Reaction Grid - A Global Education Model

Photo by: Fleep Tuque

Second Life, a virtual world for users age 18 and up has been around for quite a few years.  Companies and Universities have been using it for virtual seminars, classes, training, etc. and it is also a popular social site where users can do just about anything they want in a virtual setting.  This type of simulation environment allows users to participate in a virtual world with real people in real time from all over the real world.  I am going to focus on the educational potential of this type of environment and I know that there are many precautions that need to be taken when considering a 'field trip' of sorts with younger students.

Second Life is setup for 18 years and older so I am going to point out the educational alternative virtual world: Reaction Grid.  

 

 

At a cost of around $750.00 annually an education institution could maintain a small private space on Reaction Grid.  This could contain a replica building of the school or perhaps a completely unique space designed by the students and teachers themselves.  Beyond the home base is the Reaction Grid world.  You can visit colleges, museums, landmarks and even NASA!  Host a meeting with a group of students from the other side of the world.  Visit them in their space and see how they have chosen to express themselves!  

 

Photo by: Iliveisl

The 3-D Virtual World has so many possibilities.  When I was hearing about various field trips and seminars that can be attended in this space I was immediately struck with the idea of hosting Global Education meetings in this type of arena.  So often there are attempts to make video conferences happen and everyone has to dress their best and put up a nice backdrop in the background to seem impressive to the other school on the other end of the screen.  Sim spaces remove all of that and replace it with exactly what you wanted to express.  There can still be live chat via a microphone, there can also be text chat.  There can still be file exchanges and one better is there could be simulation file exchanges.  Make something for them to display in their private space when the interaction is over! 

Let the Apps Begin - Students are the Future Innovators

Photo by: Daniel Y. Go

At the TCEA conference in Austin, Texas this year, David Pogue, New York Times columnist, gave the closing speech.  A dynamic and hilarious speech it was as well as inspiring.  One highlight that caught my attention was the story about the creation of the Ocarina app.  Long story short, a musician designs an app to mimic a classical flute instrument with the dream of everyone in the world sharing their music.  At $0.99 per download and over a million downloads, the designer has been made an instant millionaire for an innovative idea.

Our students are the future of innovation.  I think we should start looking into ways of allowing students to create Apps and share their creativity with the world.  Whether this be turned to profit the schools, the students or just be an experience of a lifetime it is a move in the direction of 21st century educational change.

Let's teach our students in the programming languages of their passion.  They are glued to devices whether an iDevice or Android, so why not have them take charge and create with these tools.

Developing for Mac: http://developer.apple.com/programs/ios/
Developing for Android: http://developer.android.com/index.html