Nik Peachy is an edublogger who recently posted a great "how-two" about Soundscapes from SoundTransit.

According to Nik, SoundTransit "is a really wonderful formulation of an idea. It's not just a huge collection of Mp3 sound files from all over the world, but the sounds have been tagged by country and described and a visitor to the site can take a sound journey around the world."

From the SoundTransit website:

"SoundTransit is a collaborative, online community dedicated to field recording and phonography. In the “Book” section of this site, you can plan a sonic journey through various locations recorded around the world. And in the “Search” section, you can search the database for specific sounds by member artists from many different places. If you are a phonographer, you can also contribute your recordings for others to enjoy."

This would be a fun application to use in a social studies or music class! It also looks like a good application to use on an interactive whiteboard or display.

More about virtual worlds in education: Edutopia's articles and resources

The recent on-line newsletter from Edutopia has a list of links of articles and media about virtual worlds and games in education. This information compliments the video, "Virtual Worlds Tour", highlighted in my previous post.

Get a Life: Students Collaborate in Simulated Roles (Laila Weir)

The School of Second Life (Wagner James Au)

Simulation Nation: The Promise of Virtual Learning Activities: Inventive computer sims can turn dull lessons into hyperreal experiences, if we can get educators to use them" (Marc Prensky)

Related video: No Gamer Left Behind "Computer simulations area natural learning tools to a generation of video game players"

Let the Games Begin: Entertainment Meets Education (Jenn Shreve)

Related:

Loud and Clear: Students Find Their Voices Through Multimedia (Edutopia Staff)

Edutopia is part of the non-profit George Lucas Educational Foundation

Post a comment if you are using virtual worlds or games in your school!

Post from Jonathan Tarr, HASTAC, about Sharon Burn's Virtual Worlds Tour (8-minute overview video)

If you are interested in interactive multimedia, you might be curious to learn more about virtual 3D worlds. I tried out Second Life for a couple of weeks in 2005, and found that for me, I simply don't have the time. I often don't have enough time in my "first life"!

Since 2005, Second Life and other virtual worlds have exploded in population. Here is a good overview and update, including information and views of children's virtual worlds such as Whyville, Webkins, and Penguin.

FYI: I'm always flattered when I've been "re-blogged", so I hope that Jonathan Tarr doesn't mind that I've reblogged his post from the HASTIC website:

March 4, 2008 - 3:34pm. VIRTUAL WORLDS TOUR FROM SHARON BURNS


"MacArthur Foundation CIO Sharon Burns (whom I met briefly last month in Chicago) has posted the first part of an excellent tour through various virtual worlds on Youtube, for those who are looking for a quick and smart overview. I learned more about it in 8 minutes than I have in most longer presentations about virtual worlds, so there is certainly some benefit to brevity. There's also a useful writeup of the video on Susan Tenby's blog at Netsquared, if you want an even briefer writeup and some additional information."



What is HASTAC?

"A consortium of humanists, artists, scientists, social scientists, and engineers from universities across the country, HASTAC ("Haystack") is committed to new forms of collaboration across institutions, disciplines, and communities to promote creative uses of technology. Since 2003, we have been developing tools for multimedia archiving and social interaction, gaming environments for teaching, innovative educational programs in information science and information studies, virtual museums, and other digital projects. HASTAC leaders have served as consultants to U.S. and international organizations and governments on grid computing and cyberinfrastructure. Our aim is to promote expansive, innovative uses of technology in formal education and lifelong learning."

Cross Post: "knann's" blogmark links to interactive websites

This is also posted on the TechPsych blog:

"knann" has posted several bookmarks on Blogmarks about interactive websites and applications for education, including some that look appropriate for interactive whiteboards and displays.

Blogmarks provides screen-shots of bookmarked web-pages that are helpful in locating information quickly.

Click on any of the above screenshots to discover some of the links on knann's Blogmarks.

Microsoft's Photosynth: Immersive Learning Possibilties

I just came across an interesting article in the on-line MIT Technology Review, written by Jeffery MacIntyre, about Photosynth, developed by Microsoft's Live Labs:

Microsoft's Shiny New Toy: Photosynth is an application that's still a work in progress. It is dazzling, but what is it for?

I think that the PhotoSynth application would be very useful in education settings - K-12 and also at the university level. More classrooms now have interactive whiteboards that connect to the Web, providing a broader range of possibilities for educators to create engaging, immersive learning experience for their students. Young people would have the opportunity to experience virtual field trips and collaborate with students around the world. An application such as PhotoSynth, coupled with an information/data visualization component, would be quite useful in high school and university classrooms.

From the TechReview Article:


"You are here: Photosynth, an application in development at Microsoft’s Live Labs, offers an immersive way to view photos of a given thing or place. The software has not yet been released, but Microsoft is demonstrating it online with photo collections such as this one of Venice’s St. Mark’s Square." Credit: Courtesy of Microsoft Live Labs

Below are links from the TechReview article:

"Watch Photosynth stitch photos together." "View images from Photosynth and see how it works."

From Microsoft's Website: "Photosynth takes a large collection of photos of a place or object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed 3-Dimensional space." "With Photosynth you can: walk or fly through a scene to see photos from any angle; seamlessly zoom in or out of a photograph even if it's gigapixels in size; see where pictures were taken in relation to one another; find similar photos to the one you’re currently viewing; explore a custom tour or see where you’ve been; or send a collection to a friend."

If any readers have thoughts about the use of PhotoSynth in educational settings or situations, please leave a comment!

Microsoft's PhotoSynth website

Online Multimedia Library from LEARN NC and UNC Chapel Hill for K-12 and higher

Learn N.C. has a wealth of on-line resources for educators, students, and parents. I particularly like the on-line multimedia library. Below are links to resources for the following topics, obtained through the "tag cloud" on the multimedia library site.

Here are the direct links:
4-H clubs Agra American Indians American Indian towns Angkor animals archaeology architecture artAsia Bali Bangkok beaches birds boat Buddhism Cambodia carvings children Colombia colonialcostumes deities demons drawings Ecuador Emerald Buddha Temple excavations families farming fishing flowers food forests geography girls grass Green 'N' Growing Hanoi Hanuman Hinduism history houses illustrations India Indonesia Jaipur Jodhpur John White Khmer kings labor
landforms landscapes maps markets men's work Mexico monkeys monuments mountains murals musicMysore national parks Nepal North Carolina Occaneechi paintings palaces performance RamaRamayana Ravana religion rice rivers rural life salt marshes sandstone Sita snakes Southeast Asiatechnology temples Thailand theaters tourism
transportation trees turkey Ubud urban life Utah Vietnam Vietnam War Virginia water women women's work

LEARN NC is led by a number of knowledgable staff and consultants.

The website is worth exploring for a while!

Take a wlook