MOOC: Games in Schools 3rd round - updated course

“Computer games are the most powerful learning tool of our age.”

~ Professor Henry James, MIT

 

The first question we will explore is, why use computer games in schools? We will then look at a range of games which do not necessarily have an educational purpose but can be used nicely for thematic learning on topics such as gravity, planets, construction, and many others. However, we will also explore games that have an explicit pedagogical focus and are designed to help students learn anything from Maths to Languages. Game mechanisms can be powerful motivators to succeed at a task, so we also ask the question, what can we learn from games for our teaching. And rather than just have students using games we will introduce a range of tools that you can use to get your students to design games, learning important skills such as coding, design, and creativity along the way. Finally, we address why it is important to teach about games, highlighting issues such as privacy, safety but also the cultural impact of games. ~ part of the course description on  European Schoolnet Academy.

This MOOC has a duration of six weeks, from 18th April to 5th June 2016, and, according to the organization, it requires "around 3 hours of work per week".
Here's its list of modules:

European Schoolnet is a network of 30 European Ministries of Education, based in Brussels. "As a not-for-profit organisation, we aim to bring innovation in teaching and learning to our key stakeholders: Ministries of Education, schools, teachers, researchers, and industry partners."

Teaching in Virtual Worlds: The Most Important 'Basic' Skill [For Educators]

"Figuring out how to move, look around, and interact with others is not intuitive for most users. If the first class begins here, some students will exit the software, vowing never to return. Rather than startle students, the first class needs to show them the benefits of using virtual worlds, demonstrate what students of all ages have accomplished in only a few days, and provide a brief introduction on how to use the tool effectively. The first class should feature cool technology, exciting research, entertainment, and great visuals to inflame students’ imagination." ~ Cynthia M. Calongne (“Lyr Lobo” in SL), Professor of Computer Science at Colorado Technical University. (You can read the full article here.)

I tend to agree with Professor Calongne's view: for me, the most important 'basic' skill for any teacher/trainer is the ability to effectively communicate the benefits of using virtual worlds to their students/trainees. I find that skill to be especially important in adult education, due to the characteristics of adult learners.

Once the teacher/trainer manages to successfully communicate the benefits of using virtual worlds, students/trainees will then feel more motivated to develop technical skills - e.g. how to join Second Life [or any other virtual world], move around, communicate, search, etc. In many cases, learning how to do these things can be accomplished with the help of video tutorials, several of which - with rather good quality - are already available on the Web.

Here's an example:



And these video tutorials are not all in English. Here's a very short video tutorial, in Italian, showing how to use "notecards" in Second Life:



Students/trainees can also learn how to do things in Second Life by, for instance, completing the very detailed Basic Skills Tutorial available at the Caledon Oxbridge University campus.

Image via Caledon Oxbridge

See you in-world, :)



P.S. - Text, links to videos and picture originally posted on the SL MOOC 2016 Moodle website.

Virtual Worlds and Education - Six Years Later

I started using Second Life in 2010, while studying for my Postgraduate Diploma in Education (specializing in e-Learning Pedagogy). Since then, I've explored many other Virtual Worlds/Grids, like Kitely, InWorldz, other public and private OpenSim grids, as well as Sim-on-a-Stick (SoaS), and even the very promising (now apparently very dead) virtual-world-on-a-browser Cloud Party. Recently, I had the opportunity to share my views on the potencial of Second Life and other VW for education/training with educators who have never used any of these platforms.

Image via Second Life Wiki

Second Life and other Virtual Worlds are platforms where creativity and collaboration can be easily stimulated, while providing users with a very strong sense of co-presence [aka social presence] and immersion.

Also interesting is the fact that on SL and other VW users can perform tasks that would be very dangerous or even impossible in the physical world (e.g. exploding structures; flying as birds do; walking on the bottom of the ocean without any sort of breathing apparatus).

Another useful VW feature is the ability to build, at very low cost, structures and environments that would represent a huge financial investment in the “brick and mortar” world (e.g. recreating a medieval village for a class about that period in History; creating an immersive alien landscape for a class about a Sci-Fi book). 

The avatar itself can be turned into a powerful learning tool (Yee and Bailenson, 2006).

All of these aspects make virtual worlds particularly interesting for educational purposes.

Because I have a special interest in adult education, I’d like to share this video with you: it’s one of my favorite episodes of The Drax Files: World Makers. In many ways, this inspiring story summarizes with accuracy what I think about using Second Life and other Virtual Worlds for adult education. Hope you’ll enjoy it as well.



P.S. - Text and link to video originally posted on the SL MOOC 2016 Moodle website.

Universidade de Coimbra organiza MOOC sobre escrita criativa

[MOOC] ESCRITA CRIATIVA - "A OUTRA TRADIÇÃO"
Universidade de Coimbra - Ensino a Distância
Data de início
20 fevereiro 2014
Data de fim
17 abril 2014
Prazo de candidatura
17 fevereiro 2014
Diferente de qualquer outro curso realizado no UC_D, “Escrita Criativa - a outra tradição " é um MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), isto é, um curso aberto, livre e gratuito para, de modo geral, encorajar a prática da escrita através da experimentação. Pretende estimular potenciais novos/as autores/as e, sobretudo, criar melhores leitores/as, conscientes de que o texto é um ato de cidadania.
Dadas as características singulares e inovadoras desta modalidade de formação, centralizada num conjunto diverso de oficinas dinamizadas por sessões vídeo da responsabilidade da docente, apresentam-se apenas como pré-requisitos para a inscrição neste curso o interesse pelo universo da escrita e a capacidade de aprendizagem autorregulada e promotora de um percurso formativo autónomo. O/a formando/a é convidado/a a percorrer um conjunto de ‘oficinas’ que contemplam alguma terminologia literária básica, bem como propostas de reflexão teórica e metodológica.

A validação da aprendizagem terá carácter de autoavaliação e de avaliação regulada interpares. Não está prevista a interação da docente com os formandos durante o curso.
Destinatários
Público em geral com interesse pela prática da escrita.
Esta edição encontra-se limitada a 500 participantes, deixando de ser possível a inscrição após ter sido atingido este número.

Inscrições: http://www.ed.uc.pt/educ/curso?id=40

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