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Recently I posted an article questioning the usefulness of Second Life in education, to which I received mixed feedback. Last week I had the opportunity to see Dr. Julian Lombardi and Dr. Marilyn Lombardi of Duke University demonstrate a open-source peer-to-peer virtual world application called Croquet. Croquet is basically Second Life, but much more.
This article looks at 7 ways Croquet is better than Second Life. I also explore some of the con’s of this alternative virtual world and some questions I still have.
Note: This product does not have a distributable application at this point. This article is one of two things: a call for help, or a glimpse in the future. If you have the skills to help out with the development, please do so, otherwise you should see a downloadable application this coming fall.
Continue reading ‘7 Ways Croquet is Better than Second Life’
Tags: croquet, second life, teacher tools, virtual world
For those who didn’t hear, today is SysAdmin Appreciation Day. I think this started as a joke a while ago, but now there is even a website. Here is a funny video by Wes Borg of Dead Trolls.com.
So to Matthew, Devin, George, Stewart, and Alex. Thanks for being my system administrators… I didn’t get you anything, but I did write a blog post to say thanks… please hurt somebody else…
Tags: funny, sysadmin
Darren Draper, a technology specialist from Sandy Utah recently posted an article in which he asked the general question… why do we blog? Great question for us educational bloggers out there… so why do I blog?
Darren, I started blogging because I really felt like I had some ideas that would benefit the larger educational community and I felt like I was not really being heard in my current job. I guess I really wanted to feel like I was making a difference, hoping somebody was there to hear what I was saying.
I found all this and more. What I really found was a community.
As I started to blog I soon realized there are TONS of people out there just like me. Early adopters, people who just love technology and are willing to try just about anything in hopes of finding something that will make life easier. Those who spend countless hours of their precious ‘free’ time figuring out new technology and tweaking it to work for real people. I have only been blogging in the educational community for a little less than a year, but it has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my work in instructional technology so far.
Tags: blogging, blogosphere, communication, conversation
This morning I came across this video (courtesy of Cool Cat Teacher). This is just awesome.
So… can you imagine? Some great questions in a humorous format. First thought has to do with all the things the man who crashed the internet was doing. It is so true, we are saturated with content and things to think about. I am even getting to the point when I am doing 2-3 things at a time on my cell phone… wow.
But even more disturbing… Do you have backups of your blogs? Do you print them out at least once a year?
Just imagine…
Tags: digital learners, digital natives, funny
Right on the heels of my last post about Second Life a couple of Second Life alternatives are starting to surface. I have long known that there were alternate virtual worlds as well, but as I recall the problem lies in the fact that they are just not as big, nor are there nearly as many ‘other’ voices to enrich the experience.
Continue reading ‘Second Life Alternatives’
Tags: second life, virtual world
TechCrunch published an interesting article a couple of days ago “Will The Last Corporation Leaving Second Life Please Turn Off The Light?” This article explores the cost of running a second life business and it’s relative small audience. Granted there are lots of things you can do in second life that you couldn’t do in a traditional webpage, but for most it wasn’t worth the amount invested? That led me to question… is Second Life really worth it in Education?
Continue reading ‘Is Second Life in Education Worth It?’
Tags: second life, virtual world
This morning I came across a great article on Tech Consumer entitled: “The Next Big Thing: Why Web 2.0 Isn’t Enough” by Marion Jensen. Marion says that the “next big thing is…location, location, location.” He goes on to explain:
Continue reading ‘The Next Big Thing: Why Web 2.0 Insn’t Enough’
Tags: cell phone, classroom 2.0, education, education students, school 2.0, web 2.0
