4/27/09 4/27/09

240:289 in SecondLife

We held our Writing Seminar class in SecondLife tonight. This is a graduate class at the University of Northern Iowa taught by Dr. Leigh Zeitz.

Here’s a short video.

8/7/08 8/7/08

The Digital Frontier Podcast - Episode #1

A Review of NECC 2008

Dr. Leigh Zeitz is our first guest on "The Digital Frontier Podcast," a new podcast focusing on emerging instructional technologies. Our topic in this episode is a review of the National Educational Computing Conference held June 29-July 2 in San Antonio, TX.

This Episode's Delicious Links

Podcast Highlights:

Introduction
Background on NECC
The Convergence of Instructional Technologies
Sunburst Software & Type to Learn 4; teaching elementary-age students to type.
Crick Software's Clicker & WriteOnline
Collaboration
Collaborative Tools and the Quality of Academic Work
Scientific American and Collaborative Publishing
Using Emerging Technologies to Create Collaborative Learning Environment
Dealing with the avalanche of new technologies.
Using Skype to bring experts live into your classroom.
Second Life
Bernajean Porter (on Second Life befriend Charzeee Kitaj )
National Educational Technology Standards (NETS)
Bloom’s Taxonomy
RAGBRAI
Leigh Zeitz Contact Information
Wrap

7/23/08 7/23/08

Google Enters Virtual World

PCMag.com is offering a preview/review of Google Lively (Beta). This is the online giant's entrance into the virtual world dominated by Second Life. Here is the summary of the article:

Lively gives you a 3D chat world with a very clear interface, and it makes getting into virtual worlds much easier than it is with Second Life or World of Warcraft, which both use far more sophisticated 3D rendering for much larger, more realistic worlds (and consequently require far more PC horsepower). Lively gives you nowhere near as rich an experience, but it's a decent way to test the waters. Because of the lack of depth and realistic physics, however, I can't really see Lively, in its current form, becoming a serious challenger to Second Life. It seems more of a phenomenon people will check out just once or twice before they move on.

Here is a video preview from YouTube:

7/17/08 7/17/08

OoVoo is Ooooh Sooo Cool

I just came across a new tool for video conferencing. It's called ooVoo. I've experienced MeBeam during a classroom chat, and besides its ugly interface, it works OK. (How's that for a raving review?) On the surface, ooVoo looks better than MeBeam. Moreover, in the podcast video I watched where ooVoo was used, it has some nice features, like the ability to select and zoom to one user while they are talking. To watch ooVoo in action, head on over to the EdTechWeekly Podcast. OoVoo has an impressive features list. Most important, in my opinion, is the ability to record and stream conversations. Of course, it looks like the price is right...free. Give it a try and let me know how it works for you.

6/23/08 6/23/08