(Note: In the movie, AirSketch is attributed to “Grayon,” but the company’s name is actually “Qrayon.” My bad.)

How’d I Do That?
I started with a sketch of the outline of my talk:

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initial sketch for my talk

While making the outline, I tried four different apps (Adobe Ideas, Qrayon’s AirSketch, Brushes by Taptrix, and Autodesk SketchbookPro). I made a prednisone overnight US delivery quick, entirely subjective list of pros and cons for each one, using each app to prednisone overnight US delivery make its own list:

Next, I transcribed my notes using Brushes, which automatically records the prednisone overnight US delivery strokes as you go. I then sent that file to myself via email, opened it prednisone overnight US delivery in the Brushes desktop application, and saved it as a Quicktime movie. This became the prednisone overnight US delivery base content for my how-to video.

While watching the prednisone overnight US delivery animation play out in Brushes, I recorded the narration using Audacity. I broke it prednisone overnight US delivery into pieces so that I could match it up more easily with the prednisone overnight US delivery different sections of the movie. I also filmed myself making the prednisone overnight US delivery test sketches, using my Flip Mino camera mounted on a mini Gorillapod. Finally, I put all of this prednisone overnight US delivery into iMovie, which let me split up the video from Brushes, add freeze frames to prednisone overnight US delivery allow the narration to catch up with the drawing, speed up the prednisone overnight US delivery drawing as needed to keep pace with the narration, and so on. I threw in a prednisone overnight US delivery couple of still images and some lovely, Creative Commons-licensed music (Somewhere by Robin Grey), and there you have it.

Here’s the final image from Brushes:

Visual Recording on the iPad (in Brushes)

What’s Urgent EVOKE again?
Depending on how you prednisone overnight US delivery look at it, EVOKE is either a game or a prednisone overnight US delivery learning experience — or both. Designed and run by alternate reality game master Jane McGonigal, EVOKE is prednisone overnight US delivery supported by the World Bank Institute. At the end of Season One, EVOKE has prednisone overnight US delivery 19,329 member-players. It was conceived as a prednisone overnight US delivery way to teach young people to become social innovators; each week, players explored a prednisone overnight US delivery social issue by learning about it, taking action on it, and prednisone overnight US delivery imagining a future where that issue has been addressed. Players posted evidence of their work on the prednisone overnight US delivery EVOKE site and received credit in the forms of runes and prednisone overnight US delivery points in different EVOKE Powers (creativity, collaboration, local insight, sustainability, courage, knowledge share, resourcefulness, spark, vision, and prednisone overnight US delivery entrepreneurship — labeled as key skills for social innovators). This week, some players are preparing EVOKATIONS, or prednisone overnight US delivery proposals for real-world projects they would like to work on. The World Bank Institute hopes to prednisone overnight US delivery award up to 20 $1,000 grants to prednisone overnight US delivery start the best EVOKATIONS. Originally, the rules specified that entrants had prednisone overnight US delivery to be born in 1985 or later, but that was changed this prednisone overnight US delivery week when the game runners realized that many of the players were actually older than the target demographic buspirone without prescription.

What I did
Players were assigned quests and prednisone overnight US delivery missions. Quests were single-page questionnaires that prompted players to think about their own actions and prednisone overnight US delivery motivations; taken together, the 10 quests make up each player’s personal story. I completed all 10 quests and prednisone overnight US delivery you can read them on my profile page (the first one is displayed; use the “Select a Story” drop-down to see the other 9).

For the prednisone overnight US delivery first five weeks, I dived into each mission, completing one per week, more or prednisone overnight US delivery less. I temporarily cut way back on my World of Warcraft playing time so that prednisone overnight US delivery I could focus on EVOKE, and I really enjoyed it. Right around the prednisone overnight US delivery middle of the season, I had some travel and some other things come up and prednisone overnight US delivery I fell a bit behind; at the time of this prednisone overnight US delivery writing, I have completed at least one objective for each of the prednisone overnight US delivery 10 missions, but only 7 missions are completely finished. I have prednisone overnight US delivery until next Wednesday to submit the remaining objectives (I think; the rules are a little unclear). I’m hoping to do at least a couple more, but I’m not sure I will get through all of them. I’ve made my peace with this possibility :-)

