PIRL - Pedagogical Innovation Research Lab

CBC: Calgary Military Museum Maze

hyaniv — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 20:47:04 +0000

more about "CBC: Calgary Military Museum Maze", posted with vodpod

Snitiching

hyaniv — Thu, 14 May 2009 03:13:57 +0000

This page is still under construction.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/19/60minutes/main2704565.shtml

http://www.metrolyrics.com/tell-tell-tell-stop-snitchin-lyrics-project-pat.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Snitchin%27

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/paper-trail/2007/8/7/ohio-state-wants-you-to-start-snitchin.html

The Holodeck Maze Hangar

hyaniv — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 02:22:34 +0000

The Holodeck Maze Hangar (Hangars 4-8 on KnoWorld Island) are seemingly empty. Each include 3 chambers: Two Holodecks and A Team Decision Chamber in between them.

A Holodeck is a widely used term in SL. It is borrowed from the TV and movie series “Star Trek”.

I (Hanan Randt in SL, Hanan Yaniv in real life) have been introduced to the idea of holodecks in SL by Thinkerer Melville and Buch Dae (two esteemed colleagues in SL).

The holodeck maze allows us to design mazes in any type of reality. The following is a pictorial example of how the holodeck is being used in an educational issues maze designed as a simulated school environment for educators and future educators.

1. Arrival into an empty room with a media wall:

You click on the media wall and…

Tah-dah…

You are in a school’s lab, immersed in a highly tense event in which students used chemicals to build a “stink-bomb” and one of the girls squealed.

That is the nature of the holodeck – it brings sense into “experiential learning”. Learning is achieved through simulated events, role playing, team decision making and reflection.

The Team Room and the Team Table

hyaniv — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 01:25:59 +0000

The Team Room is the lower level of the Tower. It has 8 team tables.

The Team Table is a multi-functional intelligent table:

It serves as:

A team “builder” – people that sit next to it are defined as a team for the duration of the story.
A story “picker” – it will show you the available stories in the KnoWorld CMS (Content Management System), so the team’s coordinator can pick one for the team.
A role “chooser” – it will show each member of the team the roles if assigned to the story, so each member can pick a role.
A “teleporter” – it will take the whole team to the “Hangar” in which their story is to be happening.

See page “How to Visit KnoWorld” to learn how to use the table.

Questo

hyaniv — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 21:46:12 +0000

Questo is your host in the maze. He will take your team from one scene to another and will wait for you if you are too slow.

Welcome to KnoWorld, Home of the Maze

hyaniv — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 00:23:36 +0000

KnoWorld is a “Second Life” island devoted to learning. The first learning environment hosted in KnoWorld is “The Maze”. The maze is not just technology. The maze is an attempt to develop a learning environment that will harness some of the potential of Second Life like, 3D Virtual Reality technologies, into more meaningful learning for all avatars, addressing some of the main conserns of conventional education: Learneres’ engagement, higher-order thinking, inquiry, roles, collaboration, transfer – and more.

The Maze is based on a Learning Design model called S-AI-L and includes a Web-Based Authoring System external to Second Life and a Delivery System (each of the KnoWorld island’s hangers.

The Maze is suitable for implementation at any age group (Schools, Higher Ed, Adults Learning and Training), any curricular content and can be used in different learning modes: Design, Production and Play.

Click here for a video tour of a KnoWorld example

“Mazing” – The Process of Authoring a Maze

hyaniv — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 06:41:45 +0000

The following concept map shows roles of learners in a maze production team:

Students at most ages (grade 5 through adults) can be trained for each of the roles and share in this “learning by design” process of any curricular content.

The management of a Mazing production process is a complex task. The attached documents shows the project management table that will help producers in the synchronization of all tasks and roles.

