TC EdZone in Second Life

My first attempt

2007-06-17T00:30:00.000-04:00

Please find following my first attempt to build lesson plans using Cuisenaire rods and SL as the supplementary aids for instruction. http://college.livetext.com/doc/2595507

I had been stuck in the Cuisenaire rods stage for a while and I will try to come up with the SL part of lesson is yet to be completed.

Before that, I was stuck at the stage of wanting to understand why one would want to use the prims in SL to teach math if Cuisenaire rods in RL could be used to enhance the teaching of math with fewer fads and much more ease.

The first conclusion I came up with was that... regardless whether the learning of math will occur, the use of SL, in and out itself, makes people use and learn to use computer-- which might have its potential in the bridging of digital divide. The second conclusion I came up with was that-- it would take much more thinking and practicing before I could either come up with solid lessons or figure out the exact role and strength of SL as an instructional aid. (Yes, if I can show you the butterflies in the garden, why shall I ask you to find it on the screen?)

God knows when that Eureka moment will arrive. For now, let me to take a break in my RL-- inspired by that of Ratprincess2 Noel in SL. lol

Conference pictures

2007-06-15T11:04:00.001-04:00

Please find following some picutre I took when attending a SL conference.

Wonderful Day

2007-06-08T01:47:00.000-04:00

Today I went into TC Educator to build more items in Second Life to implement into my math lessons and I saw that some other people were there exploring the island. I met one of them who told me all about SciLand (a land devoted to educating teens in the sciences). There lands are affiliated and sponsored by NASA, JPL, and other science organizations.

I actually met the Director of one of the lands I think was called the Science School. He told me that he'd like to connect with TC and I informed him about what TC Ed Zone is doing. We teleported to his land, and he showed me around a little and told me about what they're trying to do. He works at the University of Denver in Physics and Astronomy. He's going to introduce me to some people who will be lead me on a tour of their lands (13 of them), and inform me about what they're trying to do with mathematics.

This is so cool.

Happy Day

2007-06-07T01:44:00.000-04:00

Today I have decided to take my previous lesson to the next step by building a 2-Dimensional (Cartesian) Plane.

It is becoming more easy for me to build things on Second Life due to all of my experiences.

Here's a close up.

This plane will be part of my next lesson and I will be implementing coordinates into the lesson.

Out of Loop

2007-06-06T13:06:00.000-04:00

I am currently immobile, can't go anywhere because i suffered a high ankle sprain and have been unable to walk since last Friday. I went to the hospital and my ankle was put in a cast and was also given a cane. However, i am frustrated by the fact that i can't go anywhere, i am usually a fast healer, but this one is taking longer than i like.
I have logged into second life once in a while but my personal computer do not have enough juice to keep second life running and always shut off after few minutes. So i feel completely out of loop, because i have no idea what the team is doing these days.
I hope i will be able to reacquaint myself with second life soon,or even better if my fellow team members are kind enough to keep me abreast with what is going on.

Developing The Lesson

2007-05-31T13:35:00.000-04:00

Finally, I hope

2007-05-31T10:10:00.000-04:00

This image is of Marcus's avatar standing in front of the tree. The size of the avatar in relation to the tree. The size of the tree is easily manipulated as a result you can make it both bigger and smaller than Marcus's avatar.

In this image i create a tree and also convince Marcus to appear in the snapshot. This allows me to see the size of Marcus's avatar in comparison of the tree i created. Since i can easily manipulate the size of the tree i can show how one particular size relates to another. Since these sizes are both in decimals and percentages, it gives me an opportunity to help the students understand percentages.

This image is a way of showing proportions. I decided to create a tree to demonstrate proportionality. I use my co-worker's avatar to show how two things next to each other differ in size and scope.

Yet a bigger box. This is made by just increasing the decimals corresponding to bigger objects. Clearly it is easy to see how a student working with this program will have a better appreciation of the shapes and the numbers that create them

This is yet another dimension of the same object. By turning a solid into a box, is another way to enhance the stdudents' understanding of a solid.

This is a way of showing how the object comes together. A solid with some of its sides cut out. This can be used to show how many sides a solid cube has, because manipulating the numbers let you easily add or remove different sides of the object. What is important is that you have the ability to construct and deconstruct any geometric shape this way.

