learn how to create educational experiences in Sloodle

Limited time seemed to only allow me to create work and not to journal about it this past week. I find that I only want to do after finding the resources and not write about it. I suppose I will never be a good scientist :-(

I did get to sit in on a couple of lectures and roundtables by educators in SL. I’ve noted that more and more participants in these are coming with experience now, teaching in SL, rather than just talking about wanting to or asking how to. The latest discussions underscore my need to create a SLOODLE educational experience that can be easily assessed by my peers. Not an easy task, but I must to make all this effort worth my while. First, this adds so much validity to this platform and secondly, these are the kinds of assessments that generally get left out of portfolios – the techie kind. I imagine to most mainstream, all this virtual stuff just sounds like sci-fi and teacher-wannabe’s. I’ll need to make my potential and progress in this platform clear and real to the naysayers and naive ones in trying to pursue more teaching opportunities and eventually trying to make tenure.

Anyway, I loved that there is more “been there – done that” in SLED and SLOODLE in higher education. I can refer to such much more in validating the use of SLOODLE, Moodle, and SL.

My focus will now turn to my presentation. Giddy-up!

This week I mostly spent time digging deeper into the sites that I found earlier, following links to educators to find other folks who are using SLOODLE. I don’t know if there is any easier process for this. It’s vastly time-consuming to follow links and explore their (sometimes unorganized) websites to find real work being done using the SLOODLE too.

I’m going to try and move away from this aspect this week, and look at some practicums for COE students so that I can try and create a SLOODLE assignment that would give the future teachers an experience that neither their course classroom nor practicum classroom can give them.

This is really going to exercise some of the search measures that we’ve been talking about in class, as there is much more to paw through in the subject area of COE practicums than SLOODLE.

I was definitely engrossed in how-to videos and exploring the SLOODLE side of SL this week. I jotted down notes for what made a tutorial simple and how I navigated and the steps I took in SL so that I can make a tutorial for the newbie teachers of SL. Phfew! I might have to make a Machina (a movie within SL). I think it’s quite possible to actually have instructors operating inside SL without too much prior experience. This week I will concentrate on a how-to tutorial for students. I think that is going to be much more challenging as it will be more activity-based as opposed to being observant. I may have to rethink a SLOODLE activity that is the simplest. Maybe I can find landmarks where students could report back there visual observations. That way, all they would have to do is navigate through an area, as opposed to operating or interacting, or more so, building something (which is the cool benefit of a SLOODLE.) Baby steps….yes b-a-b-y s-t-e-p-s.

I was just about to give up on my blog search session for the day, as it was one of those search sessions where there would be one blog post about sloodle…oops, I mean SLOODLE and everything else about SL. Good for other things. Not for the assignment. But then…I came across a presentation from MoodleMoot from 2009. A complete overview with yummy visuals to explain the latest in the newest v 0.4 of SLOODLE. I’m going to digest it and follow the keywords in there and see where it takes me.

SLOODLE (learned that’s the proper reference – all caps) news is on Twitter! Good resource to follow. Techie tools like this are updated or have issues to resolve so often, an RSS feed of the latest info is so important, ESPECIALLY in the research and learning stages of the user. Now, on to see if I can find some blogs or forums…

Finding that in researching something so new, especially new in virtual world technology, and not mainstream, certainly not that interesting to folks of the non-educational world, non-Moodle world, and non-virtual world (educationally), that there aren’t quite as many sites, blogs, and resources that aren’t valid.

But, as much as I am making use of Evernote for every part of my life and internet searches, I am now adding FACE in my approach to the sites I come across.

very cool find. at first I was worried that I kept finding some same or very similar resources, especially youtubes. Then I worried because I found some Sloodle support in another language (Slovinian? I think). But through these finds, I have discovered, SlideShare.net! One of the youtubes that I found was the same one I kept running across. I decided to follow some links to hope for further resources, perhaps in english. Tah-dahhh, I found that some individuals put up slides that they use to create demonstrations, ppt, video, animations, etc.. Makes for some great support in building your own material. Especially for students – you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, or in this case, recreate visuals to aid in introducing a new technology that’s full of new technology itself.

I’ve always thought exercising a language was one of the coolest things in Second Life (SL). Instantaneous (and FREE) language emersion, in dozens of settings (restaurant, shopping, beach, book club, etc). I found a Sloodle project that was language learning based. This may be an area to focus the practicum. A COE or MSEd student focusing teaching French could gain classroom experience working in SL via Moodle. French language students, US or abroad experienced HS or higher ed teachers, or even real language teachers could play the roles of his/her students.

Yeah! There is a sloodle.org site! Good place to start. Lots to pour through there. I need to first learn about the tool – then comes creation using it.

A sloodle.com site too, but apparently it is just an archive space.

Some you tubes to watch – hoping one of them will be a demo so I can get an overview of the tool.

Sloodle is an educational tool that integrates Moodle (a Learning Management System – LMS) with Second Life (SL – a Virtual World – VW).

It’s an open-source application as well.

That’s about as much as I know about Sloodle.