second life in education

Second life is quickly becoming a valuable tool for those in the education field. http://www.campustechnology.com/Articles/2009/02/18/Real-Life-Teaching-in-a-Virtual-World.aspx?Page=2. 

This Blog talks about how universities use second life to set up replicas of their campus, imagine that visiting the campus from your couch! Teachers use it to teach in as well as a supplement to their class material says denise harrison.

Along with using Second Life in the classroom educators are using it as a place to meet and discuss current education trends. http://slbestpractices2007.wikispaces.com/ This blog tells of a meeting of 1300 educators from all over the world. imagine a global faculty meeting!

second life in education

The persistence of memory by Salvidor Dali. Before Second life we saw pictures of this painting. We talking about it, discussed it. How many of you actually ever walked into it? walked behind it under it? Imagine how this opens up all new areas for discussion? I found this painting at Salvador Dali- Persistence of Memory in SL

Second life in education

The Frank Lloyd Wright Museum of SL Dedicated to the works of the greatest American architect of all time, The Frank Lloyd Wright Museum of SL offers both a permanent collection of his works including homes, buildings, furniture, stained glass, drawings and photos as well as special events related to Wright and his work. This is a place In Second life that Is an amazing resource for the educator. We teach about famous artist and their work, we show pictures of their work but only the lucky few ever really get to see their work in 3-d. Imagine teaching a class talking about Frank Wrights work then sending the students here to explore his creations.

Second life in education

We are now wrapping up Month 4 and by now we are all familiar with Second Life. Second life is a virtual world that people all over the world can join and participate in. Second life has a vast number of areas that can be explored many of which are beneficial to educators. http://www.joystiq.com/2006/09/12/harvard-class-invades-second-life/  This short blog shows how Second Life is affecting major schools. Harvard University is a very prestigious school and they are using Second life as a forum for teaching a class.  

 I visited the da vinci Gardens where I was able to go under the ocean and see all kinds of aquatic creatures. One of the most amazing things about Second life is being able to explore areas that I could never even imagine exploring. In school we learn how fish swim in schools but imagine seeing them actually swim that way. Quite an amazing educational tool

Podcasting in Education

The first time I ever heard of podcasting was on the Preston and Steve show( a local radio show). I remember thinking wow that is pretty neat that if you missed the show you could listen to it later on down at your convenience. Education and podcasting are a great pairing.http://eric.ed.gov:80/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/1e/1d/f3.pdf Flanagan presents a good paper outlining podcasts. Along with the information he gives on setting up podcasts Flanagan says podcasting presents a good alternative in class lecturing. In his paper a Duke student suggests that listening to the class lecture via podcast after the lecture contributed to his high score on the first exam.

http://lansinglearntech.pbworks.com/f/k-12+podcasting.pdf   Podcasting can also be used at the middle school level as well. Rhea R. Borja talks about how middle schoolers are podcasting to let other students know whats going on around the school. The students do interviews then edit them down then post them so that the rest of the school can get to know the different areas and students in the school.

Learning about podcasting and incorporating into the classroom are two different things. Often after learning about something we want to incorporate it into our classroom but are not quite sure how to do it.  Nathan Shelley has a good website http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~nshelley/index.html that shows how to start off with podcasting. The website benefits teacher and student with sections explaining the process each will have in incorporating podcasts into the class.

Podcasting is a fairly new tool for educators, so why should we use it? Wesley fryer give ten reasons for using podcast. http://www.wtvi.com/TEKS/05_06_articles/classroom-audio-podcasting.html .

You can never have enough  ideas for projects for your students. If you are going to incorporate podcasting into your class you will want to have plenty of ideas for how to incorporate them. http://fcit.usf.edu/podcasts/ this site gives you a bunch of different ideas for how to use podcasting in subjects.

 

RSS overview

After researching RSS feeds in the classroom I have noticed a couple things. A lot of people are all saying the same thing about Rss feeds. Check out, http://eduscapes.com/sessions/rss/ this is a classroom 2.o blog. Classroom 2.0 a ning site has alot of good discussion on RSS feeds. After you get thru all the sites showing you how to set up and use rss feeds you get to sites that actually use them. When creating a class blog or school blog it just makes sense to have that as a feature. The ease of communication for all parties involved (teacher, parent, administrators, students) is phenomenal. This site gives a good example of how schools are using educating parents and students on how to get started ,http://frisbie.rialtoschools.org/addRssFeed.aspx?type=C&id=f3777309-76df-4968-b51b-8eec60aef081&desc=

Schools using Rss feeds

http://eduscapes.com/sessions/rss/ If you go to this website then scroll down to activity three(highlighted in yellow) there are very cool examples of RSS feeds in motion. These schools and classrooms have incorporated blogs and RSS feeds into their students lives. Each one is just a little different, with each having its own unique agenda.