver’