Innovate (www.innovateonline.info) is published bimonthly as a public
service by the Fischler School of Education and Human Services at Nova
Southeastern University and is sponsored, in part, by Microsoft.
Our December 2008/January 2009 special issue on academics in virtual
environments focuses on the possibilities and pitfalls of teaching in
virtual worlds. Our contributors offer insights into how educators
exploring multiuser virtual environments (MUVEs) can use the lessons
learned in earlier versions of the technology, describe worlds built
to meet specific educational needs, and offer advice for using Second
Life and other environments to help students with special needs.
In our opening article, Rochelle Mazar and Jason Nolan outline two
instructional experiments in MOOs that have implications for current
educational practice in MUVEs like Second Life, highlighting the
similarities between MOOs and newer technologies, and suggest that
educators can apply the lessons learned from MOO experience to MUVE
practice. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=547&action=article
)
Our next two articles describe MUVEs created to meet the needs of
specific educational contexts and offer evidence to support their
effectiveness. Greg Jones and Scott Warren use a MUVE they developed
to facilitate literacy learning for middle schoolers to illustrate how
intelligent agents, in-game characters that respond to the context of
the game and to the individual player's situation, can accelerate
learning in MUVEs and other virtual learning environments. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=576&action=article
)
Next, Victor Vergara, Thomas Caudell, Timothy Goldsmith, Panaiotis,
and Dale Alverson describe the development and evaluation of a
MUVE-based simulator to provide medical students a safe and engaging
alternative to clinical practice, creating environments that allow for
interactive experiential learning. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=579&action=article
)
Finally, Stephanie McKinney, Agi Horspool, Renee Willers, Omar Safie,
and Laurie Richlin describe the opportunities Second Life offers for
students with learning disabilities and assess the challenges created
by the specific needs of these students when developing programs or
courses in Second Life. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=573 blog authors
will, in turn, respond to comments, allowing for a lively,
back-and-forth discussion around important issues. In each issue of
Innovate, Shimabukuro will report on happenings in I-Blog,
highlighting interesting developments and active discussions. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=695&action=article
)
In Innovate-Ideagora this month, Alan McCord and Denise Easton report
that Innovate's social networking initiative now has almost 280
members, many of whom actively contribute to a lively set of
discussions. The most active topics include considerations of what
topics the Ideagora should take up in the future and a conversation
about the challenges of motivating reluctant faculty members to engage
with new technology. McCord and Easton also announce the first
Ideagora interview, with Julie Little, director of the EDUCAUSE
Learning Initiative (ELI). Little described ELI's development of their
own social network, the Top Teaching and Learning Challenges
initiative, and talked about the need to develop active learning
environments where technology tools and pedagogical interactions are
used to fulfill content requirements, meet learner needs, and fit
instructor style. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=696&action=article
)
In the From Our Sponsors section, Anthony Salcito, General Manager
for U.S. Public Sector Education at Microsoft, discusses Microsoft's
vision of the role of technology in transforming education for the
21st century. Salcito suggests that too many institutions begin with
technology in rethinking their educational programs and describes a
number of initiatives Microsoft is using to reach beyond technology
and offer guidance through the change process. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=693&action=synopsis
)
Our partner, ULiveandLearn, produces author webcasts on the topics of
their articles. You may register for the December/January webcasts at
the Innovate-Live portal (
http://www.uliveandlearn.com/PortalInnovate/index.cfm ).
Have you used Microsoft technology to enhance your teaching? Have
Microsoft tools or programs transformed administrative or pedagogic
practice at your institution? Our readers would like to hear about it!
Please consider submitting a manuscript for Innovate's From our
Sponsors section describing how you use Microsoft technology to
enhance the educational experience. Please make sure that the
manuscript conforms to our publication guidelines, described at the
Contribute link on Innovate's navigation bar, and send it to me at
jlm@nova.edu. The senior authors of the top three papers published
prior to June 2009 will be invited to present their papers at the
Microsoft Global Exchange summit in July 2009 (with expenses covered
by Microsoft).
We hope that you enjoy this issue of Innovate. Please use the
discussion board within each article to raise questions or provide
additional commentary. Your comments will be sent to authors for their
response, which will become part of the record for their article.
Also, please forward this announcement to appropriate mailing lists
and to colleagues who want to use IT tools to advance their work and
ask your organizational librarian to link to Innovate in their
resource section for open-access e-journals.
Thanks!
Jim
----
James L Morrison
Editor-in-Chief, Innovate
http://www.innovateonline.info
Fischler School of Education and Human Services
Nova Southeastern University
http://www.schoolofed.nova.edu/home.htm