This image is created by right clicking on an empty space pricesely where the image is right now. You ge a number of options, and you select CREATE. This will generate a menu of almost all the major geometric shapes. Here i chose a cube. I can change this shape any way i want, by clicking on OBJECT. The drop down menu will enable you to do whatever you wnat with the object. This is where the math comes in. First all the dimensions you can choose are in decimals, and they are for length, breadth, hieght, thickness, and even hollow.

This is a way to demonstrate the different sizes of the cube. By taking away some of the sides, we can show the construction of a solid.

This image shows yet another dimesion of the same object. This object is made by adding the length and hieght of the object. The coordinates control the size of the object. The larger the number of the bigger the object. This practice is a very neat way to show how to add and subtract decimals.

I believe the visual aspect of the the practice will be invaluable to the student understanding, becuase they can see how numbers can translate into size.

ThisThis image is created by right clicking on an empty space pricesely where the image is right now. There will be a number of options, and you select CREATE. This will generate a menu of almost all the major geometric shapes. Here i chose a cube. I can change this shape any way i want, by clicking on OBJECT. The drop down menu will enable you to do whatever you wnat with the object. This is where the math comes in. First all the dimensions you can choose are in decimals, and they are for length, breadth, hieght, thickness, and even hollow. This will enable students to to see decimals at work.

I tried uploading my lesson plan yesterday, but i could not. Dr Chang suggested that i should upload the images one at a time. So that is what i will try to accomplish today. The images will demonstrate not only how to build objects on second life, but hopefully they will show just about everything on second life can be a valuable math teaching resource.

Beautiful Day

2007-05-30T12:35:00.000-04:00

My lesson on Second life is over the concept of coordinates. When I was thinking about this yesterday, I realized that maybe I should not go with the squares I originally thought of to incorporate into the lesson. The whole point of the lesson is to transition into thinking about the 2-dimensional plane (which is usually illustrated with points that resemble small circles). Therefore, after careful consideration, I have decided to change my squares into circles.

With the help of Dr. Chang, I was able to put the numbers on the circle that I orginally wanted. I have also changed the format of my lesson; instead of walking on the platform, I've decided to creat a small sphere (ball) that I like the students to place in designated circles. This will give the students good practice in using the X & Y position (coordinates) that Second Life requires you to re-position objects with. I also choose the ball because I believe that the platform circles are too small to navigate efficiently. I project there will be a lot of errors with my students with navigating such a tiny spot. Maybe I will be a large platform now that I am familiar with building.

Here's a picture.

How My Lesson Starts Off

2007-05-30T12:31:00.000-04:00

Introduction

This is a dog:

His name is Snoop. Snoop likes to walk around and follow his owner and eat dog bones.

He always has a lot to eat, because he is very good at finding the right place.
How does Snoop find the right place?

HE USES POINTS ON A LINE.

Here is a line:

The arrows at each end show that the line really goes on forever.

Snoop uses a line to help him find each dog bone. Each place on the line is called a point. A few of the points on this line are marked with red balls

We can number some of the points to make them easier to find. The numbers get bigger from left to right.

To be continued:

Lesson Plan

2007-05-30T12:07:00.000-04:00

I am almost done with my lesson plan. It is a step by step demonstration of how to build objects on second life. I think this is a really cool way of teaching students all the major geometric shapes.
I have taken snapshots of the steps i have taken to create the different shapes. I also created a tree in diffrent dimensions and size to demonstrate proportions.
I am trying to upload my lesson plan on the blog, but for some reasons i keep getting an error message.

2007-05-29T14:36:00.000-04:00

This ball is 0 x and o y and 1 meter z

this ball is at 0 x and 0 y and 2meters z, his height
and from a mouselook view, just above his eye level.

I don't know how able you are to see the design I did because I had to report somebody for abuse, who put fire on the new Builders grid. What I did was create red balls to represent negative numbers on the x,y, and z lines, and green balls to represent positive numbers on the x, y, and z lines. I am going to figure out how to orient it the best so that the kids can understand it. Do we have permission to build on TC land yet? I ask because then we cannot have our permanent objects for our lesson up because they get deleted at the end of each day.

Building spheres, cylinders, and trees

2007-05-29T12:38:00.000-04:00

I built a lot of things and i have also taken snapshots of all my creation. That way i will be able to demonstrate how to build an object on second life.
I will include these snapshots in my lesson plan.
My lesson plan will comprise of a rundown of all the major geometrical shapes, step by step tutorial on how to build the shapes on second life, and side by side comparison of the sizes and density of the different shapes.

