MUVES+and+Professional+Development

Week 5 Purpose:
Begin by revisiting one or more of the MUVEs you explored this week. Then, contribute the following to your group’s wiki: Next, respond to the following question: Finally, contribute an additional suggestion, strategy, resource, or idea to at least one of your community members’ posts
 * Identify at least two professional organizations that have an online presence and offer training or workshops in the MUVE.
 * Identify one personal learning network available in the MUVE that will help you keep abreast of new and emerging technologies.
 * Identify at least one other resource in the MUVE for information about new and emerging technologies (e.g., technology reviewer, futurist, researcher, or journal).
 * How could you use the MUVE—and the resources you found—to engage colleagues (local and remote) in professional development workshops?

//**Ellen Campbell**//
This week, I researched the following websites: [] []

These MUVEs offered support for educators. The Atlantis site offered: blogs, emails, chat sessions, bulletin boards, polls and telegrams for educators to keep abreast of new and emerging technologies. It also offers a complete teacher’s manual with step-by-step guides on how to set up the MUVE for a class, as well as instructions for the students. This MUVE seems to be one that is easy to set up, navigate through and teach from.

The Whyville site seems like a kid-friendly site that is easy to navigate through. This is a free site that is geared mainly for pre-teens and teens. I did not notice any information about new or emerging technologies on this website.

I really enjoyed navigating through the Atlantis site. I think this would be a great site to use as an example for professional development for using MUVEs in the classroom. I like the way it offers step-by-step directions for teachers and students. Teachers can easily set up the scenarios, thus creating a learning environment that is specific to the curriculum, as well as to the needs of their students.

Mariza to Ellen, A similar virtual environment to Whyville is edusim3d.com. What I liked about it is that it is designed to work with interactive white boards in the classroom. They had a couple of videos that showed the program in action. It seemed like an environment that I would like to visit or work with my students. The down side is that it range of features seems limited. It is more about turning your classroom into an advanced visualization lab. Form the inforamtion I read, It lacks collaboration and interaction among students.

Ellen to Mariza Thank you for the website. I love to find sites that are good to use with the SMART board! I don't know if it would be appropriate for my students simply because they are younger. I feel that they need to work together at this age to solve problems and learn from each other. Jessie to Ellen, I found that Whyville seemed to be simple and easy to access. However, I did not find too many resources to help with the develop of the tool within the classroom.

Ellen to Jessie Whywille is easy to access, however, you are correct when you point out that there are not many resources to help within the classroom. That is why I liked Atlantis. It seems to offer much more for educators.

@http://muve.gse.harvard.edu/rivercityproject/join/involvement.html
==== The River City Project as an effort by Harvard University and Nation Science Foundation at developing a MUVE. However, it seems that the project’s grant funding ended in 2009 and there has not been an significant update about the project on it’s site. The project was geared towards middle school science education. ====

@http://members.immersiveeducation.org/
==== This nonprofit organization encourages the use of immersive technologies for the purpose of education. They provide workshops and trainings on the ideas and tools of immersive technologies (including NASA in MUVE) ==== ==== Our district is stretched over a wide land area within rural Maine. Often we have to travel far distances to meet and discuss our professional developments but the MUVE can be a place where we can all interact working to the common goal of the professional development. However, many teachers within the district would not be able to handle the uses of the MUVE and they would not be able to navigate the virtual environment. I do feel that the resources provided can sway the use of a MUVe for those teachers who are more willing to use technology based communication. I think that the MUVE can solve many issues with travel and finding common meeitng times and places. I do enjoy the uses of the MUVE and the “fun” application of the tasks with in the virtual environments. ====

Dawn to Jessie Thanks for all the resources you have provided. I am anxious to check them all out. Have you used MUVEs before? Our school would have the technology problem and not be able to use it. However, I plan on trying it out on a weekend at the school to see how it will perform. Thanks again!

Mariza Carbone - MUVE's and Professional Development

This week I revisited secondlife.com and found two professional organizations that offer training in the MUVE. While browsing the business category, I encountered **OpenVCE**and **Employee Simulation Environment**. OpenVCE is interesting because it offers examples of Shared Media use like Google Docs, shared whiteboards, and live-streaming. On the other hand, Employee Simulation Environments is a mock retail electronics store environment that provides new employee orientation. This experience, developed by Cranial Tap, allows visitors to assume the role of a new retail store employee. In addition, I located **Second Friends** which is a free social network created for Second Life residents only. You can customize your own profile, upload pictures and videos, list SL events, create groups, play games and network with others. Similar to Facebook, this resource has the potential to keep us abreast of new and emerging technologies because we can create groups that are interested in discussing topics related to technology. Finally, an additional resource that could provide information regarding new and emerging technologies in the MUVE is the group ISTE: Educational Technology Association. The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is the trusted source for professional development, knowledge generation, advocacy, and leadership for innovation. In real life it is a nonprofit membership organization that provides leadership and service to improve teaching, learning, and school leadership.

Among all the interesting ways in which MUVEs engages users, as an educator it is a promising environment for professional development. Because it is a virtual environment, it means anyone around the world could access it. Making connections with colleagues near and far are only clicks away. OpenVCE and the Employee Simulation are great examples of how teachers can engage in workshops or tutorials on education topics like technology integration. In addition, collaborating using this platform could support the needs of all teachers as they encounter worlds that are user friendly and designed for their subject matter. Using MUVEs to engage local or remote colleagues in professional development will only take some practice and familiarizing ourselves with this new kind of learning.

Dawn to Mariza I also checked out the ISTE site and thought it would be helpful. I am new to the MUVEs and have not researched enough to see if I can use it in my 2nd grade classroom next year. Do you have any experience with the MUVEs? It does sound like it would be great for upper grades. Thanks for the information!

Jessie to Mariza Immersion technology is a great tool for the engagement of the classroom. However, I find that they will be more applicable to the use of MUVEs in professional development and would be more enjoyable to apply in the classroom after using the technology tool. I think that the ISTE information would be useful to introduce the ideas of MUVEs within classrooms.

__ Dawn D. MUVEs __ __ I found two sites that might help on the MUVEs: __

__**//rivercity//**//.activeworlds.com///__

[|//http://secondclassroom.ning.com//]__/

I am not very familiar with the MUVEs so I am still researching to see how I think they will work in our classrooms. I have found that attitudes of educators is another barrier to overcome. Educators want to use resources that are quick and easy to learn to use both themselves and in their teaching. I feel that the main barrier will be access to the appropriate technology. This is one of our big frustrations.

I do believe that making the learning experience interactive, social and fun, yet credible will keep the students motivated in the lesson. From what I understand most MUVEs can support learner-centred collaborative inquiry by providing opportunities for learners to engage in meaningful learning through exploring the links between: virtual worlds, learning and motivation, active learning and pedagogical approaches that include socio-constructivism, situated learning, project based learning, learning by doing, game based learning, simulations and role-playing.

Ellen to Dawn D. I was just discussing MUVEs with a colleague of mine this weekend. He teaches high school, and I asked him what he thought about using MUVEs in the classroom for the older students. He was unaware of the idea, but seemed open because of all of the possibilities that would be available. I do think that if I had asked all of the upper school teachers what they thought, I would not have gotten the same response. I agree with you when you say that the attitudes of educators can be a barrier to overcome. I do however feel that the unknown is scary to anyone, and we have to expose the technology that is available to our students to our colleagues. Technology is here to make our lives easier and we should allow it.