Ed Tech Box

I really like flying. I think I'm getting the hang of this Second Life stuff too.

I flew around EdTech Island a bit trying to find the sandbox. It took me about 5 minutes of flying to figure out that different areas of the island have names (USERS or CAVE for example). So I flew around for a bit, keeping my eye on my "location bar." After a few more minutes I found myself in the Sandbox.

I quickly right-clicked and got to work. I noticed I could build a number of shapes, including several different regular polygons as well as a tree. I chose the box icon and started working my magic.

It wasn't long before I was enjoying a relaxing afternoon, sitting on my box. It was a pretty cool feeling--not because it was a difficult task to achieve or puzzle to solve, but because it opened my eyes a little wider to the potential of this MMO in an education setting.

I am excited about the possibility of creating engaging environments for my students. I haven't looked into the cost aspect and I'm sure it would involve an immense amount of time, but I think it would be worth it. I also need to look into the possibility of an iPad app, since my school is implementing a 1:1 initiative. If it is possible to use Second Life on an iPad, this application is going to be very appealing in the coming years.

My only issue with Second Life at this point is that it is extremely choppy while the objects are loading. I'm not sure if that is a Second Life issue or if my computer is in need of an upgrade, but my experience would be much more enjoyable if the environment loaded a little faster/smoother.

Second Life--Moving and Viewing

So, I just spent a few minutes walking around Eagle Island and have noticed some really exciting features of Second Life. I am really beginning to see how it can fit into an educational setting. I really like that SL allows it's citizens to fly. The first thing I did was fly to the top of a nearby mountain to see the surrounding landscape:

After flying around a bit, a video started playing. I didn't intentionally start the video, so I had no idea where I could find it to turn it off. So, off I went, on an epic adventure to end the chicken reproduction system video. I looked at the nearby videos and in the lab, but couldn't find it.

Next, I flew up and out to find a section of the island to which I did not have access. After flying in circles for a few moments, I found an outdoor classroom with a huge screen at its center. There, I found the chicken video and turned it off. Next, I flew to the beach for some much needed relaxation after the stress of flying around to find the chicken video (SL can be stressful :-p). So I laid down in the hammock. Brilliant!

Next, I roamed around to several other "boothes" that were set up that had some interesting information linked to them. I ended my time on Eagle Island this afternoon by watching the sunset. Sitting on...a goat.

As I was walking (running, flying) through Eagle Island, my creative teacher-juices began to flow. I began to think of the various destinations that have been created to mimic real life (at times, historical) places. Students would be able to access these places to get a 3D view of the particular region or city we are studying. Also, I realized people can create museums, or islands of specific events in history. For example, it wouldn't surprise me if someone has created an island for WWII or the Holocaust to be more specific. The potential to create these and other such "displays" makes SL much more intriguing and usable in the classroom. The more I experience, the more likely I am to actually try this with my students. I'm excited to continue to explore the SL world and its potential to aid in instruction.

Educate the World

Last Fall, the the government in India release the Aakash Android Tablet. It is a tablet that costs a mere $35 dollars (with a government subsidy, about $60 without) that the Indians hope will be used to connect millions of students to the greatest learning tool ever developed--the web. India, being one of the most populated countries in the world, has a huge share of impoverished people. Hopefully for this massive group of Indians, the tablet will better educate the future generations, leading to upward mobility and a drastically reduced number of poor.

This same model could be applied to the United States, one of the riches nations in the world. The US could relatively easily put this technology in the hands of its students. Unfortunately, Americans, as a whole, are a little spoiled. School-aged children are already familiar with top-notch technology by the time they are preteens. The Aakash, being less than $100 is not as powerful, responsive, and enjoyable to use as say, the iPad. I think many American children would have a difficult time regressing to this type of technology.

Educational technology in this case is very similar to food. If the Peace Corps showed up in some suburban white neighborhood and offered some kind of cheap, but nutritious gruel, the kids are probably going to respectfully decline. But if you take that same batch of gruel to the inner-city, it's going to be eaten. The difference is the kids are starving. For food. For education. For something better.

I think the Aakash could play a pivotal role in revolutionizing learning for millions (if not billions) of people around the world. I guess, you just have to find someone who is hungry.

Check out the Aakash on Wikipedia.

Gaming to Learn

Can gaming actually help us learn? This is exactly what Tim Chatfield argues in the following Ted Talk, and it makes a lot of sense. First of all, gaming has proliferated in the past twenty years. It is a multi-billion dollar industry. Tim argues that this is at least partially due to the rewards individuals (or groups) reap while engaging each other and the environment in a virtual world. Game designers can measure billions of data points while the game, and then calibrate the game--that is, balancing effort and reward--to keep players engaged.

Tim mentions 7 ways games reward the brain:

1. Experience bars--players can see their experience level and compare it to an end goal. They see themselves progress and take ownership of their attempting to reach the goal.
2. Multiple long and short term goals--lots of different tasks to give people a variety of options to choose from
3. Rewards for effort--everything done in the game reaps some kind of benefit. For example, if you kill a monster, you get at least a little bit of in-game currency.
4. Rapid, frequent, clear feedback--the player is often reminded of how she is doing and whether she is on the right track
5. An element of uncertainty--the gamer always has a chance for something really awesome to happen--they will get an extra, unexpected reward, for example.
6. Windows of enhanced attention--by measuring dopamine levels in the brain, we can predict windows of time when learning is taking place at an enhanced level.
7. Other people--"the biggest neurological turn on" is interacting with other people.

If we could somehow apply these same ideas in an education setting, I think the benefits would be huge. I envision a class in which students are engaged on an individual basis, each one learning at his own pace. Each achieving at a level appropriate to him. Some students zoom ahead of others at a blinding pace, others take the tortoise's approach, everyone learns. This is differentiating instruction at its finest.