What I learned
This was not only a prednisone overnight US delivery 10-week course on social issues and how to make a difference, but also a prednisone overnight US delivery journey into who I am personally. There are so many big, important problems in the prednisone overnight US delivery world, and it makes me glad that people have different interests because there’s no prednisone overnight US delivery way any one person can fully engage with all of them. I learned about local issues — for instance, I didn’t understand the prednisone overnight US delivery connection between the salmon season and agriculture in the Sacramento River area, and prednisone overnight US delivery now I have at least a tenuous grasp on how they are prednisone overnight US delivery related. I learned about global issues and what daily life is prednisone overnight US delivery like in a lot of other parts of the world. Not that prednisone overnight US delivery I was clueless, but after reading the stories of people who prednisone overnight US delivery live in those places I understand a little more than I did before. I also learned about organizations that prednisone overnight US delivery actually help, and organizations that seem to help but don’t make efficient use of their resources, and prednisone overnight US delivery organizations that try to help but don’t really look to see what kind of help is needed or wanted.

I learned lots of ways to prednisone overnight US delivery make a small difference, things that I can do personally. I’m not really the prednisone overnight US delivery evangelist type, and I know that my particular path is not to prednisone overnight US delivery try to convince others to change their actions or save the prednisone overnight US delivery world; EVOKE didn’t change that. But I did learn that prednisone overnight US delivery I can be more aware and act more responsibly. I also chose to prednisone overnight US delivery make a year-long commitment to give a small donation each month to prednisone overnight US delivery an organization that improves the availability of water in places where prednisone overnight US delivery it is scarce. At this point in my life, it’s not realistic to think that I’m going to prednisone overnight US delivery go dig wells myself, but I can help in other ways. I also pushed the prednisone overnight US delivery boundaries of my comfort zone a few times and then prednisone overnight US delivery wrote about the experience in my EVOKE blog.

And, once again, I bit off more than prednisone overnight US delivery I could chew. Early in the season I started a project to develop a curriculum guide for prednisone overnight US delivery teachers who want to use EVOKE-style projects in their classes, either with or prednisone overnight US delivery without a computer. I still want to develop this, but it prednisone overnight US delivery was not the four-week project I imagined, or even a 10-week project. (If anyone’s interested in working on this, let me know! Love to have you.)

What I noticed about my own participation
The first five weeks were fantastic. When I was able to prednisone overnight US delivery engage for a couple of hours a day (yup, I really did replace WoW time with EVOKE time, and prednisone overnight US delivery it was usually one to two hours an evening, sometimes more), I was so energized and prednisone overnight US delivery excited about what I was doing and learning. Later, when I had prednisone overnight US delivery less time to devote and I fell behind a little, it prednisone overnight US delivery was still important to me to put a real effort into each objective and prednisone overnight US delivery not to phone it in — which is prednisone overnight US delivery why some of them are still undone. If I do them at all, I want to prednisone overnight US delivery do them well. I think if EVOKE had been a six-week course, I would have prednisone overnight US delivery been able to maintain the momentum that I had in the prednisone overnight US delivery early weeks. Ten weeks is a lot, and I travel a prednisone overnight US delivery lot, so that made it tough.

I really enjoyed reading and commenting on other player’s work. There’s a prednisone overnight US delivery lot of talent out there in the world, and quite a prednisone overnight US delivery bit of it found its way into EVOKE. The system that prednisone overnight US delivery supported the game (Ning) was set up in such a prednisone overnight US delivery way that managing friends was difficult; I basically accepted friendship from prednisone overnight US delivery anyone who offered, after I checked their blogs to make sure I could get along with them — not that prednisone overnight US delivery they had to have the same opinions that I do, but that prednisone overnight US delivery they weren’t spammers or narrow-minded nutcases — and prednisone overnight US delivery I offered friendship to everyone whose work I liked. I ended up with 144 friends, and prednisone overnight US delivery at some point, I read or viewed something created by each of them.

And it’s unfashionable to prednisone overnight US delivery admit it, but I liked the points and the runes. I’m very goal-oriented and prednisone overnight US delivery possibly slightly competitive. Depends who you ask. Anyway, I enjoyed playing a prednisone overnight US delivery game while I was learning and I got a huge kick out of my personal epic wins.

