AWEDU Newsletter

 

 

December 2000

This fall has found the AWEDU growing to include more programs from schools and institutions around the world, as well as host to many different events and activities.

If you're interested in becoming part of the unique AWEDU experience, please visit our site for more information.

Recent Events in the AWEDU

AWEDU Roundtables

Each month projects in the AWEDU program host in-world roundtable discussions on projects, plans, and lessons learned. The goal of the Roundtable series is allow the AWEDU community of educators the opportunity to learn from each other's experiences, and to brainstorm as a collective.

Fall Roundtables

Roundtable Discussion in EcollegE, hosted by Padraic
(Patrick McKercher, University of California at Santa Cruz, College Eight).
November 16, 2000- Word Document
November 16, 2000 - PDF Document

Roundtable Discussion on Bot's in AWEDU, hosted by Hamfon
(Nelson Crowle, Activeworlds.com, Inc.).
October 18, 2000- Word Document
October 18, 2000 - PDF Document

Transcripts of other AWEDU Roundtables and events can be found at http://www.activeworlds.com/edu/events/

CyberForums@ArtCenter

Michael Heim, Virtual Worlds Coach at the Art Center College of Design, regularly hosts his Cyberforum@ArtCenter series in the AWEDU world accd.

Email: cyberforum@artcenter.edu
Web: www.mheim.com/cyberforum/index.htm

CyberForum presents real-time online author chats.

The Fall CyberForum examines the notion of "avatecture," which is the merger of avatar and physical environments. The Forum consists of panel discussions, avatar rituals, and interactive thought experiments.

Past CyberForum speakers have included: Howard Bloom, Francis Heylighen, Cliff Joslyn, Niranjan Rajah, Bruce Damer, Carol Gigliotti, Katherine Hayles, Michael Heim, Brenda Laurel, Peter Lunenfeld, Lev Manovich, and William J. Mitchell.

"Two Adventures in Avatecture" in 3-D Avatar World + video stream
Tuesday, November 28, 12 Noon (PDT), 7:00 PM (GMT)
Wednesday, November 29, 12 Noon (PDT), 7:00 PM (GMT)

On November 28, The Tuesday session took place in VWD world (AWEDU Universe) and simultaneously at the Digital Arts EDA lecture space on the UCLA campus.

The Wednesday session also took place in VWD world (AWEDU) and simultaneously at the UCLA Visualization Portal on the UCLA campus.

Virtual: video stream from www.design.ucla.edu/eda/eda.html

Physical: 1473 Dickson Art Center (northeast corner of the UCLA campus) in Westwood, and UCLA Visualization Portal, Room 5308 in UCLA Math Sciences Building.

Email requests or questions to cyberforum@artcenter.edu Visit http://www.mheim.com/cyberforum/index.html
Past Forum logs: http://www.mheim.com/cyberforum/html/archive.html

AWEDU Community News

Tracking User Behavior & World Development
Katy Börner, Indiana University

Teaching a class to 10 students in the iUni world in Eduverse I feel in control. Giving a demo of final student projects to about 35 visitors is a very different story.

Doing the demo, we learned that it is very easy to loose our audience during a tour of five different Learning Environments - we've got a Natural Disaster Area, a Science House, a Quest Atlantis portal to different theme parks for kids, an Art Cafe, and a Virtual Collaboration area. It would have been good to know where everybody is at any point in time or at least to know who is close enough to read the explanations typed into the chat window.

I was wondering if anybody works on or has a tool to represent avatar positions in AW in realtime (most computer games provide a map of your opponents). Also, it would be great if one could do a playback of a lecture session or demo for analysis and optimization purposes. I guess bots could be used to log user actions & object movements. Did somebody ever visualize such logs?

To show the development of iUni, I used the AW worldmapper and generated a short animation see http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~katy/iUni/map-animation.gif But it would be really exciting to see who moved which object at which point in time.

Please let me know if you are interested in the development of analysis/visualization tools for 3-D VE's. Maybe we can combine efforts.

New Projects in the AWEDU

propolis, Andrew Hudson-Smith, University College London
http://edu.activeworlds.com/participants/university_college_london.html

Wilotown, Janet B. Hale, Willoway CyberSchool
http://edu.activeworlds.com/participants/Wilotown.html

MuCEECD, Justin Grimes, Marshall University
http://edu.activeworlds.com/participants/MuCEECD.html

AWLTC, Xiaodong Lin, Vanderbilt University
http://edu.activeworlds.com/participants/vanderbilt_university.html

CCNB, Gildard Hache, New Brunswick Community College
http://edu.activeworlds.com/participants/CCNB.html

ADMCLA, Ian E. Gibson and Marcy L Koontz, University of Alabama
http://edu.activeworlds.com/participants/ADMCLA.html

SCSUMLK, Robert Workman, Southern Connecticut State College
http://edu.activeworlds.com/participants/SCSUMLK.html

SciScape, Margaret Corbit, Cornell University
http://edu.activeworlds.com/participants/cornell_university.html

Soleil, Stephane Savard, Amis-Soleils School
http://edu.activeworlds.com/participants/Soleil.html

itde, Ryan Watkins, Nova Southeastern University
http://edu.activeworlds.com/participants/itde.html

irreer, Giovanni Barbi, Istituto Regionale Ricerca Educative dell 'Emilia Romagna
http://edu.activeworlds.com/participants/irreer.html

Idstudio, Barry Turner, Boston Architectural Center
http://edu.activeworlds.com/participants/boston_architectural_center.html

KUNUVA, Dr. H.A.T. van der Meijden, Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen
http://edu.activeworlds.com/participants/katholieke_universiteit_nijmegen.html

skheria, Tom Mancuso, Art Center College of Design
http://edu.activeworlds.com/participants/art_center_college_of_design.html

riksu, Kauko Ojanen, Hame Polytechnic
http://edu.activeworlds.com/participants/riksu.html

Erehwon, Andy Brown and Lesley Gavin, The University of Liverpool
http://edu.activeworlds.com/participants/Erehwon.html

Edutopia, Prof. Roberto Cuccu, Liceo Scientifico Statale "Giorgio Asproni"
http://edu.activeworlds.com/participants/Edutopia.html

CRII, Prof. Gaetano A. Lanzarone, Universita Degli Studi Dell Insubria
http://edu.activeworlds.com/participants/CRII.html

ITING, Borje Hansson, Mitthogskolan
http://edu.activeworlds.com/participants/ITING.html

Fantàsia, Maurizio Bracardi, Instituto Tecnico Commerciale E Per Geometri
http://edu.activeworlds.com/participants/Fantásia.html

EduArt, Martin Sjardijn, Holland Digital ArtLab
http://edu.activeworlds.com/participants/EduArt.html

Recent Research and Writings on AW and Education

Dr. Patrick McKercher shares with us his recent article on using 3D worlds with high school students.

Developing Writing Assignments With A Purpose

For more articles and research on AW and education, please see http://www.activeworlds.com/edu/resources.html

For more information on the Active Worlds and the Active Worlds Educational Universe please visit http://www.activeworlds.com/edu.

 

 
 

You are receiving this email as you are presently participating in, or have expressed an interest in Active Worlds and Education. To unsubscribe please send an email to imailsrv@activeworlds.com with the worlds UNSUBSCRIBE AWEDU2 in the body.

©Activeworlds.com, Inc.