voyeurism

learning about river basins in a geography lesson, using Second Life (part 2)

as a follow-on from my previous post, here's a teachable moment, illustrating how Second Life can be used to surface otherwise implicit pre-conceptions and mis-conceptions about concepts in geography.

have a close look at the drainage basin below, terraformed by a group of four 14- to 15-year-old students in Singapore, over the span of half-an-hour.

here's a map representing the entire class's work (over the same period of time), as a basis for comparison :-)

learning about river basins in a geography lesson, using Second Life

similar to last month's post, here's another video which suggests how Second Life might be used to help novice geographers develop phenomenological primitives (diSessa, 1993) regarding contour-represenations and topographical variation, in order that they might more effectively manage the cognitive transpositions between two- and three-dimensions.

the video quality has been intentionally blurred. subtitles have also been added.

Technorati Tags: assessment, cognition, education, expert, geography, learning, maps, Pathways, Second Life, Singapore, Six Learnings, Starling Project, TLLM

land of the lost

sharing a moment of surreality with you :-)

... only in Second Life :-P

Second Life Community Convention 2010 - my presentation proposal has been accepted :-)

thanks be to God :-)

my presentation proposal for this year's Second Life Community Convention (SLCC) has been accepted :-)

the presentation is entitled 'The Six Learnings framework in action: Examples from geography education in Singapore schools', and it's part of the convention's Education and Research track (ably chaired by Kevin Feenan (SL: Phelan Corrimal).

here's the description of the presentation:

This presentation will elaborate on the Six Learnings framework (which was introduced at SLCC 2008) by sharing how schools in Singapore have (over the course of 2010) been designing interventions in Second Life in Science, Languages and Geography. These interventions have been co-designed by curriculum officers from the Ministry of Education, by teachers, by developers (ie, builders / scripters) and by the presenter (representing the researcher in the Learning Sciences). The Six Learnings framework will be used as an organisational lens through which to examine the diversity of the interventions, with focus being - as far as possible - on the interventions themselves and their associated learning outcomes.

if you possibly can, please do join me in Boston this August :-)

learning geography through terraforming

gee, i wish i had had my own 120-metre by 32-metre terraformable sandbox to mess around with when i was 14-years-old :-)

contours and geographical understanding with Second Life (student voices)

here's a complementary video to one i posted in March, and includes excerpts from the post-session interview with the students. the video quality has been intentionally blurred. subtitles have also been added.

Technorati Tags: assessment, cognition, education, expert, geography, learning, maps, Pathways, Second Life, Singapore, Six Learnings, Starling Project, TLLM

thank you, Carina Gonzalez :-)

three years' ago, Leslie Jarmon and Joe Sanchez had an idea to grow a community of educators in Second Life.

Leslie is no longer with us, but her enervating spirit continues to serve as inspiration for those of us in the Educators Coop.

over the past four months, Carina Gonzalez - a Masters candidate in Library Information Science at Rutgers - has been painstakingly interviewing and crafting accurate and thorough profiles of each member of the Coop.

taken together, the profiles paint a tapestry which only hints at the richness and diversity of the work in education and learning that is taking place in Second Life, the inspiration of a great deal of which can be traced - directly or indirectly - back to Leslie's and Joe's first brave steps.

you can read Carina's profile of me here. thank you, Carina :-)

Technorati Tags: education, Educators Coop, geography, learning, Pathways, Second Life, Six Learnings, Starling Project, the Raymaker Field Studies Centre at Praxis

the Six Learnings framework at-a-glance

i've devised a way of quickly and intelligibly representing the Six Learnings framework as a series of coloured badges.

using this system, one can easily have a big-picture view of which particular affordances are being tapped by any given range of educational interventions in Second Life.

here's an example, using the schools i've been working with this year :-)

contours and geographical understanding with Second Life

here's a video which suggests how Second Life might be used to help novice geographers develop phenomenological primitives (diSessa, 1993) regarding contour-represenations and topographical variation, in order that they might more effectively manage the cognitive transpositions between two- and three-dimensions.

[update: if you'd like to hear key excerpts of an interview with students that followed this session, they're now available :-) ]

Technorati Tags: assessment, cognition, education, expert, geography, learning, maps, Pathways, Second Life, Singapore, Six Learnings, Starling Project, TLLM

two more students in Singapore talk about Second Life

the one hundred and eightieth episode of ventriloquy is an interview with two thirteen-year-old students in Singapore, who share their thoughts about Second Life.

this 76.0 MB download is complementary to episode 178. like the students featured in that episode, they were from a state-funded school, who had their first in-world session lasting an hour. the students were co-interviewed by my colleague from the Ministry of Education, and myself. the introductory session represents the initial steps in helping students in Singapore appreciate for themselves the affordances for multi-disciplinary learning that Second Life affords.