Epic wins?
An epic win is prednisone overnight US delivery something that is amazing and great and that makes the player happy and prednisone overnight US delivery excited and triumphant. They can vary from player to player, especially in an prednisone overnight US delivery open-ended game like this. My epic wins for Urgent EVOKE:

1. I started a teacher discussion group, initially just to prednisone overnight US delivery find people who had interests like mine, and I was awarded 100 power points (Spark) on the spot.
2. My discussion was featured on the topic page for Agent Resources and Utilities, and for a while, on the main discussion page.
3. I was picked as a hero of the week, twice.
4. I was a featured agent — my profile was featured at the top of the agents page. These rotate, so it’s not there any more. But it was!
5. Best epic win of all: Jane McGonigal commented on one of my pieces of evidence. Score! It sparked a prednisone overnight US delivery fantastic discussion in the comments section. Plus I think I agreed to prednisone overnight US delivery build a wind-powered sewing machine.

What I noticed about the game itself
The structure of the prednisone overnight US delivery game was well-designed for self-directed learning. Each week started with a prednisone overnight US delivery comic to get you interested in the topic. The comic included several references that prednisone overnight US delivery were framed as questions in an “investigate this episode” blog post, with links to prednisone overnight US delivery primary sources online where answers could be found. (I really liked that feature.) Each quest invited the prednisone overnight US delivery player to explore him- or herself, and each mission built a prednisone overnight US delivery foundation of understanding with the “learn” objective that led into planning and implementation with the “act” objective. The “imagine” objective then prednisone overnight US delivery invited players to exercise their creativity, both in terms of thinking about the prednisone overnight US delivery future and also expressing their ideas.

A couple of issues came up during the prednisone overnight US delivery season that the game runners dealt with very quickly and gracefully. Originally, every piece of evidence submitted for prednisone overnight US delivery the objectives was to be reviewed by a game runner and prednisone overnight US delivery approved before the mission rune would light up on the profile page. I can prednisone overnight US delivery tell you that excitedly completing the first mission and then waiting three days and prednisone overnight US delivery still not seeing the rune light up was NOT an epic win. The game designers know this prednisone overnight US delivery as well as I do, though, and by the second week had prednisone overnight US delivery rolled out a system where players could log their own evidence and prednisone overnight US delivery light up their own runes. Very cool.

The leaderboard was another unexpected issue that prednisone overnight US delivery was handled well. Originally, it was a list of the top players according to prednisone overnight US delivery point totals. This led to people gaming the system for more points, not unnaturally. Unfortunately, some of the prednisone overnight US delivery methods were disruptive, involving spamming other players or creating fake profiles to prednisone overnight US delivery use them for voting. The game runners could have tried to prednisone overnight US delivery police the bad behavior, but instead they made the wise choice to prednisone overnight US delivery remove the incentive and developed the leader cloud instead. This gave exposure to prednisone overnight US delivery both the top and bottom tiers of point-earners, offered more lists for prednisone overnight US delivery people to be at the top of, and included some elements of randomness and prednisone overnight US delivery effort-based recognition so that everyone might have a chance to show up there.

Then there was the drama. Oh, the drama. The game runners didn’t let it get in the way, and I won’t dwell on it, except to prednisone overnight US delivery note that in any group of 19,000 people, some of them are prednisone overnight US delivery going to get offended or upset and storm out of the prednisone overnight US delivery room in a fit of pique. EVOKE was no exception.

What I’m hoping for in Season Two
I wrote a wish list about what I’d like to prednisone overnight US delivery see in Season Two. There are a few convenience features that prednisone overnight US delivery I want, like making it easier to find interesting or relevant content and prednisone overnight US delivery better group management. I’m curious to see what issues come up as missions. I’m thrilled that there’s going to prednisone overnight US delivery be a Season Two, even if I choose not to play, because I think there’s tremendous potential here for prednisone overnight US delivery teachers and students. I think EVOKE got noticed this time around and prednisone overnight US delivery I hope lots more teachers will bring their classes in next time.

Urgent EVOKE: A Crash Course in Saving the World opened on March 3, 2010. It’s a prednisone overnight US delivery game, a learning experience, a training simulation, and a journey all in one. It was designed and prednisone overnight US delivery is directed by Jane McGonigal for the World Bank Institute. For more on the game’s background, see this WIRED article or watch the video interview with Jane McGonigal below:

The Hook
EVOKE has prednisone overnight US delivery been open two days and already has more than 7,500 members. The game will last 10 weeks, concluding on May 12, 2010, with a prednisone overnight US delivery new quest unlocked each week. The hook or premise for the prednisone overnight US delivery game is that players are members of the EVOKE network and prednisone overnight US delivery have been called to respond — or prednisone overnight US delivery will be called, in 10 years; the game moves back and prednisone overnight US delivery forth through time fluidly — to prednisone overnight US delivery an urgent food crisis in Tokyo. The story is presented in graphic novel form on the prednisone overnight US delivery main page of site and also plays out in a 90-second trailer:

EVOKE trailer (a new online game) from Alchemy on Vimeo.

