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VE PLN

VE PLN Second Life Newbie Event Begins November 6

November 6, 2017 by vsteadmin

Each night this week--November 6 - 10, 2017--VSTE Virtual Environments PLN members will be available on VSTE Island in Second Life at 8 PM to help educators new to this virtual environment. We will help you navigate locomotion and communication in SL to be able to quickly assimilate into our group.

In order to participate, you will need a free account. Follow these steps to get started:

  1. Get a free account at www.secondlife.com.
  2. Choose an avatar that is already complete and ready to go. (We can help you customize it later.)
  3. Download the Second Life viewer (an application) from www.secondlife.com.
  4. Start the viewer, login, and enter the world.
  5. You will be in Welcome Island.
  6. Take advantages of the tutorials in Welcome Island.
  7. When you are ready to come to VSTE Island you can click this link http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/VSTE%20Island/62/104/22

Come join us for some fun learning!

In case you missed it, the VE PLN webinar included information about virtual worlds and Second Life. You can view the archived recording here.

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Filed Under: VE PLN, VSTE News

Free Webinar: Developing Your PLN In A Virtual World

October 22, 2017 by vsteadmin

Blue logo for webinarTechnology is evolving as such as fast rate in the 21st Century, that is it difficult attain the skills fast enough to serve our students. VE (Virtual Environments) offer the opportunity to network, collaborate, and learn in ways we never expected as we were in school. On VEs you can work with other educators, technicians, scientists, and students from all over the planet!

Interested in learning more? Join members of VSTE's Virtual Environments Professional Learning Network for a live webinar focused on getting started in virtual worlds. We will gather in VSTE's Adobe Connect room on Monday, October 30, 2017, at 8 PM. Use this link to access the webinar: http://vste.adobeconnect.com/vstelive. Choose guest login and type your name the way you want it to appear in the chat room.

After this kick off event in Adobe Connect the VE PLN is planning a week-long novice training sequence, something new every night, but basic for the true novice.

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Filed Under: Events, Online Events, VE PLN, VSTE News Tagged With: VEPLN

VSTE Voices: Minecraft and Media Literacy

October 2, 2017 by vsteadmin

MInecraft and Media Literacy Header

VE PLN Member Beth O'Connell describes a Minecraft lesson plan she developed and taught around the concept of media literacy.

Cross Posted from Beth's blog

I’ve been working on getting Minecraft into our school for about a year now, ever since I discovered for myself how (surprisingly) immersive and thought-provoking it can be. When our school system got a grant for a school calendar study which resulted in a twice-yearly Intersession week between quarters, the opportunity arose. I used Knowclue Kidd’s (Marianne Malmstrom) idea for real estate ads in Minecraft to teach some media literacy concepts. The kids had a blast playing, and even learned a little about how advertising techniques are used.

Once the new calendar was approved, the teachers and staff members were given one hour to come up with a plan for their intersession class. Each of us would be teaching a half-day class for five days. We had to provide fun activities that linked to our state standards. In just that short period of time, we came up with some amazing ideas! This was my submission:

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Intersession Title: Minecraft and Media Literacy

Grade Level: 7

Content(s) and Standard(s):

7.3 The student will understand the elements of media literacy. a) Identify persuasive/informative techniques used in nonprint media including television, radio, video, and Internet. b) Distinguish between fact and opinion, and between evidence and inference. c) Describe how word choice and visual images convey a viewpoint. d) Compare and contrast the techniques in auditory, visual, and written media messages. e) Craft and publish audience-specific media messages

Brief Description:

After learning about persuasive techniques in the media, students will build a house in Minecraft and create a video advertisement with machinima.

Are you tired of being manipulated by advertisers? Learn their tactics! Students will build a house in Minecraft and market it with a machinima real estate ad.

