On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 7:34 PM, kcrisman <kcris...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Math Bear! > > >> >> A good point, but the richness of the virtual enviroinment requires that >> you invest a significant amount of time to learn its many features on even a >> basic level. Still, the first time I got on Second Life I did invest a >> significant amount of time doing the various erxercises on Orientation >> Island and by the time I got to the MainLand I could get around and manage >> the environment. Learning to master Second Life is pretty much identical to >> learning to master an online video game such as World of Warcraft, an >> environment which is fairly similar. It may be a little scary for mature >> adults to >> >> do this but kids will take to it as naturaly as ducks to water. They >> won't need extra motivation. in practice, most > > > > That may be true if they want to play, but once it becomes a "teaching > environment" I think you'll find that the ones who wouldn't already be doing > stuff like WoW or SL will be ... less inspired, shall we say. Along these > lines, you may be interested in Keith Devlin's book, "Mathematics Education > for a New Era: Video Games As a Medium for Learning" on this subject - I > suspect you would resonate with a lot of what he says, though I think it > would not work for all students, any more than current pedagogy does. > >> the extra effort to help out the total newbie (or "noob"). Most young >> people have no trouble socializing and are flexible and inquisitive anyway >> and usually quickly get up to speed. Older people are more likely to be >> standoffish and may experience great difficulties and frustration and are >> likely to give up if they don't adequately pepare on Orientation and Help >> Islands. I don't think you fully realize what a huge part of the whole >> learning experiece the Second Life environment is. How long does it take >> for a student to learn the in's and out's of a new school? I don't > > > Right, but again this is for the *motivated* student. Or faculty member. > One does have limited time. > > One of the big shames about education is that one is often stuck in a local > minimum with respect to (potentially useful or even ground-breaking) new > ideas; the amount of time needed to not just get acquainted with Sage or IBL > or Second Life or online grading systems or whatever, but also to become a > truly excellent teacher in this new pedagogy (whichever it is) is often > large enough that one would have to severely neglect one's current duties to > do so. I could totally imagine someone taking a sabbatical to learn how to > do a whole course in SL, but for most people that is probably not the wisest > use of their time unless they are truly passionate about it (and at the > university level, unless they can make at least a small pedagogical article > out of it - which you may find interesting for a journal like PRIMUS). I > have colleagues who will never use a computer in the classroom, not because > it's not a good idea, but because they are extremely effective teachers who > would likely suffer for many semesters until they grew accustomed to it. > > However, don't stop updating us, either! Perhaps with more paragraph breaks > for readability, though :) There are lots of people who read these messages > who never respond, but definitely read them nonetheless, and ideally we want > someone *already using SL for teaching* (which there certainly are out > there) who wants to use mathematics software in it to think of Sage, and to > find these discussions; your experience will be extremely valuable for them. >
+1 -- very nicely said! >> >> most active in Second life) have full sims and virtual schools set up. >> There are lots of educational institutions involved in one way or another on >> Second Life. Sage Math works perfectly in Second Life with the sole >> exception of interactive 3D JMOL graphics. But you can work around even >> that easily by clicking on a gadget that opens > > > By the way, see some recent posts on sage-notebook for HTML5 versions - like > https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/sage-notebook/kkkSIBDMpvs > > - kcrisman > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "sage-edu" group. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msg/sage-edu/-/GSZwEx74RlcJ. > > To post to this group, send email to sage-edu@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > sage-edu+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/sage-edu?hl=en. -- William Stein Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://wstein.org -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-edu" group. To post to this group, send email to sage-edu@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-edu+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-edu?hl=en.
