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Our December 2008/January 2009 special issue on academics in virtual environments focuses on the possibilities and pitfalls of teaching in virtual worlds. Our contributors offer insights into how educators exploring multiuser virtual environments (MUVEs) can use the lessons learned in earlier versions of the technology, describe worlds built to meet specific educational needs, and offer advice for using SecondLife and other environments to help students with special needs.
Hacking Say and Reviving ELIZA:
Lessons from Virtual Environments
By Rochelle Mazar and Jason Nolan
As text-based predecessors to Second Life, MOOs can offer educators important insights on managing virtual communities to create rich, meaningful learning experiences. Rochelle Mazar and Jason Nolan outline two instructional experiments in MOOs that have implications for current educational practice in Second Life.
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The Time Factor:
Leveraging Intelligent Agents and Directed Narratives in Online Learning Environments
By Greg Jones and Scott Warren
Using video games, virtual simulations, and other digital spaces for learning can be a time-consuming process; aside from technical issues that may absorb class time, students take longer to achieve gains in learning in virtual environments. Greg Jones and Scott Warren describe how intelligent agents, in-game characters that respond to the context of the game and to the individual player's situation, can accelerate learning in MUVEs and other virtual learning environments.
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Knowledge-Driven Design of Virtual Patient Simulations
By Victor Vergara, Thomas Caudell, Timothy Goldsmith, Panaiotis, and Dale Alverson
Virtual worlds provide unique opportunities for instructors to promote, study, and evaluate student learning and comprehension. In this article, Victor Vergara, Thomas Caudell, Timothy Goldsmith, Panaiotis, and Dale Alverson explore the advantages of using virtual reality environments to create simulations for medical students.
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Using Second Life with Learning-Disabled Students in Higher Education
By Stephanie McKinney, Agi Horspool, Renee Willers, Omar Safie, and Laurie Richlin
The educational potential of Second Life is still in the process of being developed and harnessed. According to Stephanie McKinney, Agi Horspool, Renee Willers, Omar Safie, and Laurie Richlin, an essential step in this development will be to figure out how to use Second Life to support learning-disabled (LD) students who face numerous challenges in traditional instruction in higher education.
Innovate-Blog:
A Step Into Blog 2.0
By James Shimabukuro
Although we must say farewell to Stephen Downes's long-time contribution to this journal, Places to Go, and wish Stephen luck in his next endeavors, we announce a new feature this month.
In the inaugural edition of Innovate-Blog, James Shimabukuro introduces Innovate's newest feature, I-Blog. The advent of free blog publishing platforms and tools gave individuals a simple yet sophisticated means to publish directly to the Web. In the last few years, organizations and institutions have been using blogs for their own purposes, creating a kind of Blog 2.0 that is less about individuals and more about organizations and teams.
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Innovate-Ideagora:
What's Happening
By Alan McCord and Denise Easton
In this edition of Innovate-Ideagora, Alan McCord and Denise Easton report that Innovate's social networking initiative now has almost 280 members, many of them actively contributing to a lively set of discussions, including considerations of what topics the Ideagora should take up in the future and a conversation about the challenges of motivating reluctant faculty members to engage with new technology.
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Our partner, ULiveandLearn, produces author webcasts on the topics of their articles. You may register for the December/January webcasts at the Innovate-Live portal http://www.uliveandlearn.com/PortalInnovate/index.cfm
Enjoy this issue of Innovate!
Source: Innovate
