Terra Incognita 156/145/23

Maggie Marat made a fine place in Terra Incognita. The first time I was here I was pleased to find a nice piece of work on building and some funny ducks. This time I saw a lot of resources for students in an action-learning model. A fine example. The Welcome To.......did the rest.

Get access : Joop Zuhal

This evening I could not log in to meet my friend Professor Dinzeo at his launch of the eLab City project. Intriguing and good for a network visit. I was looking forward to the bits and bobs at the reception tables. In a final attempt to get in I made a new avatar Alter Albatros and GOT IN. So much for old customers at Linden Lab. Now you know too. :-{. The people behind me just got in!!!!

Google Analytics on Aggiornamento II

Thank you all for your attention. I just had a good look at the Google Analytics - results of this blog. Although moderate in numbers it makes me happy that almost 900 people found this blog and returned almost 1 in 2. Some of you probably used it to make a start for a quick tour in Second Life. Winter is coming here, no doubt I will have more time to prepare some more trips and reports for you. In the mean time you can meet me in SL, in most cases busy with my in - world interviews. Please join my SL group: Educators: Interview P=A*D*E if you want to meet others or join in for an interview.

Minerva 65/83/31

Ellie and I spent some timetogether today in our interview in Second Life. Very pleasant and informative. Ellie developed the idea of this washing line in RL and succeeded well in making a nice replica. Every item relates to a subject. An excellent example on how form follows function, or is it the other way around?

Testing the interview - protocol

Last night I had a session with two in-world colleagues to test the interview - technique I have developed for my research. The result was better than expected and the combination of chat and notecards works fine. In a 30 minutes walk-through we had all 6 questions covered and time for a short reflection. Nice side - effect is the availability of a logfile with the exact copy of our conversation.

Fontys 240/242/70

Fontys, a Dutch College for Higher Education has developed an island in SL. They have created a pleasant atmosphere and some interesting educational experiments. Nine of their schools have some presence on the island and all occupy students in in-world tasks related to their curriculum. The presence of a Nabaztag in the educational centre facilitates contact with real life which is, in any way, intriging enough for further research!!

P is for Power

P is for power. What is the perceived added value of Second Life as a environment for learning and personal development? Is Second Life to be valued as a supplementary world and/or is it also a world that enables us to develop new qualities and work on traditional skills in Real Life. These and other questions will be the subject of our research soon and we need you to help us to find an answer to them.

'What is the perceived added value of Second Life for education?"

As a follow - up to the Aggiornamento II - project the Dutch Ministry of Education, more specific her agent Kennisnet (www.kennisnet.nl, the national educational portal for K16 and vocational education) has asked me to investigate the perceived added value of Second Life for education by interviewing educators and researchers within the SL - community.

In the absence of any formal or certain evidence that the use of Second Life will be totally effective within the current teaching/learning system, we assume that educational users will judge its likely effectiveness expertly in terms of a combination of (a) SL's potential to be effective, (b) the perceived costs of achieving that potential, and the (c) perceived rewards or fringe benefits in applying that effort to achieve the potential.

To assess SL's power for learning we will use the Bernie Dodge - equation P = A x D x E. More information on this equation can be found here. I would like to invite you for this interview, preferably in - world. The interview itself will take about 30 minutes. You will obtain a transcript of your contribution to evaluate or comment and a full summary of the results in English. The transcripts will not be shared with third parties.

Please leave a note of your interest below and your SL avatar- name, I will contact you for an interview as soon as I can.

User acceptance of Virtual Worlds

A report by M. Fetscherin and C. Latteman that can be viewed on their website. Their results show that 90% of respondents have less than a year experience, 70% access Second Life from home and 54% with a desktop. There are 67% of respondents who are not afraid of giving personal information. Almost 60% are very likely to buy virtual goods from Second Life, and 42% are willing to use their credit card to purchase on Second Life. About 70% perceive Second Life improves collaboration and communication, and more than 60% perceive that it improves cooperation between people. 56% of respondents perceive Second life as easy to use. Finally, the results indicate that people are using Second Life not to change their identity, but rather to explore and visit new places and meet people.

The schome-NAGTY Teen Second Life Pilot

It is difficult to find documented experience on the use of SL for educating teens. The SCHOME - project delivers its final report on the OU - website. A summary of key findings and lessons learnt. A must - read for those interested in first hand experience.