ISTE Virtual Environments Network's
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Mystery Education Theater!
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ISTE is the International Society for Technology in Education. Learn all about it by visiting the ISTE website. The ISTE Virtual Environments Network (ISTE VEN) has long been recognized as a group of ISTE thought leaders focused on digital realities. Here's a little bit about our parent organization:
ISTE is the International Society for Technology in Education. Learn all about it by visiting the ISTE website. The ISTE Virtual Environments Network (ISTE VEN) has long been recognized as a group of ISTE thought leaders focused on digital realities. Here's a little bit about our parent organization:
Our vision
Our vision
ISTE’s vision is that all educators are empowered to harness technology to accelerate innovation in teaching and learning, and inspire learners to reach their greatest potential.
Our mission
Our mission
ISTE inspires educators worldwide to use technology to innovate teaching and learning, accelerate good practice and solve tough problems in education by providing community, knowledge and the ISTE Standards, a framework for rethinking education and empowering learners.
Since the inception of the pandemic in March, 2020, ISTE VEN Mystery Education Theater has regularly provided a meeting and an exploration venue for educators interested in learning more about virtual world platforms and Education in general. We are now, as of July 14, suspending the MET schedule in light of the need to spend our time and focus on preparations for the new (and unusual) academic school year. Thanks to everyone who participated!
Since the inception of the pandemic in March, 2020, ISTE VEN Mystery Education Theater has regularly provided a meeting and an exploration venue for educators interested in learning more about virtual world platforms and Education in general. We are now, as of July 14, suspending the MET schedule in light of the need to spend our time and focus on preparations for the new (and unusual) academic school year. Thanks to everyone who participated!
We liked to think of it as "Mystery Education Theater!"
This was fun!
This was fun!
We will leave this site up for a bit. Feel free to explore!
Our heartfelt hope is that once the school year settles into a routine, we can begin a new, likely weekly, get together based in Discord, and focused on exploration and comparison of the rich affordances for learning and teaching that virtual platforms provide. Stay tuned, and join VEN in Second Life for our continuing scheduled events.
Our heartfelt hope is that once the school year settles into a routine, we can begin a new, likely weekly, get together based in Discord, and focused on exploration and comparison of the rich affordances for learning and teaching that virtual platforms provide. Stay tuned, and join VEN in Second Life for our continuing scheduled events.
UPDATES, BLOGLIKE:
These days call for all of us to exercise flexibility and, friends and avatars, that's what ISTE VEN is going to do. We've had great fun with this project for months now and we intend to encourage the fun times to keep on keepin' on!
Here's what's happening: We will henceforth (starting Tuesday, July 7) begin our event at the top of the hour, always at our home place in Second Life, spending the first portion of that hour sharing a watch of a great TED Talk on the theme of Education. Once our discussion of it winds down, we will visit a virtual world or virtual collaboration platform and explore, seeking out the answers to the questions 1) is this place of any use to educators? and 2) Why or why not? This'll be fun! Join us!
Alrighty then. We're moving again, but it should be an easy one, especially for our Second Life and OpenSimulator folks. June 30 through July 9 we'll meet Tuesdays and Thursdays in AvaCon Grid! ISTE has a robust build there that in the past we've utilized for Machinima Nights and student art displays. We will be meeting at the Machinima area to view and discuss, and we will do some exploration, of course. Challenge yourself to meet us, same bat time, different bat channel. If you are already in Open Sim you can get there from any hypergrid jump location as well. Once inworld, search my Avacon username "Scott Merrick" (clever, eh?) and offer me some love--well, friendship anyway. We'll get you to ISTE VEN in AvaCon Grid! Our location, if you want to get there that way, is Virtual Environments Network Community, Community (657, 360, 32) - General @ http://grid.avacon.org:8002.
Will will be continuing in Active Worlds the week of June 22-26. On that week's Tuesday and Thursday, we will again meet up at ISTE's elegant home place in AW and field-tripping to a location where we will learn about content creation, building, in Active Worlds. The process is very simple to learn and though it bears little resemblance to that in Second Life with which we are familiar, it is very very powerful. Come join us!!!
You might have noticed that we are revising our schedule at least for the summer. We'll be meeting up on Tuesday and Thursday mornings beginning immediately until the end of July. At that time we'll see if we want to go back to daily MET events or carry on with the two-day-a-week plan.
For the weeks of June 8 through 19, join us in Active Worlds. View the ~1 minute video to the right and for more detailed introduction to the platform, see the great document prepared by our Scott Miller of Active Worlds.
We are taking Memorial Day, May 25, off! Beginning May 26 we will repeat this fun event in Second Life. Why, you may ask, are we returning to where we began when there are so many virtual worlds yet to explore? The answer is that we are not: Our Second Life home has moved! This will give us a chance to take the new home around the block while dedicating a couple of weeks to shoring up our presence in Active Worlds (arguably the very first virtual environment ever) for the following session. You can be doing the same. If you don't have AW, download its viewer, explore it on your own, and you'll be ready to continue Mystery Education Theater with us beginning June 8! Meanwhile, join us at our new home in Second Life Tuesdays and Thursdays May 26-June 5! This'll be fun!
May 11-22 we were in AltSpaceVR, a platform built for events. There is a robust 2D download if you ain't got goggles and it's available 3D in most platforms. Didn't make it there with us? Lots of folks did, from Sweden to Texas! You can still explore on your own: Click the AltSpaceVR Info button to get started. Once installed, open up AltSpaceVR and have fun exploring events from group meditation to the very active Educators in AltspaceVR group. Be good and have fun!
Beginning April 27th and continuing through May 8th, we met in ENGAGE. This platform is primarily for headset VR devices, but there is a 2D, Windows PC option. Click the ENGAGE SIgnup button to get started.
Prior to our two weeks in Engage, we met in VirBELA, "the future of work." We learned a great deal. Look for a compelling summary in some form coming up at some time in some future! You can learn more right now by exploring VirBELA for yourself:
We began our explorations and sharing in the virtual world of Second Life. Second Life is sort of the heartbeat of ISTE VEN. It was a good place to start because those of us who attended had virtually (heheheh) no learning curve. Explore Second Life for yourself and connect with us there. At the bottom of this page there is a link to learn more. Learn more.
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