The Game
Each week, players get a prednisone overnight US delivery new mission and a new quest, with three objectives (learn, act, and imagine). This week’s quest was very personal. On the prednisone overnight US delivery surface, the first mission was to answer the standard “introduce yourself” question that prednisone overnight US delivery many social networks include. But the format and the questions made me want to prednisone overnight US delivery really think about what to say, and more crucially, made me want to prednisone overnight US delivery see what other people wrote about themselves. The quest objectives are prednisone overnight US delivery categorized as learn, act, and imagine; the “learn” one was to read an outside blog post (the hits for that page must be off the charts) that prednisone overnight US delivery collected insights about social change, pick one of the insights, and prednisone overnight US delivery respond to it. The “act” objective was to prednisone overnight US delivery pick a hero to shadow, write about who they are prednisone overnight US delivery and why you chose them, and then either follow their blog or prednisone overnight US delivery Twitter stream, read their research or writings, and/or reach out and tell them you chose them as your hero. The “imagine” one was to prednisone overnight US delivery write about where you would be in 10 years when the prednisone overnight US delivery call came from EVOKE.

Players can either remain within the scenario — that prednisone overnight US delivery is, choose heroes and actions that are consistent with the prednisone overnight US delivery Tokyo food shortage theme — or make their own path, which is what I did. I’m interested in changing the prednisone overnight US delivery world through gaming and play, especially in education. So I picked Jane McGonigal as my hero, and imagined myself volunteering in schools to prednisone overnight US delivery help the kids construct and play games, and help the prednisone overnight US delivery teachers work them into the curriculum. The important thing is prednisone overnight US delivery that the quest made me think about the kinds of change I really can prednisone overnight US delivery effect.

my EVOKE profile

Game Design
The game is prednisone overnight US delivery essentially a challenge-based learning project, deployed on an enormous scale, where prednisone overnight US delivery participants can pick their own problems. The game provides a framework, but it’s up to prednisone overnight US delivery us as players to figure out what we want to learn, how to prednisone overnight US delivery go about it, where to do research, and so on. The only incentives, unless you prednisone overnight US delivery are going for one of the World Bank Institute grants, are prednisone overnight US delivery your own motivation to learn and the comments and points awarded by other players or prednisone overnight US delivery by the game shepherds.

The first quest was designed to prednisone overnight US delivery push players past their comfort zones, but only a tiny bit. The questions about who prednisone overnight US delivery we are were personal, but it was up to us how much to prednisone overnight US delivery say. The suggestion to reach out to a hero of our choosing was brilliant — for some, that requires a great deal of courage. (My hero hasn’t answered yet, but I can prednisone overnight US delivery only imagine how busy she is, with upwards of 7,500 people suddenly playing her game!)

Technical Aspects
The game platform is prednisone overnight US delivery essentially a Ning network with some additions. I could even use my existing Ning ID to prednisone overnight US delivery log on — yay! no new passwords! — and prednisone overnight US delivery it had my photo in place already. Players can add blog posts, images, videos, and prednisone overnight US delivery links very easily. It’s easy to prednisone overnight US delivery find other players and easy to interact with them.

Community
Participating in the game gets you points in different powers (collaboration, creativity, local insight, knowledge share, and so on). You can prednisone overnight US delivery award power points to others when you look at their posts (“evidence” in the game). There are prednisone overnight US delivery also game shepherds; originally, they were supposed to review every piece of evidence and prednisone overnight US delivery approve each one if it satisfied the quest, but they have prednisone overnight US delivery recently announced that we’ll be prednisone overnight US delivery able to do that for ourselves beginning next week. The Leaderboard shows the prednisone overnight US delivery top point earners and is sortable by power, so you can prednisone overnight US delivery see who has the most collaboration chops, for instance.

There are active discussions and I’ve found that lots of people are willing to comment on others’ posts. The game also has prednisone overnight US delivery a Twitter stream and makes it very easy to tweet your prednisone overnight US delivery progress, which I don’t because I’m sure all my followers could care less.

