arvelsigNewsletter Applied Research in Virtual Environments for Learning arvelsig.ning.com

By:

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1. Virtual Assessment Project (Unity)

2. ARVEL at Ontos2 (Reaction Grid)

3. SAVE Science (Unity)

4. ARVEL at CAVE (Second Life)

Winter 2010

Volume 1, Issue 1

Virtual Worlds Research

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ARVEL SIG is an American Education Research Association Special Interest Group

for educators, scholars, and practitioners researching computer-mediated 3D

communities.

ARVEL seeks to steward a robust community of educators, scholars, and

practitioners dedicated toward research in and on virtual 3D environments. Using

a variety of research methods, we support a diverse approach to understanding

the optimal use of virtual worlds and environments for educational purposes.

We're interested in developing a comprehensive research agenda intended to

encompass the breadth and scope of learning potentialities, affordances,

challenges, and shortcomings of immersive virtual learning environments.

Welcome to the 1st ARVEL SIG Newsletter

The ARVEL newsletter will appear 3 times a year, complementing the wiki’s bi-

monthly themes. This first issue provides you with a reminder to join ARVEL SIG

and register for the AERA 2010 Annual Meeting, two very short polls to answer,

and a salute to late Dr. Jarmon. ARVEL is a collaborative community and as such the

ARVEL SIG Newsletter solicits ideas and articles from its members.

Happy New Year to you all!

Source: http://tinyurl.com/yeunvr3

ArvelSigWiki Themes Jan/Feb: Preparing for AERA

March/April: Direction of the SIG

May/June: Celebrating progress

July/Aug: Challenges to research in the field

Sept/Oct: Focus on Methods

Nov/Dec: Diversity of virtual worlds research

arvelsigNewsletter, Applied Research in Virtual Environments for Learning.

January 2010, Volume 1, Issue 1 “Virtual Worlds Research.”

http://arvelsig.ning.com.

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Message from the Chair: by Jonathon Richter

The American Educational Research Association's Special Interest Group dedicated to virtual worlds just keeps

getting better and better. The quality of research presentation proposals channeled through the Applied Research in

Virtual Environments for Learning (ARVEL) SIG continues to be exceptional, our membership numbers have grown to

a healthy proportion, and the visibility and reputation of our SIG continues to grow – thanks to you! Let me share

with you how we've been busy creating the infrastructure for ARVEL to be responsive, relevant, and reflective of our

mission.

ARVEL members are rapidly developing a presence for the SIG across a variety of virtual environment platforms for

educational researchers and the public to easily find the added value we seek to bring to our members. Our website

has gone through several iterations, now supporting access to pertinent information on upcoming events, the social

networking site for the SIG, and links to the listservs and links to virtual worlds research activities. We invite you, the

virtual worlds educational researcher, to help us capture what you are doing and connect that through this emerging

Community of Practice to support the identification and dissemination of evidence-based practices for designing,

teaching, and learning in virtual environments. The basic infrastructure is now in place and we are ready for you to

use it and help us to expand it, as appropriate.

Additionally, the ARVEL Executive Committee has spent many hours poring over and developing the current draft

of the ARVEL Bylaws commensurate with and conditionally approved by the AERA Executive Council. While we are

extremely fortunate to have such a great group of people willing to put this kind of effort in, the document is as of

yet incomplete. We now submit these draft ARVEL Bylaws to you, the membership via the AERA SIG listserv for

review and comment. Please watch for this listserv message and take the time to review this important document

drafted so as to be reflective of our purpose and vision as an emerging educational research community within the

larger context of AERA. Your thoughtful input is necessary as we look to ratify some version of these Bylaws to act as

the official documents framing our work for the future. We have also submitted two (2) awards for approval by

AERA Council – one for the Best Paper submitted to ARVEL in a given AERA Conference year and another, The

“Emerging Virtual Scholar Award” -- for a graduate student or new faculty member making contributions to the field.

I look forward to seeing you in Denver for our second AERA conference with full program and activities. Your work

to improve learning outcomes for those engaged in virtual worlds is vital and important to the future. I am excited

about our SIG's potential and hope that you'll join us in refocusing and reframing our activities as the future takes us

down many interesting paths. May they all be better and better.

Message from the Program Chair: by Lisa Dawley

The officers of the Applied Research in Virtual Environments for Learning (ARVEL) SIG are pleased to announce the

final program for this spring's annual meeting at AERA. Thank you to everyone who submitted proposals, to our

reviewers, session chairs, and SIG officers for all your hard work. Our acceptance rate was 67% this year,

representing the work of over 65 educational researchers studying virtual worlds and immersive virtual

environments.

We are pleased to announce that Eric Klopfer, MIT, will be our keynote speaker at this year's Business Meeting.

Also, for the first time, we are hosting a no-cost two hour workshop to support virtual world educational researchers

with tips, tools, methodologies, and more! Food and social networking will be available at both the Business

Meeting and Workshop, so we hope to see you in Denver--the final schedule is pending from AERA.

Go visit the 2010 ARVEL SIG Program at AERA on arvelsig ning front page.

