Report by Ad Hoc Committee on Virtual Environments - part 3

1. Teacher Education
• Used to build community among science
teachers within the MAT program
– Meetings
– Presentations
– Discussions
– Poster sessions / conferences
– Pod development

5. Viewing & discussion K12 videos

6. Virtual poster session
Students reviewed the posters
Evaluations were
conducted

7. Significant research / dissemination

8. Specific support recommendations
• Continued use of both ESC Virtual islands for the next
two year from Second Life, and services that include:
• An in-world help desk for basic virtual operations –
downloading software; setting up headsets and
speech; coordinating basic navigation efforts;
overseeing island services and
• NO SUPPORT is needed for island development or
management; faculty and staff provide this
themselves
• As grant funding becomes available, ESC should hire
student-work-studies for live help in Second Life.

9. Begin developing, supporting, and evaluating
other virtual alternatives, such as:
• OpenSims (open source) with either server
support and maintenance from ESC or server
rental
• Monthly services of about 4 hours from a
programmer and/or network administrator to
ensure island operations are effective
• Towards the end of the two years of Second
Life continued service, determine whether to
maintain the island presence or move to open
source or other virtual options.

10. Develop a task force or working group within OIT that
stays abreast of this emerging area
• In an attempt to support the instruction, research, and meetings
that are presently happening within Second Life at ESC, a team
of faculty and staff have assembled to provide mutual, peer
resources and support; however, we recommend that a
permanent function within OIT be assembled to join, integrate-
with, learn-from, and possibly partner-with other educational
organizations that are seeking to maintain an active virtual
presence in their respective organizations; many groups are
starting within the leading academic institutions and OIT should
be an active participant in these forums. This group should also
seek to secure grant funding from the network of potential users
(going beyond the individual faculty/staff efforts to date).

11. Integrate virtual environments into the academic
perspective of the college at large
• Given the instruction, courses, programs, research, publication,
and dissemination that is prominent and ongoing within the
present ESC virtual spaces (as mentioned at the opening of this
report and represented in Appendix 3), this task force
recommends that the Office of Academic Affairs also seek to
understand and support these ongoing, visionary, and “open”
efforts. Since a continued and strong ESC’s presence within
virtual environments positions the college as a future-thinking
educational organization, we request that OAA understand and
support the innovative efforts presently underway and considers
ways to engage other areas of these college in these
environments.

12. Selection of links to visit
• Undergraduate studies where students work on developing virtual technologies and training programs for
corporate environments that include virtual training as shown in these links:
– YouTube of Jason's exhibit on the paranormal - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAlvZ5-2nyg
– A YouTube on Dave's Zippo Training area - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CXfWW34JaQ
• Teacher Education Program – classes meet in virtual spaces to extend learning and community
(http://www.slideshare.net/eoconnor/educational-uses-of-virtual-realities). Below are several YouTubes
illustrating uses in classes were students are working online across the state to meet course objectives :
– Viewing a video of K12 students - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz1ld2AUTUQ
– Having a poster session of their own work - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvgXca-xf00
– Reviewing overall uses in a education course where students develop and display science projects
within virtual spaces- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLXqleVwFxM
• Rufer, Rosalyn & Adams, Hope (2012) STUDENT CENTERED MARKETING EDUCATION THROUGH OPEN
LEARNING RESOURCES AND WEB 2.0 TOOLS; American Management Association; Winter Educator’s
Conference February 2012 - http://www.slideshare.net/MathSciCrystal/student-centered-marketing-
education
• Adams, H., Gal, D.; Mahar, D.; O’Connor, E.; Snyder, D.; & Snyder, L. (2011). Building New Programs in
Emerging Technologies and Learning: Empowering Next Generation Learning: 4 th Annual International
Symposium, Sloane-C, San Jose, CA, July 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DVHzjVAkfM

13. Selection of links to visit
• Martinez, Nicola (2008). Invited Speaker. Second Life: The Future of Communications? Society for
Technical Communications 55th Annual Summit, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. June 1-4, 2008
http://www.slideshare.net/Nicola.Martinez/second-life-the-future-of-communications
• Martinez, Nicola (2008). Here Be Dragons: Second Life Community Building and Citizen Engagement on the
Isle of Wyrms. Sloan-C International Symposium on Emerging Technology Applications for Online Learning.
Carefree, Arizona. May 7-9, 2008 http://www.slideshare.net/Nicola.Martinez/sloan-c-iset-here-be-dragons-
pub
• O’Connor, E. (2011) SER/VE (the STEM Exploratory Real/Virtual Environment) and the Engagement of
Urban Youth; a poster session presented at the 2011 SUNY STEM Conference at the Crowne Plaza in
Albany, NY on November 2011 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tQXwZVlPsc
• O’Connor, E. (2010). Using Second Life (a virtual reality) in Language Instruction: Practical Advice on
Getting Started; at 4th International Scientific and Methodological Conference on "Information and
Communication Technologies in Foreign Language Teaching” (June 2010); presented via virtually via Skype
to the Moscow conference attendees on June 10, 2010 http://www.slideshare.net/eoconnor/using-second-
life-in-foreignlanguage-instructionpractical-advise
• O’Connor, E. & Meyer, H.. Graduate Students in Second Life: The Roller Coaster Ride of a Shifting
Paradigm. Conference in Instructional Technology (CIT 2009), SUNY. (May 2009)
http://www.slideshare.net/eoconnor/graduate-students-in-second-life-1454760

14. More info
• Please see report for listings of the research
and presentations
• Many links to slide presentations and
YouTube of virtual activities
• Send questions to the Ad Hoc Committee
Members:
– Hope Adams, Mete Cetiner, Diane Gal, Ken Ferree,
Michael Mancini, Nicola Martinez, Audeliz Matias,
Eileen O’Connor, Jase Teoh