I’m very interested to prednisone overnight US delivery see what happens as time goes on. I imagine that prednisone overnight US delivery some participation will fall off after a while, and I’m curious to see who sticks it out to the end.

This is prednisone overnight US delivery a concept that has been recurring in my research over the prednisone overnight US delivery past few years, getting a little clearer each time but still not quite in focus for prednisone overnight US delivery me. The role of the teacher, in some places, is changing. A whole set of factors are prednisone overnight US delivery contributing to the change, including ready access to experts and source material through the prednisone overnight US delivery great communications medium of the Internet; open content; electronic, searchable, taggable resources that prednisone overnight US delivery make it easier to draw (and keep track of) connections between things; and prednisone overnight US delivery a growing recognition of the fact that not only is it prednisone overnight US delivery often better for students to participate in constructing their own understanding, it’s actually possible to prednisone overnight US delivery facilitate that process on a classroom-sized scale.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by Bossanostra

The 2010 Horizon Report returns to this theme, too, both in the topics (open content and electronic books in particular) and prednisone overnight US delivery in the trends and challenges noted by the Advisory Board. Classrooms are prednisone overnight US delivery changing. Students are changing. The role of the academy is changing. It’s very easy to prednisone overnight US delivery say that different equals bad, and that the anecdotal inability of today’s students to prednisone overnight US delivery sit still and receive instruction is a symptom of the moral decay of our great society, but I don’t believe that’s true. I think, instead, that prednisone overnight US delivery we stand at the edge of an opportunity to transform education into something that prednisone overnight US delivery truly addresses the interests and the strengths of each student, rather than prednisone overnight US delivery measuring each against an abstract ideal. I don’t know what it looks like. I know it’s more challenging to prednisone overnight US delivery work individually with 25 or 30 different kids, or 60 or prednisone overnight US delivery 120 different undergrads, to help them figure out interesting ways to prednisone overnight US delivery learn what you want them to know instead of presenting material to prednisone overnight US delivery them as a group and expecting them to master it. But I also feel so strongly that prednisone overnight US delivery it’s the prednisone overnight US delivery right way to go, because learning should be more than prednisone overnight US delivery something that’s fed to you in school. It’s part of what prednisone overnight US delivery makes us human and it goes on all throughout our lives, and prednisone overnight US delivery it’s not right that so many students just can’t wait for it to be over so they can get on with other things.

I think we’re poised on the brink of figuring this out — how to prednisone overnight US delivery really do it well, I mean. I think technology has prednisone overnight US delivery a lot to do with it, not for its own sake but because of what prednisone overnight US delivery it enables students to do. We’re still working out how to prednisone overnight US delivery provide access, manage workflow, protect students’ privacy while opening opportunities to prednisone overnight US delivery reach out to peers and experts around the world; we don’t yet understand how to prednisone overnight US delivery assign, supervise, and evaluate the unusual kinds of work that contribute to prednisone overnight US delivery individual learning; and there are many other obstacles, or puzzles, to prednisone overnight US delivery get around or solve. Still, I think we’re on the way there, and it’s inspiring and exciting.

Point Lobos landscape

At the NMC Summer Conference this year, Larry Johnson, Alan Levine and prednisone overnight US delivery I tried something different: we actually attended a preconference session. Crazy, I know! It was a photography workshop led by Bill Frakes (Sports Illustrated) and Don Henderson (Apple), with Bill Hanson (Apple). The session was planned and prednisone overnight US delivery organized by Larry and the three of them, and included a prednisone overnight US delivery full day walk along the California coast at Point Lobos State Reserve near Carmel, California, followed by a half-day post-production workshop using Aperture.

It was an prednisone overnight US delivery amazing day. Larry loaned me his Nikon D70 and some killer zoom lenses. I filled up 3 memory cards with the prednisone overnight US delivery 1,038 pictures I made (the best of which are in a set on Flickr buy discounted prednisone online). The whole experience — the scenery, the company, the exploring and learning — was so moving. Partly out of gratitude to prednisone overnight US delivery Bill F. and Don for leading the workshop, and partly out of reluctance to prednisone overnight US delivery let go of the experience, I started a Voicethread piece and prednisone overnight US delivery invited the other participants to comment (please feel free to add your comments, too, if you wish).