Messages from Officers

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Obituary by the Austin American-Stateman, Nov 29, 2009 Leslie Jarmon/Bluewave Ogee UT Austin SL Memorial, http://slurl.com/secondlife/UT%20Austin%207/118/86/29 Dr. Leslie Jarmon related sites, Educators Coop: http://educatorscoop.org/; Embodied Research: http://embodiedresearch.blogspot.com/; Journal of Virtual World Research: http://journals.tdl.org/jvwr/article/view/624/453; The First Statewide Rollout of a Virtual World Learning Environment: The University of Texas in Second Life, by Pathfinder Linden (09/15/09) –an interview with Dr. Leslie Jarmon and summary on 3DTLC; NMC Connect: http://www.nmc.org/connect/2009/november Metanomics: Virtual Classrooms Became Reality with University of Texas Finally, you may find Dr. Jarmon’s last article in a chapter book that came out on November 23, 2009:

Jarmon, L., Traphagan, T. W., Traphagan, J. W., & Eaton, L. J. (2009). Aging, Lifelong Learning, and The Virtual World of Second Life. In C. Wankel & J. Kingsley (Eds.), Higher Education in Virtual Worlds: Teaching and Learning in Second Life (pp. 221-242). Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Ltd.

Edusim: 3D virtual world for the classroom interactive whiteboard.

Abstract: 3D multi-user virtual world platform and authoring toolkit intended for the classroom interactive

whiteboard, Edusim is also powerful on the students’ laptop or desktop computers. Edusim is extendable allowing

multiple classrooms to connect their interactive whiteboards for collaborative learning sessions. Cobalt-Edusim has

been tested and works on the Smartboard, Activeboard, Interwriter, Polyvision, Mimio, eBeam, and Wiimote

Whiteboard. Edusim seeks to model a new way to engage students through immersive touch by leveraging 3D

virtual environments on an interactive surface.

Resources: Website, Demo video, Wiki, 5 ways to use Cobalt-Edusim in the Classroom

Events: Edusim will be at the Immersive Education Summit in April 23-25th, 2010 at Boston College. Details:

http://mediagrid.org/summit/

Remembering Dr. Leslie Jarmon

Educators Coop 5 6,98,44

Remembering Bluewave Ogee, by Joe Sanchez Dear Friends, With sadness I regret to inform you that a wonderful and kind soul, Dr. Leslie Jarmon aka Bluewave Ogee passed away last night (11-24-09). Read More >>

Dr. Leslie Jarmon, by Eugene Sepulveda

Featured Virtual Platform

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Virtual Environments Disrupting Human Thought?

Poll#1:

1. Do you believe that 3D virtual worlds change the way we think and act - the way we

perceive the world?

2. How many virtual worlds do you frequent?

3. In a few sentences, please describe how 3D virtual worlds have changed your

research/teaching approach.

Click here to answer

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MUVEing It: Exhibiting VW Research in a Virtual World

ARVEL Featured Applied Research

Poll#2: What’s a virtual world? Rheingold defines virtual reality as an experience in which a person is “surrounded by a three-dimensional computer-generated representation, and is able to move around in the virtual world and see it from different angles, to reach into it, grab it, and reshape it.” Rheingold, H. (1991). Virtual Reality. New York: Summit, 1991.

With literally hundreds of social cyberspaces to 1. Does Augmented Reality count? Blackboard? research/train/teach, how do you define ‘virtual 2. How essential is sensory ‘immersion’ to a environment’? In this ARVEL survey, we are virtual environment? looking for a common language. This poll should take less than 2 minutes. Click here to answer

Virtual worlds are plentiful and yet many

users have only one or two VW accounts.

In an effort to provide more visibility to

VW research and to VW diversity, ARVEL

has set out to offer space for exhibits at

CAVE, its location in the virtual world of

Second Life. Visitors enjoy the visually

and audibly rich landscape, walking

through a waterfall into a cave, finding a

secret door to yet another repository of

exhibits, or simply discussing under the

tree by a crackling fire. Seeking high and

low, researchers and practitioners find

examples, resources and contacts. Indeed,

one can find materials under water

(Correlation Cave) and above the clouds

(Virtual Reality Room-VRR). Resources

are organized by methodologies:

Experimental Cave, Descriptive Cave,

Correlation Cave, Observation Cave and

Ethnography Cave. The VRR, a panocube,

immerses visitors in a panoramic illusion

of educational projects done in worlds

outside SL. Two projects are displayed:

“Sheep Trouble” a module built for the

SAVE Science project inside the Sciento-

-polis virtual world (an interdisciplinary

collaboration between Temple University and

Arizona State University) and “Kamuaga Bay”

a virtual representation of a marine

ecosystem in Alaska (an early prototype of a

virtual performance assessment project at

Harvard). Both projects used the Unity 3D

world development tool. Other submissions

are expected, developed in OpenSim, Blue

Mars and Project Wonderland. Come and

visit the VRR, and don’t hesitate to contact

your colleagues (a notecard is automatically

provided explaining the project you are

viewing).

Map of ARVEL plot in Second Life

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ARVEL Stats:

ARVEL SIG: 89 members

ARVEL ning: 143 members

AERA_ARVE_SIG173-Forum: 156 Subscribers

ARVEL Contacts

JOIN ARVEL SIG

http://arvelsig.ning.com/

http://twitter.com/ARVELSIG

ARVEL locations in VWs:

ARVEL in SmallWorlds

ARVEL in ReactionGrid (Ontos2 50,82,46)

ARVEL in 3rdRock Grid (Tierra Paz 125,80,25)

ARVEL in Second Life (CAVE 12,241,42)

Do you own some space in a VW? Contact us to establish an ARVEL headquarter in your VW.

Applied Research in Virtual Environments for Learning