Introduction to Coordinates Lesson

2007-05-25T15:22:00.001-04:00

This is the lesson I'm building in Second Life. As you can see from the pictures in my previous blog that I've just began to build it.

Taking the Lesson From Paper to the "Real" Virtual World

2007-05-24T13:11:00.000-04:00

I started out by building a glowing ball today on the coordinate graph at New Builders Plaza. Since it is really complicated to create an animal that looks something like a dog, I went and bought a dog from this woman in Cyberspace, Sybelle Maracas. I lost the dog from my inventory. I am out $1.40. More to come later!

A New Day

2007-05-24T12:38:00.000-04:00

Today was very exciting because I figured out how to actually build the set-up for the lesson I've been working on the previous days. It required me to build different colored tiles and place them using the coordinates. Since I had to use my knowledge of the 3-Dimensional plane in order to correctly place the tiles, it gave me an idea of how I'd like to teach the more formal depiction of coordinates. Second Life requires you to adjust the positon of an object by changing its X, Y, and Z coordinates. My idea is, once I have built the floor, I'd like to build another object (maybe a small sphere) and have the students move the sphere to different locations on the tiled floor. This way they'll get exposure to coordinates.

I'll more than likely get them view the floor from more of a top view. Like such...

What is second life: A presentation

2007-05-24T11:08:00.000-04:00

Is there anything substaintially educational in SL?

See whether you can make up your mind after viewing the presentations of Jim Purbrick and Stephen Downes.... lol

The following is a presentation given at the 2007 Symposium of Eduserv foundation presented by Jim Purbrick of the Linden Lab.

After the Jim's presentation, check out Mr. Stephen Downes's thoughts....

Visit the following website
http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/symposium/2007/presentations
for additional presentations from the same event.

Start of a Lesson on X, Y, and Z

2007-05-24T10:02:00.000-04:00

Since Second Life was down, we were asked to start drawing our lessons up to teach the kids. I am going to work on a lesson dealing with coordinate geometry. I never thought lesson construction, especially for math, could be difficult but when doing it, I have to be very basic in the way I explain stuff because I am guilty of making assumptions unconsciously of what I understand vs. what the kids understand when creating the lesson. It is going to be a lot more fun I believe to them because they will be able to interact with the lesson more than if it was written in chalk on the board or typed on a paper. I am going to use the idea of a dog retrieving a ball for them to get an understanding. Since the dog can jump up to catch the ball, I will be able to incorporate z- coordinates into the lesson. I just haven't figured out how I am going to illustrate negative z-coordinates. I have attached the beginning of the plan on ClassWeb.

The Next Day

2007-05-23T12:10:00.001-04:00

Today Second life was not operational but that did not stop me from creating a lesson. I created a visual imagine of something I'd like to create in Second Life by using PowerPoint. The lesson dealed with an introduction to coordinates. I'm going to post it to the classweb files as well.

There is more to be added to this lesson, but I think its a great start.

A Lesson in the making

2007-05-23T11:43:00.000-04:00

Second life was down is down today, so we cannot continue the building experiment we started yesterday. However, there is plenty of things we can do outside of secondlife that can be integrated into it it at a later date.
For example i decided to make a lesson plan based on my experience learning how to build on secondlife. This makes sense because once you decide to build, the very first window presents almost all the major geometrical shapes.
I plan to start the lesson teaching the students all the different shapes, this is really ideal because all the shapes are depicted in 3D hopefully enhancing the students' understanding of different shapes.
Since the filling out of dimensions on the object being created is in decimals, i will take this opportunity to highlight how decimals work and perhaps give a few exercises in decimals. This will enable to see decimals at work and hopfully make them comprehend how they work.
There is an option in the building process which enables the builder to choose whether to build a solid or hollow object. This is measured by percentages, the percentage increases or decreases depending on your choice. This can be used as an exercise on how percentages work.
I can also incorporate proportions in my lesson by building more than one object and comparing the different cordinates on the objects. This will be a good exercise hopefully enhancing the students' understanding of proportions.

