Here is a link to the Terra Nova blog post about iED:
The beginning of the article refers to Immersive Education, Prof. Walsh's background and essentially where he would like to go with the whole initiative in the future. I guess by now we can see that Second Life was indeed selected as the platform in which the classes are conducted, although the part about reaching the end of its life rings true now, once again. There's not much like SL out there right now, as most everything has been focus/goal-driven MMORPGs. Maybe MineCraft in a year or two will be workable, albeit not free or open source.
Hardware and bandwidth issues are cited as major concerns about virtual online learning, but they're basically a non-factor nowadays. Also, if one does sign up for a course like this... they should really know what they're getting themselves into.
"For education there's no reason why all content has to be delivered inside of the virtual environment. In fact, it can be quite restricting to do so."
I agree with that, especially considering Second Life. Doing anything in SL requires a lot more computing power than it would otherwise, and it does complicate things quite a bit. If a video or image can be viewed outside of SL, that means to me to be the much better choice. I am curious about the whole shy students being vocal in immersive environments... It definitely does happen in gaming with its anonymity, but from what I've seen during class, not many people are eager to speak >.<
"it's a grand challenge we're not even remotely prepared for today. As with other disruptions society will eventually adapt, but I think we're in for a very rough ride"
Yeah... it's been in the news for the past 25 years, ever since computer entertainment has really become "mainstream" or accessible, but we have a long way to go until it's a full-blown epidemic, if anything. There are a few avenues in the near past/present that do deal with these "what if's", take a look at something like .hack// Granted most of that isn't based in what can actually happen in reality, but that is a bleak future nonetheless.
Virtual classes are definitely convenient for me, since I live far off campus. However, the fun factor is arguable. I think whether a class is "fun" or not depends largely on the subject matter, not the means by which it's taught. If you enjoy/have an interest in the subject, it'll probably be a fun experience. Virtual environments just happens to be something most people can and do relate to.
Congratulations to Prof. Walsh on winning the award, there really isn't anything else like these classes offered at BC. Hopefully Immersive Education will experience even more success in the future.
Sample screenshots of the work we've done so far in virtual worlds:
Building a spacesuit with our team in Rocket World
Editing our avatars in Rocket World
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