University of Texas-Austin art show in Second Life

Joe Sanchez (North Lamar in Second Life) and his students at the University of Texas - Austin hosted an art show at the Educators Coop sim in Second Life. Other SL educators were invited to participate, so I had some of my photos there. If you would like to visit, the show was still up at the time of this posting. If you have a Second Life account, click here to go there.

AECT? What's that?

My journalist relatives have pointed out that I violated one of the rules of style. I used an acronym without spelling it out in the first paragraph. However, since blogs appear in reverse order, this ends up being the first paragraph of the report. Ha! I attended the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) conference in Anaheim, CA, in October.

AECT 2007 in Reverse Order

Read from here down and you will get a pretty good look at one person's experience of AECT 2007 blogstyle, that is, chronologically backwards. The last few posts, which is to say the first few below this one, were all posted at the same time as I was away from my Internet connections and typed them all up while making my way back home. The Tuesday and Wednesday workshop items, which are found now in the archive, were posted on the fly during the workshops and really are my live notes. AECT 2007 was great. Thanks to everyone who made it such a wonderful experience for me.

ESL in SL

Checked out of my room. An hour and a half to kill before the ride to the airport. Is there anything else to see here. Oh, look. Another Second Life presentation. Despite my best intentions, I have missed quite a few of these. Here is a chance to catch Sabine Reljic's. OK, I didn't really learn much that I did not already know, as Sabine spent most of the time introducing SL to the uninitiated, but it did take my mind off the trip.

Beyond PowerPoint

Al Mizell and Marsha Burmeister gave a presentation, mostly in PowerPoint, about going beyond PowerPoint. The handouts consisted of a single web address, just like I did it for MEA/MFT, but in this case, on a label that could be stuck onto the conference program. The programs discussed looked interesting, and the presenters were cheerful enough to take my mind off the fact that today is a travel day. Did I mention that I am a nervous traveler?

Instructional Games

Three part session: Mansureh Kebritchi and Atsusi Hirumi presented on how game designers are, or are not, identifying the learning theories they apply in their game design. Conclusion: things are getting more professional, but there is plenty of room for improvement. Debbie Denise Reese presented on game design (the game here being Selene) with the goal of bringing students to the state Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls "flow", that balance of skill and challenge that keeps you happily going until you realize to your surprise that many productive hours have passed unnoticed. Mary Jo Dondlinger and Les Lunce presented on wayfinding affordances (cues to keep the learner from getting lost) in virtual reality, a subject we will get to practically apply in Second Life.

University Reception

Snacks of a high quality (the oysters were not properly appreciated, so I gave them my attention) give aways (I just took a couple of pens) and lots of conversation with lots of interesting folks. As mentioned earlier, a conference like this always involves missing something to attend something else. A presentation called "Dear Professor, I Demand a Response..." was on my list until I saw that it conflicted with the intellectual property session which I really had to attend. But, at the reception, I was introduced to Barbara Rosenfeld and Lisa Novemsky, the "Dear Professor..." presenters. We had a lovely chat which ran for hours, wandered beyond the reception itself, included interludes with Nai-fen Yu, Christine Sorensen, and a bowl of real spumoni ice cream the likes of which you just can't get in Montana. All in all, a most satisfying evening, followed by a rather short round of sleep.