Hey, y'all, 

Hope everyone is safe and well. Lots of good indicators now but we must not let down our vigilance and distancing habits. I pray (yes, I do that) predictions of another surge are hollow and that they are thwarted by our common set of healthy-keeping habits.

Meanwhile, the post is to share that I recently signed a contract with Microsoft, albeit no money involved, to allow them to feature a curriculum piece I submitted to Microsoft: Education Edition almost a year ago. It's up. Educators using :EE to teach, please know that a key feature of this "lesson" is imminently adaptable to virtually (sic) ANY discipline or class. Just change a few key features like the vocabulary list, replace my example in-world with one of your own making, and GO FOR IT. 

I am looking foward to seeing how innovative teachers do so.  

Check out

Don't be a virtual stranger! Share your successes and challenges with me scott@scottmerrick.net!

ISTEVENFocus112018Valibrarian

For our November 2018 third Tuesday ISTE Virtual Environments Network Focus Session, we welcomed Valerie Hill, aka Valibrarian Gregg, to the VEN Headquarters for "Digital Citizenship: Sharing Stories through a Community Drum." 

Watch...

Then if you are of a resource-exploration mind, explore...

Early June Ramblings

A lot o' things. A lot o' things going on.

Hi, all, I just finished posting at my Falcons Tech blog and since I'm in the groove I wanted to update here. It'll likely be a bit of a chaotic post, since my life is sort of there at the moment.

Mostly, having put the school year behind me, I'm looking ahead to 2018-19 as we move into a portable during construction and then into a brand new computer lab. I'm working on ways to fund new equipment in the new lab. Stay tuned on that...

Looking immediately ahead, I'm knee-deep in the planning for ISTE2018 in Chicago. I'll be flying up the 22nd to get the lay of the land and attend pre-conference activities, particularly Hack Education 2018 on Saturday, an "unconference" that is always a deep learning dive.

On Monday morning, June 25, the Virtual Environments Network presents its 2018 Virtual Environments Playground. VEN was one of the first ever "Focus Groups" to present a day long, themed event, the "Second Life Lounge," in Atlanta at my first ISTE conference. Back then the conference was called NECC (the National Educator's Computing Conference), and that format morphed into the "Playground," as the "Second Life Playground," and then settled into the "Virtual Environments Playground" the third year of its existence. Learn about the beginnings of ISTE.

Anyway, that's my fun focus now. It's especially challenging as our focus at VEN has broadened to include, not just virtual worlds like Second Life and OpenSim, but all things virtual--mixed, augmented, and virtual realities. Along those lines we have some very special guests at the Playground this year. When schedules get finalized, which we anticipate being so on June 19, you'll be the first to know here.

I am also fishing every day I can this summer. I caught a nice catfish at Lake Marrowbone just Monday:

Finally (for now) I just had a birthday and my much-loved, loving wife bought me a new toy, the just-released Oculus Go. I'm very much enjoying noodling around in there and looking for educational potentials--my focus in all things new. Expect some blogging on that here. I am firing back up a dormant blog, "Nashville360VR" just for fun, so head on over there if you have some goggles, or even if you don't.

Over and out for today. #abetterbloggerinthesummer.

v-TEACH in February! Climb Aboard!

Come join practitioners of the fastest developing field of public schooling: Virtual Schooling. You'll learn more than you can imagine. Calls for proposals also at the site! Click that image above to get started!

Wainhouse Research Virtual EDU Summit: Innovations & Interactivity in the Collaborative Classroom

Hello? Do you have your online calendar handy? Quick! Add a notation to attend this free online Professional Development opportunity November 12!

Modified from http://engage.vevent.com/index.jsp?eid=1996&seid=459&language-code=en&country-code=US&page=10000&no-login=false&clearSession=true

From the organizers:
  
The Wainhouse Research Virtual EDU Summit will be an engaging online event for educators, trainers and technologists who seek to implement collaborative tools and interactive services to enhance education environments. Our goal with the Virtual EDU Summit is to foster greater understanding of the technologies and solutions that are transforming today’s classroom and help educators and students to work, team, meet and learn in real-time, on demand, and over distance.

Make plans to attend the Virtual EDU Summit, where we will focus on the rapidly evolving set of technologies – from Learning Management Systems and web collaboration to video conferencing and lecture capture – and how the implementation of these capabilities can enhance the learning experience. From flipped classrooms to Massive Open Online Courses, from user-generated content to personal learning networks, we’ll hear from a variety of experts familiar with the revolution in education and training.

Join us for presentations featuring Wainhouse Research, WCET, GCI SchoolAccess, the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration, and others in an online venue designed to foster live interactions and Q&A opportunities.

Review the agenda to identify key presentations made available on the day of this virtual event and prepare to explore the virtual hall to engage with other show attendees and to learn about innovative technologies from leading vendors.