Specializations:

Tasks:

Task	Responsibilities	Comments
General Definitions
Pick a Topic	Teacher, Designer	There are two “pick a” tasks that might be confusing: Pick a “Topic” and pick a “Story”. The “Topic” is related to the curriculum, while the Story deals with how this content is going to be designed – how the scenes are tied to form one flow – one adventure. We are using a similar process for both: brainstorming ideas and prioritizing the most suitable three from which we will be picking our winner. The topic is defined by our content goals. What are we trying to get people (and mostly ourselves) to learn. Here is where the curriculum kicks in. The topic is assumed to offer an initial framework. Most likely, the more we design, to more directions we identify, the wider we go. One of the teacher’s role is to refocus and make sure curricular goals are met within the proposed time frame before new horizons are explored. Use brainstorming techniques (like concept mapping) to suggest possible topic for the project. Pick the most compelling three, build a “topic picking decision task”, using the author, assign criteria like: Engaging Easy to find resources Easy to design scenes (including holodeck sets) Easy to embed themes and use the clickers to evaluate the story asking everyone to participate. For admin use: Additional resources needed: Brainstorming Prioritizing Themes (CFT)
Define Scope	Teacher, Designer
Identify Issues and Themes	Teacher, Everyone	In this task, the teachers need to ask themselves – what are the more generic issues we are trying to get across? What are the most important concepts we want the learners to take with them? The process of identifying themes and embedding the themes into the scenes is developed in light of Cognitive Flexibility Theory (Spiro and others, 1988). Each theme is embedded in different scenes and expected to be discovered by the learner “player”. A map of themes Vs. scenes is made available in the knowledge base. See “Themes and Scenes” in http://slmaze.wordpress.com/themes-and-scenes Admin: Cmapping in Inquiry Boston Public PD
Suggest Initial Curricular Ties	Teacher
Assign Initial Roles	Designer	If the story is going to include role-playing tasks, these roles should be defined. The roles will determine each player’s interests in the team so when it can cover many points of view addressing the issue highlighted by the scene.
Brainstorm Story Ideas	Designer, Copywriter, Everyone	Use brainstorming techniques (like concept mapping) to suggest possible story lines that will serve as the spine connecting all scenes. Pick the most compelling three, build a “story picking decision task”, using the author, assign criteria like: Engaging Easy to find resources Easy to design scenes (including holodeck sets) Easy to embed themes and use the clickers to evaluate the story asking everyone to participate. For admin use: Additional resources needed: Brainstorming Prioritizing Themes (CFT)
Brainstorm “Players” Roles	Designer	Not to be confused with the production team members’ roles, here we are referring to “Players” Roles. These roles have two major objectives: 1. Immerse learners in a simulated role-playing game, letting them identify with the character they are representing 2. Provide opportunities for the players to explore the main issues behind the scene from different points of view, thus expanding the dept and width of covering the topic. The same learning opportunities apply to the designers as they apply to the players.
Research Roles	Researcher	“Roles” can be people, animals, body parts, blood corpuscles, water molecules… depending on the story and the designers’ and copywriters’ imagination. Who are the roles, what do they do, with whom, when, where… All these are questions the researchers will have to address while building a role profile.
Build Roles ID’s into Knowledge Base	Researcher	The Knowledge Base is a collection of knowledge resources needed for “playing” the maze. It holds web pages with all kinds of media (no video yet – the Second Life internal web browser doesn’t support video yet) that is made available to the player when needed to understand how to play or to perform better, make educated decisions, solve problems and represents his/her role’s interests. The knowledge base can be built with any web creating tool. Here is a list of features that a good knowledge base will need to have: Easy to add and format text and pictures resources Easy to build a menu Easy to tag resources Search function Tag Cloud Here are some recommended free solutions: wordpress.com pbwiki.com (basic edition). The need to limit access from specific pages to other parts of the knowledge base (thanks Brent) is not yet trivial in the above tools, but is handled by the knowledge base engine we have been developing (no release date yet). MA (Maze