2007-05-22T13:52:00.001-04:00

I am a Second Life "Lebron James". I actually found this at this art gallery that I skipped by on all the teleporting that I did today. I feel like there is so much to explore, and so much to do. Obviously, if we are going to use this to help instruct the kids, we have to give some structure to these exploration possibilities. As I continue to think about how the kids are going to "catch" on how to negotiate Second Life, I am reminded of my own illiteracy when it comes to new technology. Kids are on the computer playing virtual games almost daily, while am only in my Second Week of Second Life. I guess I am not a "Lebron James", and probably have to keep that in mind, when I try and create math lessons for these kids.

Here I am at a Caribbean jazz club that I stumbled, while searching for a casino where I can start to make some Linden dollars. I see the possibilities of bringing music and health, while teaching math, into Second Life.

This is a math lesson that I am working on with multiples of 9.
Marcus showed me this trick where you write

9x1=09
9x2=18
9x3=27
9x4=36
9x5=45
9x6=54
9x7=63
9x8=72
9x9=81
9x10=90

See how you start with 0 and go up by 1 in the tens place for each consecutive multiple of 9 and then start with 9 and go down by one in the ones place for each consecutive multiple. Right now, I am trying to figure out a way to help the kids by using these boxes to help them remember it visually. I am a visual learner, so I will ponder this in my head today until I get it.

The Day After

2007-05-22T12:36:00.000-04:00

Today I got a chance to explore the land TC Educator. This was the first time that me and my collegues were actually in the same land at the same time. It was a pretty cool experience having the chance to explore the land with them. It also made it a whole lot easier to help each other with different tasks.

In addition to exploring this new world, I learned how to build objects. This is probably going to be my focus for the next few days. The 3-D objects I built can easily be made into a volume lesson. It can be shown that by changing the height, width, or length of an object, the volume either increases or decreases. Second life provides a better opportunity to visually show these concepts because one is limited when simply having a chalkboard.

Getting comfortable

2007-05-22T12:25:00.000-04:00

I always have this unsurmountable confidence in my ability to learn and comprehend anything. However, my encounter with second life has dampened or slightly eroded that. But through perseverance and i dare say hard work, i am coming to my own with second life.
For the first time i am able to build my own object, it is a simple triagle and its nothing to pump my chest about. However, i hope the triangle is the beginning of something great and wonderful.
To create something of second life, you have to find the land to build it. Fortunately for us, TC already has an island and that is where i built my simple triangle. Since anything built on this island is discarded within 48 hrs, i put my triangle in my inventory.
Once you find the land to build your object, you right click on the land and click on create.That will give you a vast array of choices for the dimensions of your object. You will be able to see the shape your object is taking as you fill out the required dimensions. As a result it is surprisingly easy to build or create something on second life.
I hope in the coming days I will be able to create more complex objects. I hope to build an airport

Link to TC Educator

2007-05-22T10:57:00.001-04:00

http://slurl.com/secondlife/mylink/189/277/25/

Coming Back from Reality to Virtual Reality

2007-05-21T12:46:00.000-04:00

I started off on Help Island today. I explored the rest of Help Island without that much patience, because I feel like I am under the gun, like students feel when they are getting "tested" all the time. I had read alot this weekend about Second Life from a book I bought for the group Second Life, The Official Guide. Once you decide to leave Help Island, you cannot come back. This felt like going from a place where I received consistent 24/7 assistance to a place, where I would have to search out assistance. This was a very humbling appearance. By default, I get sent to the Ahern Welcome area. By what was described in the book, it sounded like a very safe, welcoming area. In contrast, it reminded me of the areas of NY, where you are exposed to all that New York has to offer, good and bad. Since I knew another "welcome" area to go to, New Citizens area on the island of Kuula, I teleported there. I was now back in "assistance" paradise. Kuula had a lot of helpful advice, but not as much free stuff as Help Island. I don't really have the time, need, or patience to read all the notecards that were given to me. Before I get to my lesson, which I partially started today, I made my first friend, Quill Noel, from Tokyo, Japan. It was interesting to note my American presumptioness against her Asian humility. Is that PC? Don't really know, but we discussed it though the language made it difficult. I believe there would be even better communication between children of different cultures and languages in Second Life. After leaving her, I found this place called New Builders Plaza.
Go to this Place

This first picture is New Builders Plaza on the island of Kuula. The plaza is in the sky. It gives you measurement tools on a 3-D level so that you can build objects with specific measurements. As you can see I went to the Build button, and built a right triangle that was 5.5 m by 5.5 m. Unless you specify otherwise, your triangles are going to have the same base and height.

