The University of Texas project Transforming Undergraduate Education Program is building a statewide virtual learning community of students, faculty, researchers and administrators. The project has 50 sims in Second Life to support that effort. (These may still be in construction and not yet open to the public.)
A friend of mine is involved in that project, so I asked him to write a summary as Guest Bogger.
Guest Blog by Joe DeCristoforo
Asst VP and University Registrar at The University of Texas at San Antonio
University of Texas System Transforming Undergraduate Education project
The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) is just one of 16 component institutions that are part of the University of Texas System Transforming Undergraduate Education grant. In addition to UTSA, there are eight other UT system universities (UT Austin, UT Dallas, UT Permian Basin, UT Tyler, UT Arlington, UT Brownsville, UT El Paso, and UT Pan American) and six health science centers (UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, UT Medical Branch at Galveston, UT Health Science Center at Houston, UT M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and UT Health Science Center at Tyler), plus the UT System governing office – all totaling a near 50 island Archipelago in Second Life – the largest higher education, system wide project of its kind to date in this virtual world.
This project is officially called the “Virtual Learning Community Initiative” and is the brain child of Dr. Leslie Jarmon, senior lecturer from UT Austin who teaches in the Division of Innovation and Instructional Assessment area. The purpose of this project is to stimulate creative approaches to instruction that increase student access and success while being cost-efficient or reducing instructional costs at all 16 campuses. This project has two distinct but inter-related tracks: (a) At the UT System Level – a system-wide virtual collaborative learning community of students, faculty, researchers, staff, and administrators and (b) At the Course Level – to improve the learning experiences and opportunities for individual undergraduate students and all other learners
On August 25, 2009, all 16 component project leads met at the UT System main office in Austin, Texas, to review the grant and assorted initiatives. Since this grant itself relates directly to virtual worlds, that was the only time that all components will meet in the same, shared physicai space. The group will hold all of its other meetings in virtual space (approximately twice monthly until July 2010).
There is a great sense of excitement and enthusiasm with each of the component institutions, which is evident in how easily each area is willing to share information with each other to promote the goals and objectives of this grant. Though this $250,000 grant project is only being funded for one year, there is a hope that each institution will see the value of this technology on their respective campuses and continue the UT System archipelago; hopefully, with even more islands and initiatives! For more information, please visit the VLCI web site..
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Hobo Community Gateway Returns
After a hiatus of a couple of months, the Hobo Community Gateway has been relocated to Rockcliffe University. The content is the same except for updates and expansion. In a previous article I explained what a Linden approved Community Gateway is. The new Gateway is scheduled to open Friday, Sept. 25, between 8:30 and 9: AM SLT.
We are seeking helpers, mentors, and the like, to work with incoming newcomers. Anybody who wants to volunteer can contact Thinkerer Melville (yeah, me again) for notes. We are not setting up a schedule right now. We are asking people to come by whenever they have time and see if somebody needs help.
Helpers are welcome to promote their groups and places so long as they are consistent with a university environment. We are particiularly eager to have participation by helpers promoting science, education, literature, theater, and art.
Outworld tools for promoting for inworld events
Jwheels Carver has started a blog: Jwheels Recommends Second Life Entertainment.
He is listing schedules for some of the best performers we know: Savannah Coronet, Tamra Sands, PhoebeAnn Theas, Cosmic Banjo, Bart & Whirl, and others. He will also provide information about the performers.
- Links to websites
- Playlists
- News about outworld events
I am testing how well those schedules work for me in Google Reader. I believe they will work better than Second Life group notices. If you want to test the method and have Gmail, look at the top of your Gmail page for the Google Reader button. If you don’t use Gmail but have a Google account, just follow this link: Google reader. You will be able to start using Google Reader almost immediately.
To subscribe to a blog from your Google Reader page, click the Add a Subscription button and copy-paste the blog address into the line that opens.
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Comedy, video
Lauren’s first performance for Treet.tv is now on the web and available for viewing.
<- *click*
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