Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Sloodle Second Life Moodle
- Sloodle - Learning Systems for Virtual Enviroments
- Sloodle project in Second Life
- Sloodle Wiki
- Sloodle Whitepaper (pdf)
WHAT?
Sloodle is an Open Source project which aims to develop and share useful, usable, desirable tools for supporting education in virtual worlds, making teaching easier. Through engagement with an active community of developers and users, the Sloodle project hopes to develop sound pedagogies for teaching across web-based and 3D virtual learning environments. Sloodle integrates the Second Life multi-user virtual environment and the Moodle learning-management system.
MASTERMINDS?
- Edmund Edgar aka Edmund Earp (developer)
- Jeremy Kemp aka Jeremy Kabumpo (instructional developer)
- Daniel Livingstone aka Buddy Sprocket (developer)
- Paul Andrews aka Optimus Paul
- D.I. von Briesen aka Icabad Vallejo (moodle evangelist)
JUICE?
To understand the real story behind this great initiative, perhaps reading the Sloodle whitepaper entitled "Putting a Second Life "Metaverse Skin on Learning Management Systems", would give you a deeper understanding about how this project became a reality. If you are interested in setting-up your own Sloodle, you should perhaps first explore their wiki, and watch the Sloodle Tutorial Series.
Since I discovered Second Life a few years back, I have yet to see the beauty of it from a teaching and learning point-of-view (formal education!). However, with projects like Sloodle I am beginning to see lights at the end of the tunnel. And you know what, I am thinking about also exploring this idea further, and perhaps actually take active part and see how we can blend Moodle and Second Life in our online learning environment in the future. If we can blend these two unique learning spaces to facilitate a more effective and engaging learning environment for our students, why not!
I suppose this is just the beginning, and soon all widely used LMS whether commercial or open source will have integration modules enabling us to blend easily virtual worlds with their solutions. Why reinvent the virtual world, when we already have a few of them, with Second Life leading the way.
Now, the next step is to move away from the keyboard, joystick and monitor, and instead wear electronic goggles (or helmets) and electronic suits (with Back to the Future kind of shoes!), so that we can truly immerse ourselves into the 3D virtual learning spaces. Total Recall might become a reality sooner than we realize :)
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Infographic on Steve Jobs Amazing Life Genius!
As I am writing this post on my MacBook Air (having also an iPod, iPhone and iPad), I am certainly one of those (millions) that have been influenced tremendously by his innovations. Steve Jobs might not be around anymore, but his ideas, achievements and innovations will live on for ...
GENIUS... AND JERK, TOO?
Well, I suppose it is not good to find fault and criticize a dead man (no chance to rebut!), but I suppose we should know that Steve Jobs also had a darker side (ignored mostly here to show respect), which was originally purposely left out.
But, I suppose having a more balanced view (as Maurice Ward commented) of a man like Steve Jobs is important. Surely, we would love to inspire innovations like him, but perhaps not in manner he did it (or Apple did it!). In other words, the output was great, but the process of getting there could certainly have been done in a more humane manner.
"Even in death, Steve Jobs can sell us anything, including the story of what a complete and complex jerk he could at times be. "- Judith Timson
"One thing he wasnt, though, was perfect. Indeed there were things Jobs did while at Apple that were deeply disturbing. Rude, dismissive, hostile, spiteful: Apple employees—the ones not bound by confidentiality agreements—have had a different story to tell over the years about Jobs and the bullying, manipulation and fear that followed him around Apple. Jobs contributed to global problems, too. Apples success has been built literally on the backs of Chinese workers, many of them children and all of them enduring long shifts and the specter of brutal penalties for mistakes. And, for all his talk of enabling individual expression, Jobs imposed paranoid rules that centralized control of who could say what on his devices and in his company."
- Ryan Tate