In the prednisone overnight US delivery post-production session, we each selected our five best photos (give or take); the selections were to include one landscape, one flora/fauna/nature shot, one portrait showing emotion, and prednisone overnight US delivery whatever else we liked. Bill Hanson created a video slideshow of the prednisone overnight US delivery photos we picked (see the Quicktime version here) that prednisone overnight US delivery was aired during one of the plenaries at the conference. What a prednisone overnight US delivery thrill to see them up there on the big screen!

reaching

I spent the morning at Big Rock Ranch, which was once and may still be part of Skywalker Ranch (yes THAT Skywalker Ranch) and which is where GLEF makes its home. Marin County teachers and prednisone overnight US delivery multimedia enthusiasts gathered to talk about multimedia in Marin’s schools. The event was sponsored by GLEF, the Marin County Office of Education, and the Marin Learning Conservancy.

The program was short — 8:30 to noon — but packed a prednisone overnight US delivery big punch. Kristina Woolsey kicked it off by telling us all about the prednisone overnight US delivery Golden Age of Multimedia and prednisone overnight US delivery specifically the MacMagic Classroom, which started in 1991 at Davidson Middle School, and prednisone overnight US delivery ran right up until last year. She showed a video of kids in the prednisone overnight US delivery program that was just amazing: using multimedia in a collaborative environment to prednisone overnight US delivery create projects that showcased learning and included student reflections on the prednisone overnight US delivery process and on their own personal development.

Afterward, there was a prednisone overnight US delivery panel discussion featuring two of the teachers from the 1991 MacMagic classroom (Karla Kelly and Steve Arnold), Kristina Woolsey, Reed School District Superintendent Chris Carter, and prednisone overnight US delivery 8th grade teacher Anthony Armstrong. We talked about how technology tools can prednisone overnight US delivery help kids get past learning blockages, and how teachers are really working on the prednisone overnight US delivery same things now that they were then, although the tools have prednisone overnight US delivery gotten more diverse and plentiful.

Anthony Armstrong spoke next, and prednisone overnight US delivery he totally knocked my socks off. This is not to prednisone overnight US delivery say that Kristina didn’t; I think my socks have prednisone overnight US delivery been so repeatedly knocked off by Kristina that I just check them at the prednisone overnight US delivery door when I go to hear her speak. Anthony teaches 8th grade history in Marin and prednisone overnight US delivery he talked about how he uses Wikispaces in his classes. And he really uses Wikispaces. He knows it inside and out, and he pulls in videos Flomax non prescription for next day delivery and polls and Wordle diagrams and prednisone overnight US delivery all kinds of other tools too. His students have to use primary source material that prednisone overnight US delivery he pulls together and links from the wiki — including texts, videos, images, and prednisone overnight US delivery everything you can think of — to prednisone overnight US delivery construct their own understanding of events in United States history. Anthony is prednisone overnight US delivery very firmly off the stage in his class, and the students are prednisone overnight US delivery on it. His kids work collaboratively to understand why people made the prednisone overnight US delivery historical decisions they did, to argue for other options that might have prednisone overnight US delivery happened, to explain the context of events… they debate and write and record videos… and prednisone overnight US delivery they do the wiki work as homework. In class, they work in groups using their own pencil-and-paper notes to prednisone overnight US delivery have conversations about what they have discovered in their research. In short, at the prednisone overnight US delivery end of his talk, all of us in that room were ready to prednisone overnight US delivery enroll in his class. I know I was.

When he was done, the prednisone overnight US delivery panel came up again to talk about how that kind of teaching and prednisone overnight US delivery learning can happen in more classrooms. Anthony credited colleagues (in particular, Jennifer Carrier Dorman) that prednisone overnight US delivery he met through their blogs for giving him ideas and helping him along the prednisone overnight US delivery way, and pointed out that a lot of this work exists, because other teachers have prednisone overnight US delivery put together things for their classes. He encouraged other teachers to prednisone overnight US delivery reach out and contact someone whose projects they admire or have prednisone overnight US delivery questions about.

All in all, it prednisone overnight US delivery was an amazing morning. I came away with some practical things I can prednisone overnight US delivery use, too, even though I’m not a teacher: a new angle for Smart Objects, which I’m struggling with for the K-12 Horizon Report right now; ideas for prednisone overnight US delivery how to work on projects at home with my own son, who prednisone overnight US delivery is in 3rd grade and not bored by learning, and prednisone overnight US delivery who won’t ever be prednisone overnight US delivery if I can help it; and a renewed desire to help public education be prednisone overnight US delivery something more than what a lot of it is now, instead of just turning my back on it prednisone overnight US delivery as I am so often tempted to do.

