MUVE-+Arianna

From my reading and exploration I have discovered that the website, http://secondlife.com/?v=1. offers a wide array of professional organizations that would be beneficial to educators. From the reading by Sanchez I have discovered that secondlife.com offers professional development for educators in the Discovery Education’s amphitheater. Sanchez explains, “With a few clicks of the mouse, teachers and administrators can congregate at Discovery Education’s amphitheater on Edu-Island II, a virtual property that Discovery Education is renting and where about 700 educators congregate to receive alerts about upcoming events and professional learning opportunities (Sanchez).” Sanchez explains that they have live video streaming and valuable tutorials about virtual worlds and their place in education.

Another website I visited was activeworld.com, which offers a variety of tools for educators. It creates an educational community in which educators have a forum in which they can share new ideas, learning concepts, curriculum and discuss concepts in social learning. One of the examples I read about was the River City Project. This was a virtual world in students can go back into time and use modern tools and skills to address 19th century problems. This particular city is plagued with diseases and students must come together to solve these problems by using the scientific method and coming up with a solution. .

One personal network available on the @http://edusim3d.com/ website called Green Bush lab which offers ideas on how new technology can be used in the classroom For instance, Green Bush lab discusses the use of the MUVE organization called CSI island in which students can learn about what occurs in crime scene investigation. Since I also teach Criminal Justice, this would be a great way for my students to learn about crime scenes and how they are investigated by law enforcement.

Another source that I discovered when researching MUVE’s was research conducted by Harvard University entitled, //Multi-User Virtual Environments for Teaching and Learning// by Edward Dieterle and Jody Clarke found on the website, []. The articles discuss a variety of MUVE’s and how they can be used in the classroom for different subject areas.

All these resources would be beneficial for educators in any subject area to research MUVE’s and allow them to experiment with them in their classrooms.

Arianna

I also came across activeworld.com. I like MUVEs and would love to incorporate it into my math class with my third graders. It seems to be so time consuming when searching for one that would fit into my age group, most of them seem to be for middle school students. Also, how do you think parents will react to MUVEs?

Janie