Virtual Worlds in Education (VieW) is focused on supporting the integration of virtual worlds into K-20 learning, both formal and informal. This effort is founded on ten years of experience centered at Cornell University in the SciCentr outreach program and builds on a user community centered in New York State and reaching as far as Singapore and Australia. The first activity for VieW was the Taxonomy of Virtual Worlds workshop, an NSF-funded workshop aimed at a deeper understanding of the application of virtual worlds in K-12 STEM education. In May, 2009, the community in New York State gathered to learn the outcomes of the NSF-funded WITS Broadening Participation in Computing project and to engage in a broader discussion focused on sustaining these efforts and building a flexible support infrastructure within the State.
The Need
From experience, educators have found that each virtual world system has both attractive and detractive features when considered for use in K-12 educational settings. This workshop is intended specifically to flesh out the landscape of educational virtual world applications:
- What would the ideal systems for STEM learning look like?
- In particular, what are the best ways to manage tasks specific to education, such as social interaction, student assessment, teacher support and development?
- How do we address issues of access, usability, system architecture, intellectual property, user identity and security?
- What tools are currently available for assessment and what do we need?
- How do we match software to teaching strategies?
Workshop Information
- Educators' Workshop: Brooklyn College
April, 2010 - A hands-on workshop for educators associated with the New York City Department of Education introducing ways that project-based learning can support computer literacy and mastery of the ISTE NETS for Students. Examples include virtual worlds, social network systems, and social entreprenurial projects. Supported by Cornell's WITS and Brooklyn College's Bridges to Computing NSF Broadening Participation in Computing projects.
- Educators' Workshop: OCM BOCES
January, 2010 - A hands-on workshop for educators in Central New York introducing ways that project-based learning can support computer literacy and mastery of the ISTE NETS for Students. Examples include virtual worlds, social network systems, and social entreprenurial projects. Supported by the NSF WITS demonstration project.
- Educators' Workshop: Eastern Suffolk BOCES
October, 2009 - A hands-on workshop for educators from Eastern Long Island introducing ways that project-based learning in virtual worlds can support computer literacy and mastery of the ISTE NETS for Students. Supported by the NSF WITS demonstration project.
- New York State Virtual Worlds in Education Community Discussion
May, 2009 - A Community Discussion for P16 educators, IT professionals, and administrators. The event will include live presentations of current programs, outcomes of the WITS and Taxonomy of Virtual Worlds projects, and round table discussions aimed at identifying priority interests for expanding access and programming in New York State. The final activity will be the Spring Showcase for Southern Tier SciFair at the nearby Wings of Eagles Discovery Center in Horseheads, NY.
- Taxonomy of Virtual Worlds
March, 2009 - A crossplatform discussion among P16 educators, technology developers, researcher, and end users (youth). Sixty members of these stakeholder groups from across the country and from many environments met to share their ideas on how best to define and differentiate the many options available to educators looking to leverage the value of this technology for STEM education.