Kamimo Education Islands
Welcome to a collaborative development by
three universities within Second Life:
- Kalmar University College, Sweden,
- University of Central Missouri, USA.
- Molde University College,Norway,
Sponsored by Norgesuniversitetet, NUV, 2007
Through a one year project sponsored by The Norwegian
University program (Norgesuniversitetet,
NUV website: http://norgesuniversitetet.no ) a
virtual platform for life long learning will be co-developed by
Molde University College (Norway), Kalmar University College (Sweden)
and the University of Central Missouri (USA) using
the virtual technology environment of Second Life (SL)
Second Life is a 3D world and virtual community
where the constructs of the world are built by its members.
Two virtual islands 'Kamimo Island' and
'Virtual Montmartre' were purchased in SL on June 16th, 2007.
They are established as processing space on servers resulting in
virtual real estate in Second Life that adheres to
the partner organizations. The three colleges have outsourced the design
and build of the
virtual buildings and virtual classroom spaces on these islands.
A Canadian firm called Pleiades is responsible for the builds on
Virtual Montmartre. The Norwegian firm Design Container is responsible for the
builds of Kamimo Education Island. The islands will be open to visitors
on September 21st, 2007.
The Project Goals:
-
The primary goal of the project is to test and evaluate how
good the selected virtual environment (Second Life) is as a
learning platform in a life long learning perspective.
-
A secondary goal is to test selected learning tools or
elements together with the virtual environment (SL)
to determine if they are suitable to achieve learning
through social interaction between actors in academia,
business life and students.
The project will support learning activities for
different segments of the partner organizations real life student populations
as well as allow for cross communication between the student bodies.
Supported learning activities will include: contributions from software
developer groups at Kalmar in the design of the island,
advising and support of doctoral and experienced based masters students,
and implementation of a Pilot course in Social English. The course will be presented
using a blended learning approach where the intial meeting will take place on
Maratech Conferencing software, followed by 4 in-world session in SL.
Evaluation Goals
-
Identify teaching methods used in Second Life that
exhibit affective support for the engagement of learners.
-
Identify the design elements used in Second Life
that influence affective support for high engagement.
-
Assess these elements support of engagement and
their impact on positive cognitive outcomes in Learning.
We propose future research will enable us to explore a
broader spectrum of applications for edcuation in SL
including courses for information technology majors, and further
integration and testing of the virtual world elements for learning, and
for support of learning and communication between groups within
the business sector, such as the use of SL in support of Communities of Practise.
Contact Information:
- Alastair Creelman (alastair.creelman at hik.se)
- David Richardson (david.richardson at hik.se)
- Bryan Carter (bc7 at mac.com)
- Judith Molka-Danielsen (j.molka-danielsen at himolde.no)
- Bjørn Jæger (bjorn.jager at himolde.no)
Another summary:
Kamimo Islands webpage at Molde University College