Virtual Event Details:

Media Partner: AV Technology Magazine; EDUwire

Admission to Attend: Free

Sponsorship Fee: $1,500

Sponsorship Benefits: Virtual Booth Presence, Access to Attendee Registrations Generated by Wainhouse Research and summit media partners

Expected Registration: 300-400

Sponsors: InterCall, PGi, BlueJeans Network, Kontiki, Wainhouse Research, AVTech Magazine

Registration Page: http://engage.vevent.com/rt/uccsummit~edu

Live event date: November 12, 2013 1-5 EST

PLEASE vote!

Hey, all,

My other blog, the one about Virtual Environments in the service of education, has just garnered a nomination for Best Use of Virtual Worlds in the Edubloggers Awards 2008 race. I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd click on over to the site and vote for "Oh! Virtual Learning" so I might take home the "Eddie" in that category this year. Voting goes through December but I'm all for pulling out ahead early and staying there. Not that I'm competitive, heheheee. Here's the link:

THANKS!!!

Vanderbilt Web Spiders Presentation

This morning I shared Second Life with a group of folks at Vanderbilt University called the "Web Spiders." They're interested in Web development. I got a warm reception for my contribution to their knowledge base and even received applause for my little machinima about the CSO's entry into the 3Dinternet, our new presence on Lighthouse Learning Island.

I'm adding a couple URLs that came up in discussion, ones that are not in the presentation files below:

Congressional Hearing on Virtual Worlds

A great graphic representation of commercial presences in SL (a year and a half-old, btw)

MUVErs LLC

Here's an interesting side-by-side shareout from Google Documents,



then Slideshare:

Virtual Environments for Education--Second Life

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: vanderbilt scottmerrick)

Virtual NECCers!

Hey, ya'll,

Knee-deep, I am, working on a myriad of tasks toward being ready for NECC2008 in San Antonio. If you're gonna be there, look me up. I'll be hanging out at Edubloggercon all day Saturday, then you can expect to see me around the fine folks who are the core corps of the ISTE Second Life initiatives.

For my dear readers and colleagues who cannot travel to the fair state of Texas for NECC, I just created a ning group at http://www.necc2008.org/group/virtualneccers for you all. I think this might just catch on, so get in on it early and participate enthusiastically! I'm not sure how much I'll be around, so it's up to you to move the conversation around and make the group what you want and need it to be.

Tell 'em I sent ya!

Cheers from Nashville!

The "Embedded Practicioner," -- Words of Blogging Wisdom from an 8th Grade English Teacher

I didn't mean to do it. After all, I had already spent over an hour in Second Life earlier in the day at a fantastic panel discussion on "Virtual Identity," the discussion facilitated by the dana centre in England. That panel featured Howard Rheingold, coiner of the term "smartmob" and widely acknowledged creater of the concept of "virtual community," and Will Gardner, founder of the non-profit "Childnet International," an internet safety organization created to "help make the Internet a great and safe place for children." I did some recording there but haven't had a chance to do anything with it. (I hope I can, since it was really wonderful.)

So when I logged in on my laptop at my boy's bedside while he went to sleep last night (he doesn't really need that anymore--it's just a tradition with us, one that I'm sure I'll be losing soon as he breaks into teenagedness) I never intended to get caught up in another online presentation. I made the crucial (propitious) mistake of checking out the happenings at the Auditorium on ISTE Island.

Friend Kevin Jarret (KJ Hax inworld) manages a wonderful Tuesday night speaker series over there, and his blog, "The Story of My Second Life," was one of the first ones that motivated me to begin blogging my Second Life experiences. Last night, KJ offered Torontan 8th grade English teacher Konrad Glogowski (SL: Konrad March) on the topic, "The Embedded Practicioner," sharing information about his journey from attachment to his "teacherly voice" to the development of his "readerly voice," which a teacher attempting to nurture literacy skills with blogs must, in Konrad's view, adopt.

Take 20 minutes and listen up to the segment of the talk I choose to share. If you are interested in educational blogging with students, I feel it's a "must listen!" Then head on over to Konrad's blog, "blog of proximal development," for more. I'll add the pics I took here soon, but here's one for starters, the one referenced early in Konrad's presentation, when he's talking about what most of us traditionally, and habitually, call "teaching":



Cheers,
Scott

Cape Town Open Education Declaration--Revolutionary!

Checking my Twitter this morning, I was directed to a "2cents Worth" blogpost by David Warlick in which he promotes the recent "Cape Town Open Education Declaration," an outgrowth of "a small but lively meeting convened in Cape Town in September 2007. The aim of this meeting was to accelerate efforts to promote open resources, technology and teaching practices in education."

I took the time to read the Declaration, and I hope that you will too. If you are an educator who is reading my blog, I'd dare say you'll be heading on over to the "Sign the Declaration" page and joining the (as of my signature's addition) 687 educators and organizations who have signed. I truly believe that this document provides the best statement of purpose for the myriad interests that become a passion for me. I'm always saying "it's all about the shareshare" for me. The Declaration sums up the reasons I have for that philosophy, and does so in ways I have as yet been unable to articulate.