Now, I am sitting on a couch that makes me 3 meters tall. Can you figure out might height of my UPPER BODY, given that I am sitting on the highest part of the couch, which is 1.3 meters tall?

In picture four, How tall do I look to you? Please make a guess.

I am still standing against the wall but I have moved into the middle of the big half circle, and I am looking straight up. Oww!! My neck hurts from bending all the way back.

To be continued!

Building maybe in the offing

2007-05-21T11:06:00.000-04:00

Eventhough it is really frustrating to be still stuck on orientation island, i can console myself with a potentailly very valuable discovery. As i was going around the search pavillion of orientation island, i came across a tutorial for building anything on second life. Perched on a table is a thing called prims, that is short for primitive. These form the bases of anything that can be built on orientation island. What you can build is determined by the amount of land you own. In other words more prims equals to more land. Some residents of second life teach classes on building things and you can find out about these classes by typing the word "tap" in the second life search engine.
There are number of ways to acquire land on second life. You can buy from other residents, or you can get land from the auctioning block.
Great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am out of orientation island, now i bid adieu to a place i was stuck for a considerable amount of time, and say hello to what i believe will be a wonderful and exciting mainland of second life.
Let the exploration begin.

My Second Life Experiences This Friday

2007-05-18T15:36:00.000-04:00

You are dropped in the middle of what appears to be moat/floating piece of stone in an ocean. The mini-map on the side shows your location on Orientation Island in yellow and white, and the other people who are on 1 of the four islands in bright green.

You have the choice of going to one of the four islands, which are called Move, Appearance, Communicate, and Search.

As you stand in the center, you can realize that by turning to look at each of the four islands, you are turning 90 degrees

I spent the rest of my time in Help Island, as you can see from photos, I looked at the tutorial on how to build shapes and went to the freebie store and picked up a lot of free stuff.

I also built a big cube 3 – meters by 3 meters by 3 meters by stretching the small cube that you get when you create one (.5 meters by . meters by .5 meters. )

Today, I spent a lot of my time getting used to Second Life and now feel really comfortable to start creating a Math Lesson within it.

Help island

2007-05-18T12:02:00.000-04:00

My goal to day was to finally go through orientation island. I decided to go to help island hoping that i will get the help to finally say adieu to orientation island. I have to say there was no specific help topic on how to navigate orientation island, but there are a whole lot of other things to learn. For example i was given a free house and its now part of my inventory. This could become valuable because i can use it for a variety of reasons. The house the teacher turned into a math learning center from the blog, comes to mind.
I also got some very insightful tutorials on how to build objects on help island. It may seem i am putting the cart before the horse, learning all these useful skills before completing the most basic of tasks on secondlife. If only i can get off orientation island.
The pproblem with help island is that once you leave, you cant go back there. But i have to leave in order to continue on going through orientation island.

Working Together To Develop a Math Environment

2007-05-18T10:45:00.000-04:00

This is a late post for yesterday, Thursday, May 17.

Since we had thought about different math problems that we could possibly teach in Second Life on Wednesday, we started to work on a teaching different facts about a circle. Since we were on orientation island, we decided to use the circle that you land in as soon as you are dropped off after registration. We had the avatar/human walk from one point on the circle through the center of the circle to another point on the opposite side of circle to illustrate diameter. We also made the avatar walk from the center of the circle to a point on the circle to illustrate radii and walk around the whole circle to illustrate circumference. We took pictures from different angles as well as video to illustrate what we had done.

We also yesterday got a much clearer understanding of what we were expected to produce in our lessons for the teachers and the kids. We are learning to work as a team in developing these lessons. This process, I think, actually mirrors how we should try and teach a bunch of students on how to go about solving a math problem. Like Marcus said in his blog, we have figured out what each of our strengths are. I think once we start building on TC Island, then our understanding of exactly how we can construct math problems best visually in Second Life, will really start to evolve.

Where is Math in Second Life

2007-05-17T20:25:00.000-04:00

You get pay 2 L$ per 10 minutes to clean the wall.

