Poinky Malaprop, coordinator of the Kuurian Expeditions, sends me info that at their next meeting tomorrow evening (Tuesday Oct 10), they will feature a presentation "The Metaverse Roadmap Project: Pathways to the 3D Web" by Snoopybrown Zamboni / Jerry Paffendorf: In May of 2006 the Acceleration Studies Foundation began the process of mapping the metaverse…
Category: Information Society
Bransford post-script: on testing learning hypotheses and changing the academy
Okay, I’ve had a couple of days to digest some of the substance of Dr. John Bransford’s presentation on virtual learning environments that took place a few days ago. I suspect that what he is proposing fairly radical. There are really two points: If we are serious about virtual environments as being fertile learning spaces,…
Rik’s skating tour of Info Island (video)
I got an invite to the official opening of the Info Island Second Life Library, a project I have been watching develop for the past six months with great interest. Those librarians have a whole weekend full of activities planned from October 12-14, from panel discussions to scary movies, a costume ball, a beach party,…
Ban Ki Moon is next UN Secretary-General: share your views on the race
I’ve mentioned previously that my pal Tony Fleming runs a very well-done blog covering the race of the UN Secretary-General position in 2007. Tony tells me that he has been invited by the Washington Post to provide background material on the UN Secretary General’s race. Using this material, the Post asked leading editors, writers and…
John Bransford: let’s build an “innovation island” to develop learning environments
Here’s a few pictures from the excellent presentation on "Virtual Environments as ways to Reorganize Thinking about Research and Education" that Dr John Bransford, education psychology specialist affiliated with the National Science Foundation, gave today in Second Life. The complete transcript of the event can be found here. You can view the video shown during…
Salon on the Net Neutrality and the “telecom slayers”
There’s a couple of nice quotes from my colleague Ben Scott, policy director at the media reform group Free Press, in a Salon.com story on Net Neutrality entitled "The Telecom Slayers": In his Capitol Hill office, Scott keeps a small framed photo from the movie "Cool Hand Luke." It is the famous scene where…
Cisco:virtual environments help education, video-conferencing doesn’t
Cisco has conducted a meta-study of education technology entitled “Technology in Schools: What the Research Says." Produced by Cisco Systems and the Metiri Group, the report summarizes general trends and representative studies in areas such as television and video use, calculators, engagement devices such as interactive whiteboards, portable or handheld devices, virtual learning, in-school computing,…
Dr. John Bransford talks on using virtual environments for education on Oct 2
Folks in the Second Life education list tell me this event is a super-big deal. Dr John Bransford, education psychology specialist affiliated with the National Science Foundation will be speaking on "Virtual Environments as ways to Reorganize Thinking about Research and Education" on October 2 in Second Life. Here’s the complete description from the Learning…
Media Shift asks “Can human rights videos go viral?”
Mark Glaser, on the PBS-sponsored blog "Media Shift," recently posted about the new WITNESS "Human Rights Video Hub". Mark asks "so what if you could take videos shot by citizens of human rights violations, such as police brutality or torture, and got them to go viral, bringing more attention to the crimes?" He quotes from…
Jnana helps dumb people build smart agents
Just got back from a presentation in SL by Lex Lardner of his "Jnana" smart agent builder, a powerful application that enables non-programmers to create a set of dialog menus using simple logic and query-answer statements. (Full transcript provided by Signpostmarv.) Lex showed us how easy it was by building a quick set of dialog…