TLT Community Hubs

The call for proposals for the 2010 Symposium has closed. We received a large volume of high quality submissions again this year and we will do our best to accommodate everyone. Notifications of acceptance will be sent out prior to the end of the semester. Thank you to everyone who submitted. Your proposals really showcase some of the great work that is happening in teaching, learning, and research across the university. This year's symposium will feature a morning keynote address by Dr. Michael Wesch, assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University, a faculty lunch panel discussion, "Using Social Media to Engage Students," and a poster session at the end of the day. During the day we will also feature over 20 faculty-led breakout sessions showcasing innovative uses of technology to enhance teaching learning and research, a hands-on demonstration room, a Digital Media Commons showcase room, and a Educational Gaming Commons showcase room. If you have not done so already, please register to attend.

I can't argue with the facts. I agree with everyone of them.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2007/11/five-reasons-fi/

I can't argue with the facts. I agree with every one of them.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2007/11/five-reasons-fi/

This tutorial is more on the advanced side of Photoshop but I thing it will help everyone in some way at all levels of experience.
http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/SpaTreatment_SM.mov

This tutorial is more on the advanced side of Photoshop but I think it will help everyone in some way at all levels of experience.
http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/SpaTreatment_SM.mov

Opportunities like this are popping up with more regularity. Is this an indicator of thye sustainability of virtual worlds in education? Train the trainer exercises usually indicate a second or third wave of coming activity in a given area.
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In February 2010 Cornwall College will be piloting the first teacher training course of its kind.  Delivered entirely online, sessions will take place in Second Life and on moodle with a blend of other web 2.0 applications including Skype, blogs, wikis and Cornwall College's own streaming media server.  The course will be taught over 3 months and will require about 4 hours a week of study together with the submission of a final portfolio.
 
The course will look at key teaching concepts such as the planning, delivery and evaluation of sessions, group motivation and behaviour management, learning styles, barriers to learning, record keeping and inclusivity, equality and diversity in practice.  Participants will also deliver a thirty minute "micro teach" session to their peers.  This can be done in Second Life or filmed in real life, uploaded to our media server and assessed aysnchronously.  Please note that this course is for people interested in teaching adults and young adults only.
 
We believe that real life, transferable teaching skills can be taught using synchronous and asynchronous methods and assessment and are looking to put together a pilot group of 6 to 10 students, already competent in using Second Life, to trail the course.  In return, we will waive course fees and offer sucessful completers both a certificate of completion and a Flip video camera.
 
If you are interested in enrolling on this course or would like further information, please feel free to reply to this email or IM Bex Mavendorf inworld.
 
Thanks
 
Bex

Bots, or robots, are a much-needed item in Second Life for complex simulations that require the user to interact with others. It's difficult to stage a complex simulation with live actors, but the advantage of doing so is obvious - there's a real brain behind the avatar/actor.
An alternative is to use bots. By attaching some clever response scripts to an inanimate object, you can create a reasonable semblance of interactivity. Some folks call this AI, or artificial intelligence, but it's not really that at all. It just a very limited set of programs designed for a very specific purpose.
For example, if you staged a disaster with real actors, they could respond to stange or "off the script" comments, such as a rescue worker commenting on your jewelry. A bot would simply not understand this - probably responding with a neutral comment that totally deflates and stops that particular line in the conversation.
Bots in Second Life are much needed for complex simulations that can be run by any one, any time. Some folks have dabbled with this over the years, but I've not seen anything of real promise, until recently. Check out
http://caledonianblogs.net/soh-secondlife/2009/11/02/aiml-test-bot-colin...
I hope Caledonian U contines to work on this and makes their efforts readily available. It would open up a new area for educators in SL.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette recently posted a video about a very cool 3D snowball fight game created by Carnegie-Mellon University students. Check it out - very nice work by these folks.

Mark Greenfield, a guru of social networking from the University of Buffalo, tweeted about a post at insidehighered.com, and I found
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In the past few semesters, ITS has been installing technology spaces designed for team based activities.
Spaces include two TeamSpot (201 Pollick) stations in which students can share documents on one large monitor and two Copy Camp spaces (107 Warnock and 102 Wagner) which includes a digital whiteboard on which notes can be saved (additional digital whiteboards are also in Pollock). There are even computers with MIDI keyboards available for collaborative musical scoring.
See http://news.its.psu.edu/story-1142 for details.
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