How many Linden dollars amount to 1 US dollar (and what does amount to mean)?
How many minutes are there in an hour, in a day, etc?
What does “per 10 minutes,” "per 2 hour, " etc mean?
How much Linden dollars would you make if you work for 20 minutes, 1 hour, 1.5 hours, etc?

Let's build another ladder and bucket by copying the look from the one I have:

What kinds of shapes are there?
What kinds of the primitive objects (second life language) do we need to create these shapes? (tasks involved: Point out the needed the shapes, right-click to open the edit box to create primitives objects, link the primitive objects to make these shapes)
How many pieces of objects do we need?
How big do the pieces have to be? (Manipulate the size (x, y, z) of the objects to see how different combinations result in different outcomes)

Granted, the tasks could be broken down even more. The introduction to the edit window could be itself a lesson.

This is just my first attempt.

To be continued...

First attempt

2007-05-17T18:49:00.000-04:00

Following is the first attempt for an instructional guide prepared by TC Guru, mathcrusader and mafematics:

Your avatar is dropped in the center of a circle on Orientation Island.
Walked to the edge of the gray circle and took a picture of the sign of one of the four islands.
Walk across the gray circle through the center to the other side. (Illustration of Diameter)

Return to the center of the circle and take another picture. Then walk to the edge of the circle and take another picture. (Illustration of Radius)

Step back to view the entire circle while still on the edge.

Day 4: Structuring

2007-05-17T13:29:00.000-04:00

Strengths & Weaknesses of the Project
The framework for the project was broad, so we decided to strengthen our understanding of the project by creating a structure that clearly outlines what we will be working on in the future. Since current outline was too weak for us to understand it caused confusion, so the purpose of developing a new one is to get everyone on the same page.

I (Marcus) have explored Orientation Island and I’m currently finding new information on Help Island that will assist us with future tasks. My strengths are in creative mathematics and design so I’m going to continue to think of ideas so that they can be built in TC Island (or whatever island). I am providing the Big Picture framework to the math tasks, and coordinating the project. Because of this, I’ll be in charge of reporting the overall progress and ideas that ALL of us will be working on.

Jonathan is going to go through each task in Orientation Island and provide a step-by-step manual for others to perform these tasks. Jonathan’s strengths lie in the use of technology. He’s thinking of innovative ideas to present all of the organized information to the students, teachers, and others who will be using the project. He’s currently working on adding videos of different tasks that the students are going to be executing.

Modou is also going to finish Orientation Island to get an understanding of how to explore the possibilities of Second Life. Modou is very good at taking directions so he will be utilized as the right-hand man throughout the project. He’s currently working on providing pictures to add to a manual for the students to follow. He’ll be also utilized to construct the objects necessary that are being designed.

Dr. Lang/Dr. Arno, we need your assistance to providing us guidance for the project. We welcome suggestions and feedback for the functions and processes of the project. I’ll be the point person to make sure we’re on the same page with what you would like us to do.

Implementation
I have decided that we should look around Orientation and Help Island to give us ideas as to what we can build in TC Island. Jonathan had us working on utilizing the circles in the center of the island to start building lessons on. He had me writing down the instructions, while Modou worked on taking snapshots of the events. Jonathan is going to be providing video to discuss the following: chords, diameter, radius, and circumference.

We’re going to look at the documents Dr. Arno provided us to pick the topics we would like to design lessons for. We will assemble a list of the chosen topics and work on those immediately. We will provide the list, outline with assigned tasks, and a timeline to Dr. Arno and Dr. Lang for how we’re going to work with them for each day. Therefore, the blogs will reflect what is on the list.

Eureka Moment

2007-05-17T12:18:00.000-04:00

It seems we as a group have come together with a new resolve to make this project work. This new determination stems from a heated but reasoned tete a tete with our supervisor in residence Dr. Yeo Wang. We were confused as to what aspects of orientation island can be used to teach the students. I suggested that we should just concentrate on the big picture, i.e. we should first master secondlife by going through orientation island (frankly only marcus has done that so far) then we will be able to get to a point when we can actually explore the obvious potential of this program as a math teaching aide.
As far as i am concerned we have accomplished something really significant today. We have come to an agreement to work together as a team, and this should include our supervisor, she should know that we are committed to the task at hand. I am not convinced she realize that.

