Eduserv revisited

Back in May I shared the presentation I gave at the Eduserv Foundation Symposium. It was an interesting conference, bringing academics and policy makers together to discuss the opportunities of virtual worlds. Very interesting for me, as it was the first time I’d spent much time seriously getting to grips with what education in virtual worlds might mean (something I’ve been increasingly doing ever since actually).

On Wednesday the organizers ran a follow up event; a discussion in Second Life.

Eduserv had set up a chat queuing system. While on the seats we pressed page-up to request permission and speak, and page-down when we were done. This might have been useful as a tool for moderated conversation in really big groups,  but for the 35ish of us it felt like overkill, and we soon agreed to drop it and chat normally.

The chat was being simultaneously tweeted on Twitter, and the complete transcript can can also be found online here.

Two choice quotes:

Babbage Linden: It’s easier for it [SL] to be a chemistry set than a chemistry class I think

Four Bailey: I think it’s compulsive for human beings to build – why do we enjoy the beach so much – its creative and constructive and helps you represent your thoughts regardless of your subject specialism

Andy Powell (AKA Art Fossett), who organised the event, wrote up his thoughts about the moderated vs unmoderated session as well as blogging a couple of areas which come up in the discussion; ‘being where the students are‘ and ‘building as pedagogy‘.