I'm running 9 ways to Sunday here at work this morning, but I do want to share some of the examples the website offers as open education initiatives already in place. Do any of these interest you? If so, check them out.

CC Learn
Centre for Open and Sustainable Learning
Connexions
Curriki
Learning Activity Management System (LAMS)
OER Commons
Free High School Science Texts
Moodle
MIT Open Courseware
Open Courseware Consortium
WikiEducator

Finally, I'd like to propose a revolutionary notion: Any institution not actively and intentionally contributing to Open Education is well liable to be left behind in the none too distant future. I sugggest that educational organizations officialize an "Open Learning Policy," with a director (or whateveryoumaycallit0 facilitating its development. Last one in the pool is a rotten egg...

[Later] Looks like the state of Florida wants to swim! Read Florida adopts open-content reading platform State officials add FreeReading.net to their approved list of reading curriculum resources from eSchool News!

A Great Read on Teaching, Learning, and Brain Development

Via the Global Citizenship in a Virtual World blog:

"EDUCATION: Education, like the culture it subsumes, is a conservative phenomenon. Science and technology move rapidly, but education doesn't. So if schools often resemble the schools of 50 years ago, that should not be surprising. Parents remember their school experiences, and since they survived them, they are typically leery about educators experimenting with their children. This explains in part why schools have not incorporated many of the recent developments in neuroscience and cognitive psychology."

Alvaro Fernandez interviews Robert Sylvester on brain development and its relationship to what we teachers are teaching and our learners are learning...

Read it all.

Check out The Adolescent Brain: Reaching for Autonomy, by Robert Sylvester

Video from Common Sense Media and the Macarthur Foundation

Just got this from friend Kevin Jarret in one of my listserv group emails. This video, archived from an intense panel discussion hosted by Common Sense Media and others, is long, but if you have an hour and 15 minutes or so to listen (the video is mainly panel discussion and audience, but you'll want to pull back to your computer and watch the examples of student work--WOW), I highly suggest you do so.

Included in the panel is USN alumna Stacey Goodstein, who spoke to our parents and faculty in an appearance on campus just last month. I'm hoping to include some audio from that talk in an upcoming Snacks4theBrain!

Here's the video:

"sledupotential"

If you're not aware of what's going on with Second Life, the huge online MUVE (Multi-User Virtual Environment), you may be surprised to know that educational opportunities abound. I maintain a fairly oft-accessed blog about education in Second Life and usually keep my posts about that area of interest at the "Oh Second Life" blog. However, I want to encourage anyone interested to visit a wiki I set up over this past weekend, one I'm calling "sledupotential."

Since ISTE's annual NECC (National Educational Computing Conference) issued a call for proposals this past month, I've been wondering what sort of offering I might make for the 2008 conference in San Antonio. I've been going to these things since 2000, and I began presenting at the 2002 conference in San Antonio, helping design and deliver a half-day session on Interactive Videoconferencing put on for the then "Office" of Science Outreach at Vanderbilt University. Since then (with the exception of one year, NECC in Seattle, when I spent my time attending rather than presenting workshops) I have presented on various topics in New Orleans, San Diego, and Atlanta, missing only Chicago in 2001 and Philadelphia in 2005. See a history of past NECCs here.

These conferences have provided some of the most pivotal experiences in my adult learning life, as well as helping me establish collegial bonds and friendships of long duration; and I look forward to the conference every year. This year may be a landmark, though.

I'm going collaborative. Seriously collaborative.

See the wiki, which explains the process better than I can here. "sledupential" promises to be the most learning-loaded and thought-provoking session I've ever had the privilege of helping facilitate. I'm smiling now, smiling wide: Maybe it has something to do with the nine other colleagues from all over the country (haven't gone international yet but chances are we will be so by the end of the day) who have signed on as co-presenters. Maybe it has to do with the way this idea developed from a more-or-less casual chat at an ISTE "social" in Second Life.

Maybe I'm just crazy!

Time, as it always does, will tell. :)

Doonesbury on Second Life

Okay, this may properly belong on my educators' Second Life Blog, but it's on so many of those that I feel I need to pipe it out to a more general audience. My shareshare is motivated by a comment made by one of my Vanderbilt colleagues Monday morning. As he passed my makeshift workstation in the conference room, noting my laptop display, he huffed, "Oh, you're playing games."

What I was doing, actually, was looking around Max Chatnoir's fantastic "Gene Pool" island on Second Life, a build completely dedicated to helping global citizens understand the finer points of genetics research. It's a much-heralded site and I was taking a look at it toward sharing it with the kids in the new School for Science and Math.

This is a technological savvy man I highly respect, and he just doesn't "get it" that MUVEs can inspire, motivate, and educate. "I have to admit I'm not at all impressed by Second Life," he told me. I sighed. I wanted to say, "Brother, you're not alone there," but I didn't.

So here's a link to a recent Doonesbury cartoon. Enjoy :)

Thanks to KJ, Claird, and others, and especially to the fantastic Garry Trudeau, who really does "get it."