Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Island Update

It's finals week for most of our Oregon Community Colleges, and as we get ready to break away for a breather, I've produced a brief Island update for the OCCDLA. Though we haven't been blogging much, a lot has been happening with the project. (As a side note, we at PCC are also migrating our learning management system from Blackboard to Desire2Learn... busy times!)

Remember- if you are a faculty, staff or student in the Oregon Community Colleges system and would like to use virtual worlds in your curriculum, for an event, or maybe even for student group meetings, let us know- we're happy to help you! Our Monday 2PM meeting at the OR CC Isle camp fire is a great place to drop in and share your ideas.

Where we were:
  • Summer 2007- OCCDLA Emergent Tech Workgroup Formed, Team ID’d.
  • April 2008 - Purchase of Island in Second Life
  • 2008-2009 - Development of Island & Basic Resources (Blog, main Website, Calendar, Island Council meetings, etc.)
  • 2009-2010 - Pilots, Ongoing Development of Island resources (Library, Public Events)

Where we are:
  • 2010-2011- In third year of three year exploration pilot
  • Establishing Student Services
  • Exploring HS Completion & Student Success & Retention
    • Supporting HS students using Second Life in their current curriculum migrating from the Teen Grid as it is being shut down in early January 2011.
  • Training Instructors to use Virtual Worlds and how to integrate Second Life into their course events, and how to assess the outcomes of those events.
  • Developing instruction for students- Virtual Worlds Skills (Spring 11)
  • Exploring Clinical Simulations and Virtual Worlds for OCNE
  • Ongoing course events throughout the year
    • BI 202- Botany- Indigenous Flora- Students of BI 202 help populate Oregon Community Colleges Isle with greenery by collecting images of native plants in the field
    • ED 206- Students in the Library Assistant program are introduced to Second Life and how this technology fits into the greater Ed. Tech. toolkit
    • PHL 201- The Philosophy Garden- Our most advanced/immersive use of Second Life. From a launch point on Oregon Community Colleges Isle, students are teleported to Plato’s cave, where they begin their journey from the darkness of ignorance to the light of the Philosophy Garden. Once there, a walk through the garden introduces them to seven historical western philosophers
  • Arts Events available to an international audience
    • ArtBeat 2010
    • 2010 Student Kickoff Party featuring Chervona, a Portland folk band

Where we’re going:
  • Oregon Immersive Education Initiative
    • Multi-Institutional partnership within Oregon Ed. System (K-20 proposed), including Oregon Center for Advanced Technology in Education (U of O) Teaching Across the Curriculum (OSU), OCCDLA
    • Coordinated program development statewide
    • Programs designed to support students throughout their academic careers in an effort to encourage college enrollment
  • Next 3 years- Second Life/OpenSim Duality
    • OpenSim not yet mature enough to directly migrate, but rapidly developing
    • EDU groups mass migrating to the OpenSim Hypergrid, which allows for an interconnection between independent virtual worlds, making communication and inventory sharing possible.
    • Second Life ending EDU discounts in 2 years. (prompted mass migration)
    • Offering uninterrupted service for courses currently using or developing course events/public programs/high school completion etc. events that use virtual worlds
  • Exporting Content out of Second Life to Open Standards
  • Eventual Migration to all open content/open standards/open tools by default.
    • Blender and SketchUp for Content Development
    • OpenSim Platform
    • All Content registered .CC Creative Commons- Non-Commercial (Attribution) and cataloged/shared via clive.merlot.org