Author) will have a “web-page” editor that will enable the creation of single pages as resources, but this too is “under construction”. The problem, though is much more than technical: How do we avoid Salomon’s “Butterfly Defect” (Salomon and Almog 1998) talking about the tendency to bring in a whole bunch of links without reading deeply into any one of them? So – please, not just links to pages that can overload the learners with overwhelming amounts of information that they can never process. Please make sure that every resource is relevant and presented in the most efficient form and the most suitable medium. Remember, the skill of processing knowledge into the knowledge base is a very significant learning skill – and the construction of the knowledge base will have and extensive chapter in my next “Mazing” book (under construction).
Brainstorm Holodeck sets	Designer, Copywriter, Director	Simulate realities, times… The most exciting part of the KnoWorld is a “holodeck ” – based system that allows the designers to switch space and time based on the learner’s progression and actions in the adventure. Holodeck sets are very much like theater or movie stage sets. Holodecks are based on scenes so brainstorming holodeck sets will need to become more specific when we design each of the scenes, but holodeck sets construction requires time, so if some generic structures can come to mind, this is the time to discuss them and point the 3D model builders towards some initial direction. An example is the KnoWorld Public High-school simulator. If we are planning a learning environment that deals with educational and social issues, we can use a school setting to present most of our scenes – so the model building team was asked to build the most common sets in any school: Classroom, Science Lab, Gym, Washrooms… etc. http://slmaze.wordpress.com/knoworld-holodeck-sets/
Design Initial Story Scenes, Revisit Issues and Themes.	Designer, Copywriter	Just the titles around the main issues
Introduction
Brainstorm	Designer, Copywriter	Define the needed information the player should know before entering the first scene.
Research and Produce Knowledge Base	Researcher
Design and Produce 2D Art	2D Art Specialist
Design and Produce 3D Objects	3D Modeling Specialist
Design and Produce Video Clips	Video Specialist, Director, Producer
Design and Produce Audio Effects	Audio Specialist, Director, Producer
Design and Produce Talking Heads	Video Sp., 2D Art Sp., Director, Producer
Design and Produce Object Behaviors	Designer, SL Scripter
Design and Produce Storyboard	Designer, Director, 2D, 3D
Write Scripts for Talking Heads	Designer, Writer
Write Text Bubbles	Designer, Writer
Write Web-pages	Designer, Writer
Author Intro	Author
Synch all Production	Producer
First Scene
Brainstorm
Research and Produce Knowledge Base
Design and Produce 2D Art
Design and Produce 3D Objects
Design and Produce Video Clips
Design and Produce Audio Effects
Design and Produce Talking Heads
Design and Produce Object Behaviors
Design and Produce Storyboard
Write Scripts for Talking Heads
Write Text Bubbles
Write Webpages
Design and Produce Decision Task
Recheck Knowledge Availability
Design Feedback Talking Heads
Design Links to Next Scene

The Hangar and the Tower

hyaniv — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 04:16:45 +0000

The Hangar is the structure where the maze is. There are 8 hangers in KnoWorld that will assume shapes of different learning environments. You teleport into a hanger your team had been assigned to using the teleporter in the teams’ hall at the KnoWorld Tower. The tower is where you are teleported to when arriving at the maze.

The Clicker and the Decision Point Wall

hyaniv — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 04:07:48 +0000

After an interactive session with the media board, you will be shown to the second interactive device – The clicker and the decision point wall. The clicker is given to you at the team assignment hall and you will “wear” it throughout your maze experience. The clicker is a remote decision support system. You will use the cilcker to compare among different alternatives.

The results of each team member and of the combined team will be show on the decision wall and will look like this:

The Interactive Media Wall

hyaniv — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:47:13 +0000

The maze is a learning environment with 3 basic interactive devices: The Media Wall, The DSS Clicker

The Media wall is an interactive, multi-media presentation system that responds to clicking on hotspots that are positioned on its surface. Clicking on a hotspot triggers video clips, images, text bubbles or audio clips that are displayed on the board, usually within a window. Once you’ve triggered all hotspots, Quest will come to show you where your next destination is.