Two recent papers in Science and Nature review the use of virtual worlds, such as Second Life and World of Warcraft, to carry out experiments; researchers are beginning to use virtual worlds to examine human behavior and test artificial intelligence since there is a large population of possible subjects and ways to create almost identical situations for experiments.

The New Scientist Techology blog gives a good summary of the papers.

In teaching, virtual worlds might be a compelling way to bring students into the research process in some subject areas.

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Robert J. Beichner, a professor of physics and director of the STEM Education Initiative at North Carolina State University, discusses ways to improve the teaching of science and engineering to undergraduates in the Chronicle of Higher Education’s online Colloquy on August 1, 2007 at 1 p.m., U.S. Eastern time. [The session is archived if you miss the live version.] Introductory science courses have long relied largely on lectures and tests that reward memorization. But studies have shown that students learn more, and are more excited by, new methods that emphasize continual interaction with professors and teamwork to solve problems. Even so, not all instructors embrace those new strategies. How can professors be encouraged to try new methods? What are the drawbacks of or limitations to those methods? Hear what Beichner has to say and view the comments from others participating in the Beyond Facts and Formula session. See also the Chronicle’s related article The Tough Road to Better Science Teaching.

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TED (Technology, Education, Design) posted a video from a presentation given by Blaise Aguera y Arcas, showing off two new visualization tools Microsoft is developing. The first, Seadragon, looks like it allows for greatly enhanced photo and textual zooming (and the speed of doing so appears to keep up - no matter the resolution!). This technology has been worked into a perhaps, even more impressive application called Photosynth, which grabs images of a given object (say anything tagged ‘Duke Chapel’ for example) and stitches them together to create a photo-realistic three-dimensional exploration of the object.

Here’s the link to the video (which is the last of the three on the page) if the embedded video doesn’t play below.

Demo videos and more information are available (though they’re PC only…boo!): More on Seadragon here. More on Photosynth here. The BBC also has a mini-site with many examples.

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The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Wired Campus blog reports two examples of using the virtual world Second Life.

On July 23, 2007, journalism students at the University of California at Berkeley will use Second Life to show off their reporting, filming, and writing on religion.

In fall 2007, the University of New Orleans will begin offering two classes in Second Life. The virtual campus was built mainly for distance education, research, and as a place for administrators to meet, but the university realized it would be a good venue for classes should another devastating hurricane strike the Gulf Coast.

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Hewlett-Packard’s Worldwide Higher Education Philanthropy will give about $120,000 in cash and equipment to each of ten campuses receiving a 2007 Higher Education Leadership grant. Supported projects include using tablet PCs in calculus courses, using tablet PCs in cooperative learning groups to increase student engagement through visualizations and animations and integrating classroom and lab with mobile technology. Project descriptions are on the HP grant announcement website.

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A start-up is creating buzz in many blogs with new desktop video conferencing software. You can have high-quality live video chats with up to six people, leave video messages and embed the app in a blog or website. A download is available for Windows with a Mac version “coming soon”.

http://www.oovoo.com/

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Coturnix, at “A Blog Around the Clock” discusses the science blogs at Duke. He writes “Duke University,after years of being behind the curve, is now striving mightily to establish itself as a leader in online science communication. As a recent news article shows, the school is actively encouraging its students to keep blogs and make podcasts.” He links to and encourages exploration of the Duke blogs currently available and predicts that Duke has a chance to become “cutting edge”.

Coturnix is a prolific blogger about biology (especially chronobiology), education, time, politics and blogging. He is one of the original science bloggers, a group of more than 60 science blogs sponsored (but not controlled by) the Seed Media Group, who cover a wide range of scientific topics and everything else. I spend way too much time at ScienceBlogs.

Coturnix has recently joined PLoS-ONE as the Online Community Manager. PLoS ONE is a peer-reviewed, open-access, online publisher of reports on primary research from any scientific discipline by the Public Library of Science (PLoS).

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Teens don’t use email much anymore, according to Stefanie Olsen, writing in CNET News.com, and even Instant Messenger is a dying tool with this age group. Instead, they use social networking tools, such as MySpace and FaceBook, plus cell phone text messaging, to communicate. When teens do use e-mail, it is to stay in touch with adults. As one teen who uses Facebook on her cell phone explains, “I need (Facebook) everywhere I go, but I log into e-mail only once a week.” Read the article here.

Duke CIT will offer events this fall on using Facebook in instructional activities. For insights on the technologies Duke students use, listen to the CIT 2007 showcase presentation on iPods and Podcasts and YouTube, Oh My! Student Perspectives on Technology Use in Coursework, Research and Community Engagement.

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Mashable.com offers a list of 13 very cool Google Map mashups, including several which could be useful in education:

WikiMapia - a wiki-like map where users can add information about a location.

Flickrvision - combines Flickr’s API with Google Maps to shows the most recently uploaded photos from around the world in real-time on a map.

HealthMap - utilizes feeds from the World Health Organization and others to provide the latest updates on diseases and outbreaks in the different regions of the world.

AP News - shows recent headlines from Associated Press on a map from where the story is datelined.

US Presidential Primaries - shows the results of polls that have been taken in each state for both parties leading up to the 2008 US Presidential Primaries.

ChicagoCrime.org - allows you to search a database of crimes reported in Chicago and see where they took place. You can filter your results by location, type of crime, district, and date, and then see details of the crime on the map.

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Google and the Keio University Library in Japan will digitize at least 120,000 public domain books so that readers around the world can view, browse, read, and download public domain materials by searching online at http://books.google.co.jp or by typing a search term in Japanese in at http://books.google.com.

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