COMBLE – “Project of the Month” at elearningeuropa.info

In July it was announced that the COMmunity of integrated Blended Learning in Europe (COMBLE) project had been chosen as “Project of the month” by the elearningeuropa. info portal. This portal is established by the European Commission to promote the use of multimedia technologies and Internet at the service of education and training, and so all of us involved in the COMBLE project are quite happy about this recognition of our work :-)

In this project several colleagues from e-Learning Lab (Aalborg University) and I worked together with partners from Germany, Poland and Estonia from January 2008 – December 2009.

In the COMBLE project we investigated the following questions:

• When is an institution (universities, further education, enterprises) ready for Blended Learning?
• What are the common challenges and solutions?” and
• How can trainers design for active and collaborative learning?

Together with my PhD-colleague, Heilyn Camacho, I designed and ran a highly successful 6 week course on Problem Based Blended Learning in Second Life and Moodle on which I’ve written several posts (i.e. this one explaining the course concept).

A scene from one of the SLectures in the course.

Besides this the COMBLE project also resulted in:

• A wiki-based community called Methopedia for Blended Learning experts to share relevant knowledge and experience. Methopedia is available in four languages and contains about 100 different learning activities and an interactive seminar planer.
• A Blended Learning Readiness Wiki to support strategic planning, change management and the evaluation of blended learning scenarios at the institutional level.
• The Methopedia Learning Designer: an online flash tool to design seminars.

BTW: we would like to encourage anyone interested in Blended Learning to join our community – either at the Methopedia website or on Facebook :-)

/Mariis

Another SL project wins Innovation prize

Tuesday and Wednesday this week the Research Network, that connects Danish universities and research institutions, held its annual conference and announced that this year’s winner of the Innovation Prize is Inge Knudsen/Inge Qunhua and her work on innovative in-world designs for teaching and learning.

Inge getting the prize RL :-)

Inge was one of the first Danish residents I met when I rezzed back in spring 2007. Inge is always very happy, friendly and helpful and I enjoy taking my students to visit her and her island. Inge has embraced the many affordances of SL, has created new and interesting designs and has more than 300 hrs. of international teaching experience in-world. So I’m truly delighted that she got this kind of recognition and combined with the other award recently given to a SL project (where Inge btw also played an important role) this really is good news for all of us :-)

A short description and the jury’s arguments for giving Inge the prize can be read here (in Danish), but I really encourage you to explore Inge’s designs first hand in-world …

Overview over the small kiosks where some of Inge’s designs can be found

Inge is currently enrolled as a first year student at The Masterprogramme in ICT and Learning (MIL) and the good news broke just as I was going in-world with my class and we quickly decided to congratulate her in her own environment :-)

/Mariis

SL project wins annual e-Learning award

Yesterday, November 4th 2009, The Danish Ministry of Education together with National Knowledge Center on e-Learning announced the winner of the annual e-Learning award. The winner is the VIA University College who have developed a sim for training work place security targeted at professionals in especially the carpentry industry. Big Congrats!

Given the negative press surrounding Second Life this truly is good news for all Danish in-world educators/researches :-)

/Mariis

SLurl to  VIA University College.

Usmagelig og useriøs “journalistik” om SL

På Videnskab.dk – som angiveligt ”leverer stof med substans og troværdighed ” har en journalist ved navn Michael Christophersen skrevet en artikel om SL, forskning og en workshop om SL, der for nylig blev afholdt på AoIR-konferencen i København.

Ud over at være et skræmmende eksempel på meget dårlig research er det også beskæmmende at se flere gode internationale kolleger fremstillet og latterliggjort på denne måde – og jeg er simpelthen for ophidset og pinligt berørt til at kommentere yderligere. Heldigvis har Sisse Siggaard Jensen været inde og kommentere. Tak fordi du orker Sisse!

