The 2010 Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education is on this weekend!.
I’ve been asked to take part in a discussion on March 12 at 6:00 AM SLT. “Connectivism, Distributed Cognition and PLN” with @sdownes and @kzenovka – Steven Downes and Kae Novak.
I met Kae last year and immediately joined the Centre4Edupunx. Her ideas and creativity around using games and virtual worlds was amazing – as they put it ‘Bootstrapping Our Way Across the Curriculum’.
Many of my webby-contacts in Twitter etc., offer great ideas and advice; however … this conference slices though the web-app-fest of many conferences and will have extensive examples, strategies and stories to share that for me, makes it a highlight of they year. Almost all of it operates at a highly researched and academically evidenced level – apart from the social stuff – which is just good fun.
With sessions dripping ideas such as “Learning archetypes as tools of Cybergogy for a 3D educational landscape: a structure for eTeaching in Second Life”; there are some big ideas, and big stories to share – not just in Second Life, but OpenSim, Reaction Grid, Blue Mars, Wonderland, Quest-Atlantis too.
Don’t be fooled by the Virtual World part – there are some amazing people in this event, who will lead you to rethink even GoogleDocs in the classroom. Of course you do have to make the effort, get passed the Great Dismal and probably stay up all night. But seriously – this is the epicenter of ideas, innovation and connections. It is great to see so many Australians speaking, presenting and helping too.
I look forward to meeting as many as I can – I am especially interested to attended: First World War Poetry Digital Archive in Second Life; GAME KIT Version 2: Now Anyone Can Easily Create Engaging Educational Adventure Sims; Lessons on Lessons – How changing paradigms influence knowledge; For the Horde – teaching under-grad accounting in World of Warcraft.
This event is not for those who like to orbit the ‘problem’ or gaze at ‘what things could be’ – you will find this weekend a highly engaging and academic experience – with people that you might otherwise never know – or pay a hell of a lot of money to hear speak. You won’t find any bubble-gum-EdTech here … this is the real deal. I just hope I can stay awake!
Here is the event calendar, now go download Second Life and take a leap into a bigger pond.
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