MUVES+and+Professional+Development

Application Week 5-Learning Community Assignment Vicki Fishman ISTE Sceond Life Discovery Star Educators Google Certified Teachers Google Certified Teachers ALA New Media Consortium RezEd-Global Second Life Cirrucium
 * Professional Organizations**

Eleveninstitute- [] Eleveninstitute is a resource to both educators and librarians to integrate new technologies into teaching and learning. It uses Second Life and other virtual environments to help school personnel to create virtual learning environments for students. Eleveinstitute offers workshops that equip teachers with the basics as well as a mentor program.

Discovery Educator Network - [] Discovery Education Network offers a continuum of services to move districts toward implementing 21st century environments into their classrooms. Resources through this network include access to digital textbooks, engaging standards-aligned content, learning communities and virtual experiences. Mentors are available to assist teachers in learning how to represent learning materials in a virtual environment.

Discovery Educator Network (DEN) is an excellent way for my staff to collaborate with educators across the world. Through this network, volunteers are available to help my staff develop avatars and learn how to represent learning materials in virtual environments such as Second Life. Since the majority of my staff are far from digital natives and retreat from using technology in the classroom, having a collaboration tool such as DEN will be essential in my quest to change the instructional landscape at my school.

Vicki~

Thanks for the resources! I did not find elveninstitute in my searches. I will have to check out their SL information, and maybe check out one of their workshops! I did look at some of discovery educator network's information. They appear to have quite a bit available for educators, along with their DEN. These tools look to be GREAT ways to collaborate with others. It would be nice to find more math-related information and resources in second life, but I guess that will be something to work on!

~Jen

Vicki,

The Discovery Educator Network seems like a great resource. I especially like the idea of having mentors available to help with using the materials. This could be particularly useful for teachers who are hesitant to try this type of technology.

Lauren

Week 5 Learning Community Assignment Jennifer Desiderio

There are several professional organizations present in Second Life. The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE - []) offers their own sim, ISTE Island on which they offer virtual conferences, training, and meetings. Another organization that I found is the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT - __[]__). AECT also has their own location within SL in which they hosted a virtual conference. There are links still posted to the content of the conference and they have an outline of their plan to integrate SL into education.

In exploring SL, it was quite easy to find some great learning networks. There are plenty of educational groups to which teachers can become members. A couple of the groups I joined are the teacher networking group and the virtual educators alliance. These groups allow educators to share information and ideas as well as resources in SL.

In addition to professional organizations and learning networks, I also found the EdTech ([]) community which hosts their own sim (EdTech Island). This location is a great place to keep up with the latest in educational technology. Their current theme is "Cowboys and Aliens" and offers a great way to explore SL using a wild-west and aliens theme. I look forward to meeting some of you there! Could be fun to explore the site together...

Hi Jennifer, I was wondering if you happened to find a particular professional organization or specific island/islands that support using Second LIfe in elementary school. I rememeber reading somewhere they did away with the teen site. As a result I question whether Second Life if the best for elementary school?

Thanks for the information on ISTE. I have gone their website but didn't know their presence could be found in second life. I plan on joining to keep abreast of what is happening both in the real and virutal worlds.

If you take a look at the following link ([] ) SL is actually not allowed for students under the age of 13! Since I deal with high school students, I have not really explored elementary resources, but as I look around I'll let you know if I find anything. I am sure there are virtual worlds out there that would be appropriate for younger students. Since we have this wiki, I'll post the links here.

Jen, Did you check out SLOODLE? I thought it was interesting since we just finished discussing online learning environments last week. It offers teachers another way to connect with other teachers. Jill

Jill~

I have not seen SLOODLE! I'll have to check it out. Thanks for the tip!

Week 5 Learning Community Assignment Jill Capozzoli

ISTE offers ISTE Island [] which is a place for educators to network and learn from each other about real-life educational opportunities in virtual worlds. Some of the resources available to teachers are: learning events, tours, workshops, and networking. In addition, ISTE Island hosts monthly speakers. Another organization is New Media Consortium [] provides custom services for education and training. NMC offers teachers a series of events, conferences, and programs to help in the virtual world.

One of the personal learning networks is the Frontier Learning Network. It offers courses in emerging technologies for collaboration. In addition, they have courses aligned to core content, elective, and technology standards to K-12 students, and peer coaching to their teachers.

Another resource for teachers in Second Life is SLOODLE []. It is a free MUVE of Second Life and Moodle that provides a range of tools for supporting learning and teaching.

Using MUVEs to engage colleagues in professional development workshops gives teachers a different approach to professional development. It may mean that teachers will be more engaged and encourage them to reach beyond our school or county for ideas from other teachers.

Jill~

<span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">MUVEs definitely provide a great way to engage other teachers and to participate in professional development opportunities all over the world without leaving one's home, school, or district. Conferences can be held online so teachers can participate even when the costs of travel are too much for budgets. MUVEs provide a great resource for sharing information among our professional community, and give us so many great learning opportunities. I will definitely check out SLOODLE...

<span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Thanks for the post! <span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Jill, <span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Have you used SLOODLE at all? I am particulary interested in trying this since I already use Moodle in my classroom. Many of my students are already tired of using Moodle, and I'm thinking that this may make it more interesting for them. I looked at the website you provided and my district currently uses Moodle 2.0, which is not currently supported by SLOODLE. I really like the idea of having something to bring these two technologies together. I would be interested to hear what you have learned from SLOODLE if you've had the opportunity to try it out. <span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Lauren

Week 5 MUVEs - Lauren Flynn

I explored several MUVEs this week, but focused on Second LIfe since it is the one that most of my colleagues have at least heard of. After doing so, I think that this type of technology has a lot to offer, but may need some improvements before I use it. I found it frustrating to try to navigate through the interface and it was also very slow. During my time there, I was able to find a few useful places.

One that I was particularly interested in was Virtual Pioneers. This group is " dedicated to teachers exploring the potential of using MUVEs for teaching and learning about Social Studies." Another was C.A.V.E (Community of Academic Virtual Educators). This group shares information on how to use Second Life.

As a Social Studies teacher, my favorite group was the Holocaust Memorial Museum. Here, visitors can learn about different events that occurred during the Holocaust and can hear from those who survived it.