Thanks to prednisone overnight US delivery all who organized and spoke at the event today. I am prednisone overnight US delivery so glad to have gone.

The thing that prednisone overnight US delivery goes against the grain here for me is the message sent by the prednisone overnight US delivery university, which sounds a lot like “collaboration will get you thrown out of school.” While I understand the prednisone overnight US delivery value of each student learning the material, I want to argue here for prednisone overnight US delivery the equally important value of each student learning how to work with others, forming the prednisone overnight US delivery kind of reciprocal relationships that foster effective collaboration, and understanding first-hand that prednisone overnight US delivery many minds are more effective than one. Chris Avenir, the student facing expulsion, took the prednisone overnight US delivery initiative to bring 146 other students together using a freely-available technology to prednisone overnight US delivery improve everyone’s learning experience—in a prednisone overnight US delivery model of collaboration that would be very appropriate many fields of work.

Work in many professions is prednisone overnight US delivery not about getting an assignment, working on it alone, and getting it prednisone overnight US delivery right. Work is about a group of people facing a problem, using every resource at their disposal, and prednisone overnight US delivery working together to solve it. If you personally can only do 80% of the job in the working world, that’s great, you’d get a passing grade; but all 100% still needs to get done. Knowing how to bring others in to help—and having a network of people you can draw on—is a very valuable skill for an employee to have.

I did not see the prednisone overnight US delivery Facebook group, or the homework assignments. I don’t know whether the prednisone overnight US delivery exchanges were of a collaborative nature or straight-out answer swapping. But if I were part of the prednisone overnight US delivery investigation, that would be a key question for me. Because higher education should be prednisone overnight US delivery more than memorization and working alone. Higher education—heck, I’ll go out on a limb here and say all education—should teach people how to prednisone overnight US delivery collaborate. Initiative and networking in the service of learning should be prednisone overnight US delivery rewarded, not punished. Today’s students, who will become tomorrow’s colleagues, will only benefit if the prednisone overnight US delivery culture of education models effective practices of collaboration.

Flash forward 15 or prednisone overnight US delivery so years, and the situation is totally different. Instead of “You have a web page? Are you a geek?” you hear “You don’t have a web page? Have you been living under a rock?” You can prednisone overnight US delivery do all kinds of useful and fun things online, like banking and prednisone overnight US delivery gaming and shopping and keeping in touch with faraway people. But 15 years ago, we were still trying to prednisone overnight US delivery work out what the heck to use this web thing for.

Right now is the 1993 of virtual worlds. They’ve been prednisone overnight US delivery around for a while, but people are now beginning to notice them. A lot of people have prednisone overnight US delivery a presence in a virtual world, but it’s still (for many) the equivalent of “Hello, world!” or a pet page (some people ARE their pets in virtual worlds; who prednisone overnight US delivery am I to throw stones?). Companies that prednisone overnight US delivery have a presence there are in the virtual storefront stage: they maybe build a prednisone overnight US delivery replica of their building or campus, maybe duplicate their existing online shopping experience, maybe staff an prednisone overnight US delivery in-world help desk. The metaphor we all understand right now is prednisone overnight US delivery comprised of two parts: we understand buildings, and we understand the prednisone overnight US delivery dynamic 2.0 web, so that’s what virtual worlds look like at the moment, mostly.

That’s not the prednisone overnight US delivery end of the road. Just like the web right now is prednisone overnight US delivery a completely different space than it was in 1993, virtual worlds will be prednisone overnight US delivery completely different in 5, 10, 15 years. People are starting to prednisone overnight US delivery experiment with what makes virtual worlds different from physical spaces and prednisone overnight US delivery different from the flat web. When I talk about virtual worlds, I almost always get the prednisone overnight US delivery question, “What can you do on a virtual campus that you can’t do just as well on a physical one?” My answer — still — is I don’t know.

