Education at Virtual Worlds Expo Los Angeles Sept. 3-4

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Permalink Reply by tom abeles on May 5, 2008 at 9:45am

Hi Jim
As editor of On the Horizon, http://www.emeraldinsight.com/oth.htm I am pleased to see this track added. There are a number of issues which have come up in the process of our producing special issues in the broader area:

1) Marc Prensky coined the terms "digital native" and "digital immigrant" implying that the current generation is changed by the broad e-learning/world both socially and even as far as the brain is concerned. Yet most educational experiences are designed by the "immigrants" and we get bricks being mapped into clicks. In virtual worlds most "buildings" and other features are similar to our physical worlds and what is provided as education is similar to packing up the classroom and moving to a different venue.

2) In the movie, The Matrix, Cypher chooses virtual reality where a steak tastes like a steak, forever. Virtual cash is bought with virtual numbers on a piece of plastic and all is fungible except when the "gods" of places like Second Life intervene. What does this mean for education?

3) One leaps political boundaries at the click of a mouse allowing knowledge to become "international". Private for-profit universities have their own high schools and are offering combined or dual credit programs virtually. Travel "to school" by mouse clicks may provide opportunities that travel by the yellow school bus never could offer

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Permalink Reply by 24pfilms on July 9, 2008 at 9:47am

Hi Jim,
I think this is a fantastic idea, and would be very interested in participating.

Taylor Moore

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