Flux

Virtual trenches immerse students in First World War poetry

Bob Harrison — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:03:25 +0000

With Armistice Day fast approaching a JISC project team has taken an unusual approach to ensuring that people continue to learn about the First World War.

The First World War Poetry Digital Archive and the Learning Technologies Group at Oxford University have collaborated on an exciting new project in the 3D virtual world Second Life to simulate areas of the Western Front 1914-18. The team believes this is the first time anything of its type has been done on Second Life.

This project, which is funded by JISC, has arranged a range of digitised archival materials like poetry manuscripts, letters and diaries from the major poets of the First World War including Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg and Vera Brittain, along with contextual primary source materials. These materials have been supplemented with new interpretative content and a spectrum of interactive tools and tutorials, streaming video and audio effects.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2009/11/ww1simulation.aspx

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Shakespeare 2.0

Sarah Grier — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:12:50 +0000

Secondary school pupils can now access a live performance of Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ thanks to an audio recording from the National Strategies. A performance of the play, produced by Globe Education at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London, has been captured as an audio recording to help pupils experience this tale of ‘star-crossed’ lovers. It can be downloaded free onto an MP3 player, iPod or computer and it appears on a dedicated teaching Shakespeare area which also boasts Secondary National Strategies resources on the Bard and his works.

Alternatively, for those students wanting to experience Shakespeare through augmented reality, ConnectED Education are working with Cambridge University Press to add a new layer of information to Romeo and Juliet by placing semacodes within the text. Using a PSP (PlayStation Portable) the student can activate these codes and play a related piece of media including audio tracks and video enactments of particular scenes.

For more information on this project and the potential of augmented reality for learning, check out the latest Futurelab podcast ‘Augmented reality‘, available online now.

Digital media research hub

Sarah Grier — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:46:16 +0000

DMLcentral.net, a new website to support the Digital Media and Learning Research Hub at the University of California was announced today during the Sesame Workshop at Google HQ.

A major new research initiative based in Irvine, California, the DML will assess the participatory ways in which digital media are transforming youth learning practices and lifelong learning opportunities.

Prototype downloads of two games for learning (Mannahatta and Quest Atlantis) are already available on the site along with a range of resources including literature reviews and teaching resources.

Visit DMLcentral

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The ischool intiative

Bob Harrison — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:14:42 +0000

A few weeks ago I introduced Louise Duncan from Victoria to the “Best Practice” session at Handheld Learning where she spoke about her experience of introducing ipod touches to primary school children at Shepparton Primary School. http://future.ncsl.org.uk/News.aspx?ID=187

Her reward for winning the “Lindsay Thompson Fellowship” was to travel to the UK for HHL and then on to the USA to research mobile learning.

Here she has discovered Travis Allen, founder of the ischool initiative and he is an inspiration.

What do you think?

https://www.ischoolinitiative.com/Educational_Technology.html

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The educational Second Life

Sarah Grier — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:32:08 +0000

Second Life may usually be associated with unfeasibly proportioned avatars living out their creators’ fantasies but there is another side to the virtual world.

There is a zone called Scilands where a variety of institutions including NASA have created virtual experiments and scientific experiences. Member organisations share borders of their individual regions in the hope of forging links between disciplines. One of the most compelling of the Scilands is that which enables the visitor to fly through a hurricane.

International Children’s Digital Library

Bob Harrison — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:23:04 +0000

As a child growing up in a Lancashire cotton town my weekly trips to the library involved 2 bus rides and a 3 hour round trip. Once inside the world opened up for me and my horizons were extended beyond the low expectations of a dying cotton industry town.

The children growing up in that valley now are just one click away from the children’s international digital library

http://en.childrenslibrary.org/

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Students go ‘wild’ with interactive lectures

Bob Harrison — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:19:28 +0000

Students are being encouraged to go wireless in lectures, using the University of Hull’s Wireless Interactive Lecture Demonstrator (WILD) to interact with their subject.

Dr Darren Mundy and his colleagues at the University’s Scarborough School of Arts and New Media are developing a range of cutting-edge software to encourage students to be more involved during lectures – even choosing what they want to learn about.

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2009/10/wildthing.aspx#

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Opening up the environment

Sarah Grier — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:34:45 +0000

Richard Needham, chairperson elect of the Association of Science Education (ASE), is a fan of all technologies that manage to liberate students from low-order pen and paper skills while conducting outdoor environmental investigations. He singles out Wildkey a mobile technology decision-tree application that enables students to make highly accurate species identifications using a mix of visual and descriptive prompts. “It makes the process so much more enjoyable and accurate and it is GPS-enabled allowing students to geo-tag their discoveries.

source: inspirED

Mobile Phone= Gateway to all Human Knowledge

Bob Harrison — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:48:24 +0000

Handheld Learning 09

The past six years have seen an explosion of mobile and wireless technologies since social entrepeneur Graham Brown-Martin first pulled together a small but growing network of educationists and technologists at Goldsmith College for the inaugural Handheld Learning conference.

And according to world renowned futurist Ray Kurzweil, the pace is quickening. He appeared by videolink to headline Handheld Learning 09 in London, which was attended by more than 1,500 delegates from across the globe,

Kurzweil, who has an uncannily accurate track record in predicting the future, said: “Mobile phones are misnamed. They should be called ‘gateways to all human knowledge’.” He also warned that education systems could be seriously challenged.

http://future.ncsl.org.uk/News.aspx?ID=187

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Defining culture for young people

Sarah Grier — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:22:04 +0000

With Find Your Talent now approaching its first birthday, has it convinced the sceptics who criticised the Government’s previous attempts to engage young people with culture and provided access to high-quality culture?

The programme has resulted in targeted investment in ten UK districts. The Shepway district of Folkestone is just one of the ten areas being transformed by the project, with regenerated old buildings being used for creative activities and having a positive impact on young people in the area.

Find Your Talent appears to focus on three main categories of cultural improvement; digital media, physical expression, and visual arts.

Refreshingly, activities aren’t constrained to safe, indoor activities but range from street theatre to graffiti murals. The project isn’t hiding away either; the creative output from the young people involved is high profile, with exhibits, film screenings and a street arts performance at the opening ceremony of the Special Olympics held in Leicester recently.

The real test for Find Your talent will be in seeing how the project’s emphasis changes now that the cultural infrastructures have been established.

For a more in-depth article on Find Your Talent, see ‘A talented bunch’ in the latest issue of Futurelab’s VISION magazine.

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