As part of my ongoing, and growing, focus on working with instructors to implement technology in their teaching, and a move to greater online and hybrid learning, I'll be offering a presentation titles "Using the 3D virtual world Second Life in the Higher Ed classroom" The event will take place on Wednesday, April 16th, from 3:00pm to 4:30pm in Dickson Hall 280
The description is
This presentation will be broken down into three parts. The first part will provide a short overview of the 3D virtual world Second Life. The second part will review the actual use of Second Life as a tool for hybrid teaching in my Spring 08 ENWR 105 course (Introduction to College Writing I). The work of other CHSS faculty members who are using, or have used, Second Life will also be discussed. The last part will consist of a tour of educational sites in Second Life, Q&A, as well as hands-on (time permitting).
If you are not a CHSS instructor, but would be interested in attending, please let me know. There are only about 25 seats in the room, and we need to give CHSS instructors priority, but we'll see what we can work out.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Monday, March 31, 2008
Web 2.0 App - Wetpaint
Today I’m looking at an application called Wetpaint. It can be found at, you guessed it, http://www.wetpaint.com. The first thing I noticed is that the home page is clean, uncluttered, and airy looking – not all full of stuff – that usually bodes well for a product, but not always.
According to their “more info” link, “Wetpaint powers wikis, but unlike most wikis, Wetpaint wikis are as simple as 1-2-3 so anyone can start a free wiki that they can share with friends.” So Wetpaint is basically a wiki site, which they claim is “100% free, Simple to start, Easy to build, and Fun to share.” Lets find out.
As I scroll down, they have tabbed areas for different content – which is good. They have What’s Hot, Entertainment, Gaming, Education, and “more wikis”. Another good sign, they have education mentioned. Ok – lets give it a go.
There are, of course, many decisions to be made while setting up. I’ve chosen my usual name, Sorry AFK, listed it as an education site, and allowed it to be open to the public to see.
My big decision is – do I only allow people I invite to be able to edit, allow anyone who joins my wiki, or just allow anyone. There are certainly benefits to each, and the good thing is that someone setting it up can make that choice based on their own need (only want students/committee members, etc... to be able to edit). I’m choosing to leave it open to anyone (even anonymous). This concludes the first step.
The second step, which they call “the fun part”, is about choosing one's image/appearance. This is where you get to choose the template that you want to represent your desired look. Can this be changed later? Yes it can – and says so right at the top of the page. You can also, at this point (or some time later) change your display name. That completes the second step.
The third step is where they get all your information, where you actually set up your account with Wetpaint. After entering all the required info they give you the chance to “invite some friends”. I am going to skip this step for now. If you look to the bottom the BIG button says, “invite now” but next to that, in smaller letters, it says you can skip this step and move on. There are two reasons I’m skipping this for now. First, I don’t like spamming my friends and colleagues with emails and second I don’t have a designated group to invite. If I were teaching using this, this is where I’d invite the students.
And there we go – in less than 15 minutes, I have a wiki site. It would probably take much less than that since you won’t be writing notes for a blog at the same time. :- )
Please go to http://sorryafk.wetpaint.com/ and leave a message for me and we’ll all see how it goes with WetPaint. I can tell you that my initial, very brief, experience, is that WetPaint is clearer and seemingly easier to use then Wikispaces. In the next day or so I hope to spend a bit more time poking around.
Do you have any experience using WetPaint? If so, share those here in comments.
According to their “more info” link, “Wetpaint powers wikis, but unlike most wikis, Wetpaint wikis are as simple as 1-2-3 so anyone can start a free wiki that they can share with friends.” So Wetpaint is basically a wiki site, which they claim is “100% free, Simple to start, Easy to build, and Fun to share.” Lets find out.
As I scroll down, they have tabbed areas for different content – which is good. They have What’s Hot, Entertainment, Gaming, Education, and “more wikis”. Another good sign, they have education mentioned. Ok – lets give it a go.
There are, of course, many decisions to be made while setting up. I’ve chosen my usual name, Sorry AFK, listed it as an education site, and allowed it to be open to the public to see.
My big decision is – do I only allow people I invite to be able to edit, allow anyone who joins my wiki, or just allow anyone. There are certainly benefits to each, and the good thing is that someone setting it up can make that choice based on their own need (only want students/committee members, etc... to be able to edit). I’m choosing to leave it open to anyone (even anonymous). This concludes the first step.
The second step, which they call “the fun part”, is about choosing one's image/appearance. This is where you get to choose the template that you want to represent your desired look. Can this be changed later? Yes it can – and says so right at the top of the page. You can also, at this point (or some time later) change your display name. That completes the second step.
The third step is where they get all your information, where you actually set up your account with Wetpaint. After entering all the required info they give you the chance to “invite some friends”. I am going to skip this step for now. If you look to the bottom the BIG button says, “invite now” but next to that, in smaller letters, it says you can skip this step and move on. There are two reasons I’m skipping this for now. First, I don’t like spamming my friends and colleagues with emails and second I don’t have a designated group to invite. If I were teaching using this, this is where I’d invite the students.
And there we go – in less than 15 minutes, I have a wiki site. It would probably take much less than that since you won’t be writing notes for a blog at the same time. :- )
Please go to http://sorryafk.wetpaint.com/ and leave a message for me and we’ll all see how it goes with WetPaint. I can tell you that my initial, very brief, experience, is that WetPaint is clearer and seemingly easier to use then Wikispaces. In the next day or so I hope to spend a bit more time poking around.
Do you have any experience using WetPaint? If so, share those here in comments.
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