Jeg kan kun beklage at et projekt som Videnskab.dk er støttet af offentlige forskningsmidler, hvis dette er det generelle niveau for deres såkaldte ”stof med substans og troværdighed” …

/Mariis

Book release: Digital Media and Didactical Design

Today we have a book release; ”Digital Media and Didactical Design – use, experiences and research”. Together with Lone Dirckinck-Holmfeld and MIL alumni Torben Iversen, Ulla Konnerup, Merete Lindemann, Steener Oxbjerre, Torben Pihler and Dorthe S. Schmidt I’ve written an article on collaboration in virtual learning environments based on Master thesis work. It is in Danish though, and so will the rest of this post be ..

Antologien er redigeret af Lars Birch Andreasen, Bente Meyer og Pernille Rattleff og har bidrag fra en række forskere, der diskuterer deres erfaringer med og forskning i brug af digitale medier i undervisnings- og læringssammenhænge.

Antologien er dedikeret til professor Birgitte Holm Sørensen som hyldest til hendes arbejde og betydning for forskningen i medier, it og læring i de seneste årtier.

I denne anledning er der reception på DPU torsdag d. 25. september 2008 kl. 16 i vandrehallen (lokale D170), Tuborgvej 164, 2400 København NV.

Alle er velkomne!

Kort anmeldelse i Folkeskolen.dk kan læses her

/Mariis

Pernille Rattleff om bogens tilblivelse

SL making headlines again

Once again the press criticizes SL – this time around it’s the Australian IT with an article entitled Second Life a virtual failure.

I don’t know if it still is silly season down under, but I hope so .. . Otherwise I’m troubled by the journalistic level. Not so much because of the content, but because of the presentation of the apparent facts.

The journalist refers to a qualitative study made by a postgraduate student at Queensland University, Kim MacKenzie. Her study focused on 20 international corporations, such as Intel, AOL and Coca Cola, that were conducting business in SL – most of which (doesn’t say how many) have closed their “sites” now.

MacKenzie is quoted for saying:

The actual Second Life setting is going to require either an adaptation or a new commercial virtual marketplace controlled by commercial parameters that you need for safe and secure business activity to happen on the internet (…) Once the right setting is there, it will explode.

And she concludes by saying, that the right commercial setting must be backed by an awareness campaign to get users on board.

At this point nothing in the article justifies the sensational headline, and even more surprising the article ends by referring to one of the first Australian companies entering SL, Telstra that has BigPond in-world. According to spokesman, Peter Habib BigPond’s Second Life site had hosted its own registration process and continues to experience growth, since it was set up in March 2007. And that’s it …

I wouldn’t term SL as neither a site nor as a virtual reality program, but that’s just a minor detail. What’s far more worrying is the press’ constant need to create headlines on false claims. This and other critical articles usually confirm, what many regular residents already know, namely that there has been a lack of imagination on the part of many SLusers, who simply haven’t had the strategy, the creativity, the skills and perhaps the patience to explore and utilize SL’s potential.

As many virtual world fans know, the esteemed technology research and advisory company, Gartner Inc. last year predicted that 80% of internet users would have a “second life” by 2011 (Not necessarily in Second Life). In May 2008 Gartner, Inc. did however renounce a bit on this by saying that 90 % of corporate virtual world projects will fail within 18 months – here is some food for thought from that article, which as well could apply for the educational sector;

Focusing on the technology rather than understanding user requirements is one of the key reasons for failure.

They need to realise that virtual worlds mark the transition from web pages to web places and a successful virtual presence starts with people, not physics.

A benefit of virtual worlds is the rich collaboration experience they offer by adding a real-time visual dimension via avatars, so interactions can include emotional information in the “conversations” between individuals, setting them apart from simpler networking applications. They also differentiate themselves from web-based interactions (which can be asynchronous) by requiring both parties to be present at the same time.

Companies need to start thinking what their virtual world strategy is, incorporate it into their internet strategy and merge their two-dimensional web pages to support a “3D web place”. Virtual world presence is not to replace the “2D world” but to supplement it.

/Mariis