Detailed List of Materials Needed:

  • MinecraftEdu server and 25-30 licences (https://minecraftedu.com/purchase)

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Getting MinecraftEdu installed and working felt like swimming upstream against a strong current. Our IT department was very willing and supportive, but had a lot of competing demands on their time. Eventually we hope to have MinecraftEdu hosted on a district server, but for this project I ran the server on my school-issued laptop. We used a 30-workstation computer lab, which I spent several hours configuring so the server IP address was already added when the students started the software. (The IT department set a fixed IP address for my laptop.)

We’re using the Canvas LMS (learning management system) this year in our district, so I spent some time creating a course with assignments and resources for this class. My class was scheduled for the last half of the school day, so I spent each morning getting ready for the class. For the first session, the students wrote a bulletin board post introducing themselves, and took a Minecraft Experience survey (created with Google Forms). At the beginning of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th days, they wrote a guided reflection piece, and they took another survey at the end of the class. Nothing was graded, but most of the students did a good job completing the assignments (despite some grumbling about having to wait to play.)

MInecraft and Media Literacy Canvas

We jumped right in at the beginning of the first day doing the MinecraftEdu Orientation. This build offers a lot for all levels, getting the completely inexperienced users started, and providing puzzles for the experienced players to figure out. The students were required to use their own real names, with no gamertags or numbers.

MinecraftEdu Orientation

After we played for an hour or so, I stopped them and had them log in to Canvas to do the survey and introduction. I started talking about media literacy by saying: “You’re being tricked! Every day, advertisers try to trick you into spending your money, or getting your parents to spend theirs. Have you noticed how this can happen? How do you feel about this?” The students seemed really unaware of this, in spite of the vast amount of media exposure that most kids have.

The next day I played some real estate ads that I found on YouTube (available on this playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSn_3qRXdgj1DKid15BFNrHVqfSsFxaWp), asking them to look at some elements of video media  (lighting, editing, sound, language used, what is featured, camera shots). We talked about features of houses, and generated lists of essential, advantageous, and luxury features that they might want to include. I played Knowclue’s machinima of her students’ Minecraft real estate ads to show what we were aiming for. Here’s what Knowclue said via email about her class’s process:

—————————————————————————————————

> I gave my 5th graders 3 class periods to build any single dwelling house they wanted on a single account. Since we are a 1:1 school I allowed kids to use mods as well if they had them on their personal computer. Didn’t feel that piece mattered for this project.
> We spent one class period looking at array of real estate commercials from our town that I had preselected. The commercials represented a range of house types from apartments to higher end homes. Before we watched the commercials we did a quick brainstorm to populate 3 categories:
> What is essential? (bathroom, kitchen, etc)
> What is an advantage? (garage, en suite bathrooms, etc)
> What would be a luxury? (theater, tennis courts, etc)
> Kids generate the list pretty quickly and we use it for a reference when we watch the videos.
> I asked the kids to watch each commercial carefully to identify the language used, the camera shots and what is featured.
> It’s a blast to dissect each commercial – kids pick this up really quickly, without much prompting. They LOVE identifying on the conventions to “sell” – I gave them very little instruction, mostly just prepared to ask questions. Sometimes I would ask them to identify what kinds of word/phrases they used and after kids generated the list, we would rematch the commercial. It’s a really fun class and you can get through quite a few examples after you generate the list of needs to luxury.
> I give them one class to construct the commercials for their house. I let them choose to use video or pictures, most choose pictures as that is pretty much represents the commercials they saw.
> 5 classes – pretty straight forward. Just so you know the 6th grade ran a simultaneous challenge on OpenSim. I met with 6th grade twice a week and gave them 6 periods to build since the learning curve was steeper.

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I had set up a random world in Creative mode for them to use. They were to explore, find somewhere to build, and give me the coordinates. Some students finished their houses that day, while others were still exploring at the end of class. Several students asked if they could work with a partner, and I encouraged this. I was pleased to see some new alliances developing by the end of the week, between students who didn’t know each other previously.

