Virtual Worlds & Higher Education - Update

An earlier post, Educators, Second Life, & Higher Education was an attempt to explain my thoughts and progression in Second Life. I've also posted on immersive education and other virtual worlds. I follow these trends as an educator in higher education because I believe they will continue to develop and could play an integral role in higher education, especially for distance learners. As the distance services librarian for my university it is important for me to stay appraised of these developments. And traditional undergrad campuses may also benefit from offering some courses in virtual worlds as an appealing choice for students who prefer to learn in more immersive learning environments.

Many in higher ed are also following the growth of online learning. The Sloan Consortium report, "Online Nation: Five Years of Growth in Online Learning" is available if interested. Of course online learning has taken place for decades now, but the platform used has typically been various types of learning management systems. These systems have been adequate in the past, but many learners could benefit from the more immersive learning environments available via virtual worlds.

I have been following virtual worlds in general for some time and have wondered which virtual world will end up being best suited to the needs of educators. Sometimes those thoughts have caused me to hesitate when it comes to being more fully engaged in Second Life (SL), currently the most developed virtual world (VW). There are many VWs in the works, some have been in development for many years and still have not publicly launched. A large amount of resources are being used to develop these VWs. Some have a strong focus on education, others on business applications, governments and non-profits, social networking, etc. There is a lot of momentum at the moment, and I believe in the next 1-2 years there will be significant developments. And I could be wrong, but I believe virtual worlds will eventually become commonplace within higher education.

Second Life includes many diverse communities. These communities are being closely monitored by businesses, educators, etc. to learn which are growing and best suited for the SL environment. Though SL was publicly released in 2003, and there was incredible growth for a period of time, it is still being defined and developed by the founders and users alike. Will SL end up being the best platform for higher education? I'm not sure but time will tell. I do know that there is a surge of creative activity taking place at the moment in this area. Educators of all kinds are seeing potential in SL that was not as apparent until recently. Partly this has to do with innovative technologies that have been recently implemented within the SL environment. Developments by Linden Labs like voice, along with third party applications being developed by technologists in higher ed and others has made a difference and should continue to enrich the environment.

I've been visiting islands and educational institutions in SL. If interested here is a link to "My Second Life Adventures" on flickr. I recommend you click "view as slideshow" and be sure to click on the center of the first slide so the description for each slide shows.

There have been other recent developments regarding virtual worlds. Some are considered quite important and significant by many who are tracking the virtual world phenomenon. Later this week I will share links to recent news reports on some of these developments.

Mobile Learning-The Next Big Thing in U.S. Higher Education

The award winning Learning2Go partnership is currently the largest collaborative mobile learning project for pupils in the UK. Below is a quote from "21st Century Mobile learning becomes reality for learners in the City of Wolverhampton":

Put quite simply, if learners are to use the power of the internet and all of the content and authoring tools that are now available, they need access to a device at a time of their choosing and driven by their learning needs.

Some may say this is a ways off still for the U.S. Others will argue it's already here as some of our colleges and universities (and schools) have been moving in this direction. But I believe that soon mobile learning in colleges and universities will become ubiquitous in the U.S. The devices are finally becoming inexpensive enough, with increasingly high quality screen resolution and longer battery life. And with Google's Android and other open source programs there will be more Web based applications available than ever before. Also consider the increasing amount of digitized materials being made freely available along with ebook reader like capabilities on these devices. The handheld device makes sense for many reasons now including providing better pedagogical opportunities. Soon I can see students paying a little more than they currently pay for their cell phone text messaging machines for a machine that allows them to also take a class on their device or supplement their in-class coursework.
Of course librarians need to consider this as we continue to develop ways to best serve students and faculty. And academic libraries in some ways could become more important as a place where students gather to work and collaborate using larger touch screen computers and other technology to facilitate learning in groups. There's much to think about still but this is going to happen, it really is time.

Univ of Birmingham Wins JISC Award for Innovation, Excellence & Imagination

The e-course team at the School of Dentistry, University of Birmingham, won the JISC-sponsored ‘Outstanding ICT (Information and Communications Technology) Initiative of the Year’ award. The e-course they developed is wiki-based (so that anyone can create a new page, and set varying editing permissions), with a full range of social networking features, unrestricted file storage and sharing, podcasts, videos, wish lists, and anonymous feedback options, amongst others.
If you're interested in why they won, and quality innovative work, take a look at their welcome to the ecourse at birmingham uk page.

Online Courses Growing, Next is Mobile Learning

Online Nation: Five Years of Growth in Online Learning from the Sloan Consortium.
From NPR: Online Courses Catch On in U.S. Colleges. And from NPR on the University of Illinois online education. And the last sentence from the NPR article above:"If any of this seems strange, get over it. Because the next wave in e-learning about to crash on our shores is m-learning, as in mobile learning, delivered to your cell phone."

Cell Phone College Class

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese already use cell phones to shop, read novels, exchange e-mail, search for restaurants and take video clips. Now, they can take a university course. Take a look at this articleCell Phone College Class Opens in Japan"Our duty as educators is to respond to the needs of people who want to learn," Sakuji Yoshimura, who heads Cyber University.
It's coming, the USA is behind, but it will happen.