Slide: 1 Some Insights from Einstein, Shank and Hock It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry The method people naturally employ to acquire knowledge is largely unsupported by traditional classroom practice. The human mind is better equipped to gather information about the world by operating within it than by reading about it, hearing lectures on it, or studying abstract models of it. Today, it doesn't take much intelligence to realize we are in the midst of a global epidemic of institutional failure. This next decade and maybe the one after that will be the two or three decades that people will look back to over a thousand years and say 'that was the melting pot.

Slide: 2 3Di Web 2.0 Web 2.0 and the 3D internet usher in the age of the Free Range Learner Web 1.0 Access Participate Value Proposition Poster Children FindShare Collaborate Co-Create Learning Progression

Slide: 3 Some Insights from Jay Cross Getting things done requires good connections, both the human kind and the Internet kind. Schooling has confused us into thinking that learning was equivalent to pouring content into people’s heads. It’s more practical to think of learning as optimizing our networks.

Slide: 4 Web 2.0: Welcome to the Participatory Read-Write Web BlogsWikisPodcastsRSS Collective Intelligence Peer-to-Peer Social Networking Web Services Mash Ups Tagging

Slide: 5 Virginia Tech Tragedy: Web 2.0 to the Rescue From blogging to cellphone video, technology has forever changed the way we process and communicate about tragedy — in good ways, and perhaps bad. Since Monday, there has been a non-stop flood of postings on the popular Facebook student site, on MySpace and LiveJournal, and on personal blogs — expressing everything from grief to anger to confusion. "What better place to mourn someone than a place that they themselves build to express who they are, and a place where the deceased and his or her friends may have spent a great deal of time interacting?”

Slide: 6 My Second Question to My Fellow Educators How must we redefine the very notion of education in a Web 2.0/3Di world?

Slide: 7 Welcome to the Metaverse and MMORPGs

Slide: 8 How familiar are you with massively multiplayer online virtual worlds such as Second Life or World of WarCraft?

Slide: 9 Familiarity Statistics Source: e-Learning Guild 360 Report – Immersive Learning Simulations. Feb All Data: (Industry, Job Level, Company Size, # Learners Impacted)

Slide: 10 Describing Virtual Social Worlds (VSWs) Second Life, was designed from its inception for a much deeper level of participation. It provides its residents with the equivalent of atoms – small elements of virtual matter called primitives – so they can build things from scratch The Economist Second Life is some unholy offspring of the movie The Matrix, the social networking site MySpace.com and the online marketplace eBay Business Week Sources: Business Week April 2006, The Economist. Living a Second Life, Sept. 28, 2006

Slide: 11 Describing MMORPGs Most MMORPGs offer players pre-fabricated or themed fantasy worlds. The Economist In typical battle scenarios guild members are confronted by multiple enemy agents. In the span of seconds, the risk-analysis, opinions and decisions of the group, or the solitary actions of a particular guild member will determine the life or death of all members of the group Nick Yee Sources: The Economist. Living a Second Life, Sept. 28, 2006; Nick Yee, Demographics of MMPRPGs

Slide: 12 VSWs and MMORPGs: Kin But Not Twins! Sources: The Economist. Living a Second Life, Sept. 28, 2006; Nick Yee, Demographics of MMPRPGs Unbounded Space Social Interaction Communities User Created Content Business VSW MMORPG Avatar-Mediated Persistent World Reputation Immersive Interactive Real-Time Communication Virtual Economy Assets Unbounded Space Social Interaction Communities User Created Content Business Opportunity Bound by a Narrative Defined Roles NPCs Rules Tokens Ranks and Levels