Minecraft Collaboration

The students did reflections at the beginning of each class after that. The next day I showed them how to take screenshots in Minecraft, how to find their screenshots and transfer them to their storage drives, and how to make a machinima with their screenshots in Moviemaker. They followed the directions with varying degrees of completion. I was learning along with them, staying one step ahead.

We did have some trouble with griefing. A few players flew around to other people’s houses throwing eggs, which then hatched into a plague of chickens. A few people’s houses were partially destroyed, and the perpetrators would not come forward. However, the worst destruction was my fault–on the last day I accidentally saved the world as the previous day’s work, losing all of the building they had done that day. ARRGGHH!! The class as a whole was very willing to help each other out. The responses I got from the end-of-course survey showed that the students really enjoyed the class and thought it went well.

I’m not sure how much the students really learned about media literacy. At least now they’re aware that it’s a thing, and that advertisers use techniques to get them and their parents to spend money. We’re having another Intersession in the spring, and I’m thinking of focusing on civics and developing a community. We had trouble with Moviemaker: although the students saved their files, I couldn’t open them up to show them to the class, so we couldn’t do the sharing at the end. Instead, I opened the world in Survival mode (no PvP) so they could play. That was really satisfying, and the inexperienced players had a chance to try it out.

I learned a lot from teaching this course, and getting to know the students better. I would say that they all were successful–they have a new awareness of media, they developed problem-solving abilities, relationships and coping strategies, and they had a great time playing together. The end-of-course survey showed an overwhelmingly positive response. I’m looking forward to working with our students in Minecraft again.

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Filed Under: Blog, VE PLN, VSTE Voices Tagged With: VE PLN

VE PLN Presents Virtual Reality in Education

September 13, 2017 by vsteadmin

Monday, Sept. 25, 2017, 8 PM ET: VIRTUAL REALITY IN EDUCATION

Dr. William Schmachtenberg (Dae Miami in Second Life) will share the research he conducted this summer into Virtual Reality. There is so much hype about Google Cardboard, Gear VR, and Oculus Rift, but how much of it is hype and will it help educate students? Dr. Schmachtenberg has reviewed apps on Gear VR and Oculus Rift for their educational value and will address practical questions about using this technology including purchasing, installation and integration. Join the Virtual Environments PLN on VSTE Island In Second Life for this presentation about what is really happening in VR, based on hands on research of the hardware.

Learn More About Second Life & How to Attend Events On VSTE Island 

 

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Filed Under: VE PLN, VSTE News

VSTE Minecraft Survival Summer 2017

May 22, 2017 by vsteadmin

New to Minecraft? Interested in learning more about this game that seems to have captured your students' attention? This summer, the Virtual Environments PLN will be exploring Minecraft survival mode.

The first live meeting will take place, Friday, May 26, at 6:45 EDT. The team will build a safe house.

Three students from eastcoastminers.org will come build recipe frames to show novices how to build the basics.

We will be playing in survival all summer: Memorial Day to Labor Day and helping those with little or no Minecraft experience. The idea is that teachers will learn why their students love this game, while talking with other teachers about how it can be leveraged as an instructional tool in the classroom.
If you have been wanting to learn about Minecraft but didn't know how to begin, this is your chance! You need to get a Minecraft account from https://mojang.com/. Then send your Minecraft login name to K4sons@gmail.com and ask to be whitelisted.

Visit our website at https://sites.google.com/view/vstesofs17 to learn more.

GETTING STARTED WITH MINECRAFT:

You must have a computer Minecraft account from https://minecraft.net/en/ to join. There is a one time fee of $26.95. Download and install the software. Choose multiplayer and add a server: Name VSTE Place IP 69.175.17.26:25565 We will open it up for this event. If you want to be whitelisted to enter anytime you want to continue building this, or anything else, email Kim Harrison at kvharris@vbschools.com from an educational email address with your real name and minecraft name.

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Filed Under: Events, Online Events, VE PLN Tagged With: minecraft, pln, virtual

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