David W. Deeds, as IT Manager/Teacher for Changchun American International School in Jilin Province, China, has been using 3D virtual worlds in K-12 (international) school education for three years: Second Life, OpenSimulator, Quest Atlantis and Minecraft. By the time this presentation is given, Alice and Unity3D might be included in the list as well. Although used primarily for the International Baccalaureate Organization’s Technology and Information Technology in a Global Society courses, 3D virtual worlds have been featured as part of English and, perhaps of particular interest, several cross-curricular efforts with Art, Music and Science classes. He used Second Life as an integral part of computer science and English courses for three years in a university and college setting before switching venues to K-12 schools. David was invited to present on his work with 3D virtual worlds at seven international educational technology conferences during 2011, among them the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education’s Global Learn Asia Pacific in Melbourne and ED-MEDIA in Lisbon. He also presented inworld to the Bavarian Center for Gifted Children on the strengths of 3D virtual worlds regarding not just gifted or talented but also special needs education. After describing the classes conducted using the different environments, he’ll use a “What Worked, What Didn’t†format to discuss both lessons learned and plans for future classes. In Second Life he’s Deed Davids. Come visit his Second Life K-12s Inworld cybercampus: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Teaching/79/199/21/.
- Best Practices in Education