Symposium for Teaching and Learning with Technology

Brian Smith and Bart Pursel in the College of Information Sciences and Technology ask students to investigate the design and potential of video games and online virtual worlds for use in education and business.

In Pursel’s “IST 110 Information, People, and Technology” course, students explore the virtual world Second Life (http://secondlife.com/), developing objects and evaluating how the environment is being used for business purposes. He said that by creating items such as interactive signs and even full-scale buildings on the college’s Second Life island of “Istania,” they learn to use scripting language and 3-D modeling tools. He said, “We’re throwing the kitchen sink at Second Life to see what it works best for.”

A few posts ago we brought up Second Life and here we go again. In this Symposium 2008 podcast, Gloria Clark discusses her use of Second Life in her Spanish Class. Check out a great set of session notes and download the podcast to hear more.

There is something about Second Life that screams "Use me in education" and it appears that Alexia Hudson and Jungwoo Ryoo have found some wonderful ways to integrate virtual worlds with the classroom. Click through to the session notes and download this Symposium 2008 podcast to learn more about Second Life in education.

Bart Pursel from Information Sciences and Technology talks about his interest in gaming, virtual worlds, and social networking. He also talks about his reaction to the keynote, specifically how Lessig said that audio/video mashups are parallel to the creative aspects of writing for today's students.

Michael Bartolacci, associate professor of IST from the Berks Campus discusses Second Life (he manges the Berks Campus island) and how his students are using it and their social interactions in Second Life.

Why not pick up some Spanish at Hacienda Segunda Vida?

Dr. Bixler introduces Gloria Clark!
Gloria Clark, an assistant professor at Harrisburg, prepared a proposal for her Seond Life Hacienda because of the difficulty she's seen in creating a foreign language environment in the classroom. She hoped to create a more immersive way to get students using Spanish.

Sounds like she's succeeded! Not only do her students speak Spanish in Second Life, they also complete written assignments related to their virtual experiences online. Gloria reports that the students in her course are doing a lot more writing in Spanish than in many other courses she's seen.

Hi Folks!

Time for a little live-blogging of a panel on Second Life in education!

Dr. Bixler is here to introduce the presenters: Alexia Hudson and Jungwoo Ryoo. They've come to talk about two very different projects which both involve the virtual world known as "Second Life".

Alexia is a Reference and Instruction Librarian, who also serves as the project leader of the Second Life pilot at Great Valley. (Within Second Life, though, she is known as Donna Upshaw!)

Alexia and her group have been creating business courses using Second Life! Though their students (adult learners who work full time) showed some resistance at first, they quickly grew to value the Second Life experience. Alexia found that SL encouraged peer learning and more engagement among students.

Students were asked to interview business owners within SL and to compare SL businesses with real-world businesses.

During the Symposium, attendees can tag themselves with some stickers that we have on hand. I hope this will help to strike up conversations between people who share a common interest, but who don't know each other yet.