The Jianghu Tea House

Of the educational builds in Second Life that I have seen, one that is sure to keep me coming back is The Jianghu Tea House, Monash University’s new lesson in instructional design.

Like Jianghu – an alternate universe described in the Wulin tradition as coexisting with this one – the tea house exists to complement foreign language instruction given to real world students of Mandarin Chinese. The space is ornate (built by FlyingKnifeModels Oh, a First Life artist) and makes good use of the interactive technology of Second Life.

Students see Mandarin text paired with English phonetic spellings, then listen to pronunciations (via embedded sound files that play when the student interacts with the space). Moving further into the experience, learners are again prompted to interpret text or recognize sounds, reinforcing the association of a written word with its sound (and vice versa).

On first visit, this tea house may appear to be a bit over-the-top. All this for one lesson? However, considering that the space supports a number of different lesson formats (both synchronous and asynchronous content) and can entertain any number of learners over time, the potential for a return on investment becomes more evident.

Open access to the sim may be six months away; however, Xilin Yifu would be happy to give guided tours to visitors from the SLeducation community.

“Every now and again Wulin needs to have a champion, a general or a commander to lead the collective resources of wulin participants for China.”
Wikipedia

There are plenty of educators surfing the grid, looking for the best uses of this new technology. By all accounts, Xilin may be one of the heroes showing us the way.

To this Second Life resident, virtual reality represents an exciting opportunity to develop rich, engaging instructional content. Many educators seem to agree and there are plenty of educational sites to explore. Still, it is difficult to predict what will be effective, which design elements are essential. It is likely that we are far from seeing any standards emerge for instructional design.

“The Source is Within” – a SL art installation

There is, however, something to be learned about engaging a Second Life user. Rezzable’s community of artists, designers and developers seem to consistently deliver an experience. Have you visited “The Source is Within” (SLURL), their recent installation showcasing the SL imagery of Melodious Source? This is a must-see build, in my notecard.

As evidence of their ability to capture attention, have a look at this video. The interactive object seen in that video was developed simply to promote a current event in the grid (titled “Garden of NPIRL Delights“; loosely, a festival of building in SL). If you happen to have a parcel—and room for 24 prims—a description of the interactive invitation can be seen here, they are distributing the object freely.

And finally…thank you, Bettina Tizzy, for the information shared at Not Possible IRL. The care you take in writing every post is apparent to this reader.

The recent surge in Internet development is flooding educational blogs. By targeting open source technology in these posts, maybe some focus can be maintained. So much is happening in educational technology.

Two projects that have kept me occupied for days: Sakai and Curriki. More about Sakai, perhaps, in another post. At Curriki, the mission is…

“… [to educate] by building a world class learning environment that is community developed and supported, and publishing it for free on the Web, Curriki works to ensure that anyone, from anywhere can participate.”

Robert Stephenson explains that

“Curriki is now looking for curriculum. A number of projects are underway to create a nucleus of learning materials, such as one with the Africa-based Shuttleworth Foundation (home of the Ubuntu Linux distro) to create and distribute open source textbooks for math, physics and chemistry.”

User generated educational content. Course building tools, forums and a wiki. There is potential there for creating a network of inspired educators and a respectable resource for educators looking to tap what is available. I will soon be submitting my Sessions, once the site’s tools go live.

But here is the best ed tech change: I have a new computer. New to me, at least. Not quite whiz-bang, but the fastest box I’ve ever worked with. My favorite feature: a 19″ wide screen LCD monitor. If you happen to live in the Valley of the Sun, the only thing better than the deal on this computer has been the service they’ve bundled. Thank you, Michael.