The first thing we did was to treat the circle in the main square of Orientation island as a viable mathematical tool. We described and took snapshots of all the movement we can do within the circle. We took pictures of the circumference, radius and diameter of the circle. I was respeonsible for taking the pictures of all the steps we take within the circle, using Adobe photoshop, Jonathan was respnsible for taking short video clips of what we are doing with the circle, while Marcus took notes of the steps we take using Microsoft word.
Docummenting every step is not going to be easy. First i don't thing we have either the space or time to do it. I think we should concentrate on our understanding of secondlife enabling us to build things and making mathematical concepts out of that.
Jonathan and i will finally go through orientation island and start building mathematical concepts that Marcus is already working on.

Trailblazers

2007-05-16T16:41:00.000-04:00

Good work math buddies...you are leading the way!

Mathematical Thinking and Second Life

2007-05-16T12:49:00.000-04:00

We started off working today on trying to figure out the bugs, or incorrect ways in the mathematical thinking that our children have. We thought about measuring a line segment & differentiating the lesson based on students at lower level, students at an average level & exceptional students. We thought about different problems that could occur at each level. My students would probably be on the lower level.

Problems That May Occur
-----------------------------

The meaning and the measure of a line.
The differences in ways of measurement (inches, centimeters)
The fact that ome students may start at 1 on the ruler instead of 0 .
What are the lines between each number? ( You have to have a basic understanding to know what each mark is between, especially for the inches)

Solutions
Teaching them about what a ruler looks like and asking them to draw it (at least the 4ths)
Measuring three lines; constructing shapes with those lines. We also discussed fractions.

Other ways for geometry in Second Life
Maybe looking at the hands of a clock, but the turning of the doorknob, the rotation of the moon around the earth, a slice of pizza, angles by the way a door opens.

Tomorrow, I hoep to develop this into more of a concrete lesson.

Day 3: Planning

2007-05-16T12:35:00.000-04:00

Today the Second Life program was in operable because maintenence was being performed on it. So we decided to utilize the day for planning.

I suggested that we have Differentiated Lessons for the students using 3 tiers of students. We will differentiate the lessons based on tasks.

Lower Level Students
Students who need more background and foundational work concerning the tasks.

Average Students
Students who may have not been introduced to the task at hand, but whom have required previous knowledge.

Exceptional Students.
Students that may be above task and that are probably ready for problem solving either now, or after a refresher.

Since the lessons we are going to be discussing are heavily involved in Geometry we decided to start with Measuring a Line. We then discussed problems that our students may have while learning this lesson.

Problems That May Occur

Meaning of measuring a line
Differences in units (cm, inches)
Some students may start at 1 on the ruler instead of 0
Rounding
What are the lines between each number?
Basic understanding of fractions
Not knowing what each mark is between each inch even with an understanding of fractions
Mathematical language

We then thought about some practices that we could implement into a lesson

Practices

Teaching them about what a ruler looks like and asking them to draw it (at least the 4ths)
Making exercises that build on each other

measuring three lines; constructing those three lines into a shape with a ruler; talking about triangles; discussing angles, etc.

We also wanted to to discuss fractions.

I then I drew on the white board some lessons that we could utilize Second life for. They involved the Formation of Shapes in 3-D using flying, and Introduction to Coordinates..

Formation of Shapes in 3-D

I thought about a creative way to build some stations in the sky to show the formation of a 3-D shapes. I will discuss the specifics of this in another lesson.

Introduction to Coordinates

I thought about building a grid of blocks where each block is a different color. Then using a starting point to get to each blocks by only going left, right, up or down. Then I thought of a series of questions I could ask.

How do I get to the #5 blue block from the starting block?
How many blocks left or right?
How many blocks up or down?
Would the directions change if I began at the alternate start?
Is it important to have a starting point? Why?
If I began at the starting block, went 2 blocks left, then 5 block up, which block would I end up at?

We're going to discuss my ideas tomorrow and how we could build them in Second Life.

