VR in Education

Wow I never even knew that 3D education was even possible. Granted it is still a new technology and it is far from perfect, however I still feel that even when many of the knots are taken out it won't have a big impact on general education. Even though it has limitless possibilities, especially when it comes to the subject of history or chemistry, I feel that K-12 schools will have to much other stuff to take on that 3D enviorments will be put by the curb. The one cool cat teacher blog that I read was very informative and she also mentined that she didn't like the fact that the teen area adults could only remain in the area that they "owned" and that the students could just leave at any given time and be unsupervised. Now I know teenagers, and I know that when given and unlimited amount of freedom that they will attepmt to abuse it at any given oppurtuinity. So that is one of the wrinkles that needs to be ironed out. Cool Cat Teacher also mentioned that there were bad areas to the VR world, she didn't go into detail of what they were but that would leave me to believe that there were some unsafe areas for teenagers to explore and I for one am not ok with that. But back to the main point is it going to be a viable option for furture teachers in their classrooms, and I think not yet, and maybe not for a long long time. Schools right now have so many guidlines and goals that they have to meet from both the state and nationaly, and the time and money that would have to be put into this project wouldn't make it very effiecient, however I do feel that given enough time for the techonolgy to evolve and improve I feel that maybe it will be more of an option later, because I used to play world of warcraft and that is a mmorpg, and it has it down pretty good, and it makes for a very good enviornment, at the cost of ~15 dollars a month. But that cost goes into keeping the VR world intact and runnig smoothly, but the programming took up a ton of space on my computers hard drive and actually slowed it down significantly. So that is also a problem for the future of 3D can the make it so the programming doesn't slow down the networks of high schools? So again I think that VR or 3D learning enviornments have limitless potential, and given enough time will be a valuable asset for teachers, just not now, and not for the foreseeable future.

Blog #3

I found a review of some educatonal software the other day, it's on a product called Inspiration, http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech124.shtml. It is basically a program that makes it very easy for students to place their thoughts on to a computer, and it can be placed in many different forms like venn diagrams, idea webs, ect... There are a few questions that I have based on what the reveiw gave me, firstly I get where it is coming from but I also feel that it is using the technology for technology's sake, I feel that doing the same operations by hand would be just as fast and effective, however if there was a way to translate the ideas that you placed in the program and it comes out with a way to best organize them into a paper or slideshow then I can see it really working out very well. The fortunant thing that I can use it for a month free of charge and if I like it and all of my questions would be answered, so I feel that I like this product.

So far 5 weeks into the semester I really enjoy this online class, it's the first one that i've ever taken and it's having a good positive impact on me. I really like the fact that there are no classes that I have to attend. The only thing that I would change would be to move the turn in dates for a weeks assignments back till sunday night, that way we students would be able to do the projects and labs on the weekends, when I have more time. This class is very different from any other class that I have taken simply because its online and there are no lectures that I have to go to on campus, other than that it is pretty familiar because there are weekly assignments and labs ect... I think this has given me a positive outlook on online classes and I would definantly take another one if I can get the chance.

web blog comment assignment.

http://edtechupdate.blogspot.com/2009/09/wikiality-reality-of-wikipedia.html

that is the url to the blog that I commented on, I commented under the name dunnucaa, but I dont think that you will have any difficuties finding my comment.

hey I made a blog

this is probobly going to be the first and last post that i'll ever make on this blog, it's not my thing. I made one when I came to Grand Valley and it just never panned out for me I can't seem to find the energy to post people on what my day to day life is going.