Frances Bell

The word ultimate is attached to the word frisbee to turn a bit of fun into a serious sport.  Maybe ,  attaching the word ultimate to intelligence will turn lively use of the mind into something that is boring, quantified and sought for its extrinsic rather than intrinsic qualities - Oh no, that's formal education - just joking!!

CALL FOR PAPERS

LEARNING AND TEACHING IN IMMERSIVE VIRTUAL WORLDS

Special issue of ALT-J, Research in Learning Technology http://www.alt.ac.uk/callforpapers_altj_ivw.html

Immersive virtual worlds (IVWs), such as Second Life, Active Worlds, Croquet and Forterra and massive multi-player games (MMPGs), such as EverQuest and World of Warcraft represent a paradigm shift in learning technology, and an important challenge to the world of education. The aim of this special issue of ALT-J is to develop and publish a timely collection of papers representing current research, developments and ideas in educational applications of IVWs and MMPGs. Of particular interest are papers that go beyond descriptions of objects and activities to build links between practice and pedagogy, and offer conceptual, methodological and analytical rigour. Full details at http://www.alt.ac.uk/callforpapers_altj_ivw.html . For queries and guidance relating to the call please contact Robert Ward r.d.ward@hud.ac.uk or Maggi Savin-Baden m.savinbaden@coventry.ac.uk

Important dates

Until 22 February 2007 Submission of abstracts and formal/informal response from Special Issue Editors.

Submission of full papers 31^st March 2008

Hi Gary,
Currently Moodle.org is organised into a series of forums by topic of interest e.g. Social, Forum, etc. Blogs are available on the site with tags for networking.
I find the search facility quite useful for finding people and information.

I can see the advantage of separate urls, etc. but on CABWEB we had two sorts of spaces within one installation, generally open networks (with guest access) one for staff, one for students, and generally closed collaboration spaces where tutors organised international collaborations for students. It's pretty quiet there at present but you can still see the arrangement at http://www.cabweb.net
BTW, interesting discussion below about MySpace like arrangements.

I can't see any problem with you introducing us to this new service.  But I am curious Mark - what does this bring over tagging a resource with games and education , etc.?  How will you promote 'good' tagging behaviours? (and please tell me about them).

Any, good luck with the new venture.