TLT Community Hubs

Our Mission
Welcome to the Educational Gaming Commons (EGC) and Virtual Worlds Community Hub. The PSU Educational Gaming Commons is creating a community of users who will support both physical and virtual infrastructure to promote the broad impact of gaming within the teaching, learning, and research environment. (View Goals...)

This hub is a place where Penn State faculty, staff and students working with educational games and virtual worlds can communicate and collaborate.
The site is divided into several areas:

• Gaming – Jump to all aspects of gaming on this site.
• Virtual Worlds – Jump to all aspects of virtual worlds on this site.
• Projects - Project information and game downloads.
• Affiliates – View or join the Affiliate Program – a place where you can locate others with similar interests and start collaborating.

There are several ways to use this site:

Hot off the press - This ECAR research bulletin focuses on the rapid growth in the use of simulation technologies in higher education and the implications this will have for information technology planning and policy decisions.
Download the PDF.

Registration is open for the free workshops offered by ITS Training Services that are designed to meet the needs of graduate students at Penn State.
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Registration is open for the free workshops offered by ITS Training Services that are designed to meet the needs of graduate students at Penn State. Many topics are available over spring break, including scientific computing, Blogs at Penn State, podcasting, PowerPoint, EndNote, Teaching with Technology Certificate Portfolio, Creating an Electronic Portfolio, and more. Visit the ITS Training Services Web site to register for any of these sessions at http://its.psu.edu/training/ .

FYI - I will be presenting an overview sessions of the TWT program in Spring Break sessions. The talk will cover the structure of the program, resources and show example portfolios and answer questions you may have.
If you have friends or colleagues interested in the program, but aren't sure about some details, this may be a good session for them as well.
Dates/Times
Mon March 8, 8:30-9:30 AM
169 Willard
Register at https://register4its.psu.edu/Public/ShowDetail.asp?scheduleid=107541

The Nethernet is a Firefox add-on that lets you play and create web crawls based on existing web pages. Originally named Passive Multi-player Online Game (PMOG), it was later renamed The Nethernet, then it disappeared. But now it's back!
This is a really nice example of what I'll call an instructional overlay on the web. Think of a transparent window between you and the browser. That's The Nethernet. Now imagine that you can populate that window as desired, placing "stuff" between the browser and your eyes. Thus is born a new web surfing experience.
Once you have the add-on installed, you'll find places on the web with a dialog box that will ask you to take a mission. It might be a tour of wedding dresses, or chocolate. Peopl use it to share their favorite sites on a topic, adding their own thoughts in the journey.
NN is gamelike, in that you have character classes in whick you can build expertise. You can also lay down crates full of goodies (and bed stuff) for others to find. You can place DP cards that give other points they can use to build more NN missions.
I hope now that it's back, NN will continue to grow and thrive. Try it, and take the ETS Mission at
http://thenethernet.com/missions/education_technology_services_community...

The Nethernet is a Firefox add-on that lets you play and create web crawls based on existing web pages. Originally named Passive Multi-player Online Game (PMOG), it was later renamed The Nethernet, then it disappeared. But now it's back!
This is a really nice example of what I'll call an instructional overlay on the web. Think of a transparent window between you and the browser. That's The Nethernet. Now imagine that you can populate that window as desired, placing "stuff" between the browser and your eyes. Thus is born a new web surfing experience.
Once you have the add-on installed, you'll find places on the web with a dialog box that will ask you to take a mission. It might be a tour of wedding dresses, or chocolate. Peopl use it to share their favorite sites on a topic, adding their own thoughts in the journey.
NN is gamelike, in that you have character classes in whick you can build expertise. You can also lay down crates full of goodies (and bed stuff) for others to find. You can place DP cards that give other points they can use to build more NN missions.
I hope now that it's back, NN will continue to grow and thrive. Try it!

Scanning vs. Reading on the Web

The TWT Portfolio does require some writing, particularly pieces such as the Teaching Philosophy statement. But you should know that writing for the Web is a little different from writing a traditional academic paper. read more

Can't afford the full version of Photoshop. Try the free trial of Photoshop Elements 8 for 30 days. It has many of the same tools as Photoshop CS4.
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You can make a resource available using a weblink. This enables others able to view the resource. Access controls are still applicalbe but if the entries are made publid it will be viewable by all.
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