Math applications

2007-05-16T12:15:00.000-04:00

Today second life is off line as a result we concentrated on converting on converting our limited knowledge of second life into real life mathematical application. I am beggining to turn around about the real life application possibilities of second life, especially in mathematics. For example the time i spent on the appearance section of tutorial island was all math. I had to create my own online image.
This is very interesting, because i started with my hieght, which is 6 feet five inches, a good five inches taller than real life. i guess i am a little insecure of my hieght. As fars as math goes, this seemingly mundane creation canteach a child how to measure a line and how to do proportions.
Another exercise i did yesterday was trying to move from one ppart of an island to the next by either driving, flying or walking. This involves going through sharp turns and corners. Making it ideal for teaching geometry or even word problems involving distance, width, and hieght.
Almost all my students have problems with fractions and i am determined to learn how to use second life as a teaching resource to help my kids understand fractional concepts.

Secondlife

2007-05-16T07:30:00.000-04:00

I ma having a hard time trying to figure out how to create my online persona and how to relate this whole online environment to the job at hand.
There are certainly some math involve in the creation an avatar, because there are some measurements, buying, currency, and even bartering in getting the best possible online personality.
I find navigating around the different areas of the online world a little challenging. For example i spent most of my time on the appearance part of the tutorial island trying different looks, trying on different outfits, but on the whole the whole experience was a bit difficult for me. Hopefully in the coming days i will learn how to navigate between the diffrent parts of the island a little better.
Another concern of mine is the constant distraction from the other members of the online community. Some users are downright hostile to newbies like myself. For example i was trying to drive around and some guy kept bumping me and preventing me from killing any of the cyber rats to earn points. Maybe once i enhance my skills i can also be that obnoxious to other users.

10 Actions

2007-05-15T13:22:00.000-04:00

1. I was dropped in the middle of four islands in a large ocean.
2. The program asked me to choose a character to appear as. I chose the only identifiable "black" person to me, who, by the way, looked "metrosexual".
3. I took in what was in my scope of vision once more.
4. I asked Marcus how you move, and he told me the arrow keys.
5. I asked him what you have to do, and he said go to each island and complete tasks.
6. Logically, or illogically, I moved forward first to the island of Appearance.
7. It told me to enter I had to put a torch in my right hand. I had a lot of trouble finding exactly where the Torch was. Although they say it is in your library and inventory (which is a screen always to the right) there were so many categories and subcategories already there.
8. Once I got a torch, I entered the building on the island, but I forgot the directions I was given after getting the torch and I had to go back and ask.
9. I walked up the stairs and saw my first person.
10. I tried to walk into them and move them. (that is probably a byproduct of all the violence I am use to seeing/playing when using video games)

Day 2

2007-05-15T13:13:00.000-04:00

Today I worked on the Second Life program. I mainly focused on three aspects; finishing the orientation, changing my appearance, and navigating the world by flying.

Orientation
The purpose of this is to become more familiar with the funtions and options of Second Life. This includes moving, grabing items, changing your appearence, flying, driving, communicating, navigating, etc.

Appearence
I wanted an Avatar that looked more like me. The default options for the Avatar resemble a lot of caucasion features. Most of the students I work with are either of African decent, or latino. If they were going to use this program they, more than likely, would like an avatar that looked more like them as I did. After navigating through the appearence options for a while I was able to provide my avatar with black skin, ethnic facial features, short hair, and clothing that was close to what I would wear.

Flying
The interesting thing about flying is that it requires you to re-think moving in a 3-Dimensional space. You are still required to move in the 4 directions (up, down, left, and right) much like you would do on the groung, but additionally, you need the concept of height. I can see how to teach a lesson on points using the X, Y, & Z plane.

First Experience in Second Life

2007-05-15T12:57:00.000-04:00

I had heard about Second Life in one of my tech magazines a few months ago. It intrigued me today because it feels like you can do almost anything with anybody. Limitless possibilities. Today, I learned how to adjust and manipulate my appearance, communicate with different folks, and build up my library and inventory of information. Thinking about this in teaching and learning terms, I think this can be effective in working with kids in that you can create characters, storylines, and lessons around stuff that looks familiar to them. In regards to communication with other characters and the environment, it can be beneficial in that an environment could probably be set up, an island, where kids go and communicate with differentiated lessons on an island. This would probably be better for the kids, who can work best on their own. We would have to worry about kids communicating though with each other and not being focused on the tasks at hand. Also, somebody called me a "nigga" today. Let's not even get into what kind of issues that brings up. I am still learning how to report an abuse though.

Second life: an exploration

2007-05-15T11:52:00.000-04:00

What could and how could we learn through second life?

Hopefully our exploration will better the collective understanding about the true meaning of second life in education!