First, I have no experience using blackboard. That makes it a disadvantage in itself for a web technologies practitioner like me who is always keen to experiment education technology solutions for learning. Affordance is an issue in that respect.
If I am to compare between webct and moodle, I would go for moodle. I personally find it more open, user-friendly, and flexible in many aspects. I had the opportunity to experiment webct as a designer in my previous course, but the customization or ‘wizard’ selection looked a limit in that aspect. After several trials, I was not happy with the results of my work. As a user, webct is an effective tool for ‘discussion forums’, but again I don’t find it attractive in exploring the other resources.
On the other hand, I find moodle simple and open in choosing the layout, i.e. designing topic or theme-based courses. The rated/ graded ‘discussions’ is an advantage. Being an open source makes it a potential global software with lots of additions or added ‘plug-ins’ by other users, developers or educators. As a free tool, the affordance is not an issue. It could also be installed in an internal network or server with no internet access.
This year, I had some promising experiments running my moodle courses as part of a blended course. I hope to be able to effectively use it with more dynamic and professional tasks in the near future.
Tags: e-learning, environments, learning, virtual, vle
It seems that there are lots of teachers who are willing and getting prepared for teaching in this new environment. Some of the articles I found recently are here: here, and a research from the BBC which is done on children using BBC adventure island is SL. How amazing things are moving into that direction!!
Tags: environments, games, LAN-Based, life, second, Teaching, video, virtual, worlds
I came across some online articles and reports on virtual worlds for learning. The first two articles, “How To Spark Remote Learning” - 2006 and “ESL campus promotes team language learning” - 2008, report Boahn’s or ‘Kip Yellowjacket’ as called in SL where he managed to implement and initiate a virtual English Language space for teachers and learners. His approach is considered ‘nontraditional’ but interesting to students. It looks like a good initiative, but I wonder how many teachers have to pay for their own islands or sim. As far as I know, these ‘virtual’ places could be very expensive for a standard teacher. A good idea might be starting a scholar world or an academic alternative where organizations and governments might sponsor their teaching experiments and pilot projects.
An interesting building tool which I learned about through the second article is called claroline. It is used as an authorware e-learning platform. The good news is that It’s an open source. The bad news is that it’s another new tool I need to spend time learning and investigating its potentials for further use and development. Luckily, there is a tutorial here to easily understand about it. An initial impression made me feel that it is similar to moodle, but I still need to know how to use it for building objects.. 
The third article is by Stevens (2006) who reports on the ‘huge potentials’ of using SL for language learning and educators. He describes the nature of these new environments. Regardless of the potentials or concerns discussed in the article, I was interesting in the educators’ networking aspect in this environment. Where these teacher can take the decision to safely join gatherings or educational events organized in this free environment. Stevens sheds some light on this aspect through a collaborative wiki page. It is an early initiative to reflect and compare this new world to other earlier initiatives like ‘active world’ as he reports. His second recent ‘wiki sl2ndchance‘ has more updates and reports with nice screenshots from that vague new world.
Tags: environments, games, LAN-Based, life, second, Teaching, video, virtual, worlds
After class, I just realized that my students are interested in playing games. Using a LAN network, they were able to interact together using audio and graphics in a shooting simulation game. They were all connected together either as police or criminals as part of this game. 
The collaborative aspect was totally new to me and encouraged me to ask myself if I can find a similar reliable, interactive, and interesting environment for my students to use instead of online-based equivalents. The reason I thought about this is first to provide a safe learning environment for students. It is also to be able to manage their interaction and communication. Finally, to avoid any concerns that may arise from schools or administrations on that regard.
I have shared this same questions with teachers in the IATEFL conference forum, but still waiting for more responses.. 
Tags: environments, games, LAN-Based, life, second, Teaching, video, virtual, worlds
Last week I was able to build my first SL objects. The two objects I experimented were the speak easy hud and the note projector. The first is used to prepare a presentation-script ahead of time prior to a meeting or presentation and then be able to use it as a support of what you present/say during a meeting. It helps a lot, especially for users who don’t have access to voice in this environment. The second object was the note projector which is a nice easy tool for showing some content or simple text. It helps in providing a meeting agenda or class objectives prior to a class. This experience helped me feel more confident about building and experiementing the process of interaction and use of SL for facilitating a class or building a connected community like in this case.
I was later able to find a list of some good other tools and free scripted objects for use and integration in lessons or classes if you have a space in SL. You may download some from here.
Tags: environments, games, LAN-Based, life, second, Teaching, video, virtual, worlds
As hardware and Internet connections enhance more and more in the recent years, virtual worlds emerge as ‘reliable’ tools for interaction, communication, and conferencing. Lots of organizations, universities, and schools have decided to create their presence on these environments. Second Life is one of these environments with an increasing popularity and millions of daily users!
I got to realize their practicality and potentials for both learning and for teachers after attending Gavin Duddeny’s SL conference held last month, May 2008. With all the virtual crowds, I started to realize the importance and role it could play in teacher education programs and other professional gatherings in CoP.
Later, I started to question the role it could play for me as a teacher. With other teachers presenting about the ways the plan/ use it for teaching, I realized that it could be used in two different forms.
The first, and direct one, is for teaching in virtual classrooms or accompanying students into virtual trips to several remarkable places in SL. A good resource for preparing and picking or adding your SL lesson plans was started in this wiki: SL Experiments by Nergiz Kern, founder of Edurizon training and consultancy firm. There are lots of members interested in implemented it in their teaching or curious, like in my case, to find out about its potentials who joined that wiki and started adding their ideas, resources and lesson plans.
The second is for teacher education and sharing all types of skills, information, and socialization among professionals. Upcoming conferences and meetings or events could find alternative venues now with less resources, preparation, and expenses. SL conference was a good example and there are hundreds or thousands other examples available on this expanding environment.
Tags: communities, cop, practice, virtual, worlds