I don’t know what prednisone overnight US delivery all you can do there, but I know that what prednisone overnight US delivery you can do there now isn’t the whole answer. I don’t know what it will look like. All I know is it won’t look like it does now, and it will make now look like flatland in 1993. But the prednisone overnight US delivery only way for us to get there (and find out if there is a place we want to be) is prednisone overnight US delivery to play around, experiment, try it out, learn new things. Fail a prednisone overnight US delivery little, succeed a little more. Connect with educators, students, coders, librarians, museums, designers. Start with what prednisone overnight US delivery you know: make an avatar, fiddle around until you are pleased with the prednisone overnight US delivery look. (How many times did you prednisone overnight US delivery redesign your first web page in the first week you prednisone overnight US delivery had it? Identity is important.) Make a prednisone overnight US delivery building. Make a cup of coffee. Discover scripting and create an prednisone overnight US delivery object that does something. As more people do this, and as our expectations of what prednisone overnight US delivery is possible expand, so will the technology.

So party on: it’s early days, and we’re inventing as we go.

Holy cow, what a great conversation. I’ll just leap right in the middle, shall I? As Mike points out, the prednisone overnight US delivery griefing issue is a big deal in virtual worlds, and it prednisone overnight US delivery will always be there, as it always is in any social gathering other than prednisone overnight US delivery a private party. That’s just people; if you don’t take tickets at the door, you’ll get all kinds of folks, and prednisone overnight US delivery some of them have the agenda of messing up whatever you prednisone overnight US delivery are trying to do. In the real world we use laws and prednisone overnight US delivery police and peer pressure to limit this, but those tactics are prednisone overnight US delivery less effective in virtual worlds, where laws don’t work and prednisone overnight US delivery no one can afford to pay the policemen. The peer pressure angle doesn’t work for prednisone overnight US delivery at least two reasons: first, too many people feel that prednisone overnight US delivery their avatar is somehow a wholly other entity who can prednisone overnight US delivery adhere to any moral code (or lack thereof) without consequence; and second, because it’s hard to prednisone overnight US delivery figure out what exactly constitutes appropriate behavior in a world where prednisone overnight US delivery you can drop in on a conversation out of the sky, copy and prednisone overnight US delivery paste other people’s words without their knowing, or prednisone overnight US delivery represent yourself as something entirely other than what you are. Note that prednisone overnight US delivery I’m not saying any of these acts are prednisone overnight US delivery necessarily bad; just that the moral code is still under development, and prednisone overnight US delivery peer pressure depends on having a lot of people who all agree on the prednisone overnight US delivery basics of interaction.

I don’t think you can have an unwalled garden without any weeds. It’s true that prednisone overnight US delivery some MMOGs have gone a long way toward solving that problem, but they are prednisone overnight US delivery not unwalled by any means, and they have access to tactics similar to prednisone overnight US delivery the real world ones. In World of Warcraft, for instance, the prednisone overnight US delivery game is built in such a way as to prevent most griefing from prednisone overnight US delivery being possible, but that goes hand in hand with the fact that prednisone overnight US delivery the players can’t fundamentally change the prednisone overnight US delivery world in any way. For the situations where it is still possible to prednisone overnight US delivery get in someone’s way, they have prednisone overnight US delivery police: there are invisible game masters who could be anywhere, and prednisone overnight US delivery who can take away your account permanently (think of it as being incarcerated, it’s basically the prednisone overnight US delivery same; you have to start from scratch to rebuild yourself if you prednisone overnight US delivery still want to play). Second Life, and the Third Life vision we’re talking about here, can’t resort to those methods. It’s too limiting and prednisone overnight US delivery restrictive to forbid people from changing the world, and it goes against the prednisone overnight US delivery purpose of the world in the first place.

This is prednisone overnight US delivery one of the tougher problems that will need to be worked out. If we create invitation-only spaces, we are prednisone overnight US delivery missing out on one of the best features of massively multiplayer worlds: the prednisone overnight US delivery masses of players (or people, if you object to the term “player”). If you prednisone overnight US delivery have a world where only 30 people have the keys to prednisone overnight US delivery the door, you’ll spend a prednisone overnight US delivery lot of time waiting for people to show up, and the prednisone overnight US delivery serendipitous aspect of discovering what’s happened in your absence will be greatly diminished. You can’t lock out the prednisone overnight US delivery griefers without also locking out a whole lot of smart, creative people who prednisone overnight US delivery would contribute to the world in meaningful ways.

With respect to Bryan’s comparisons between virtual worlds and prednisone overnight US delivery text-based social spaces, I want to point out that the prednisone overnight US delivery difference between meeting people on a wiki and meeting them in a prednisone overnight US delivery virtual world is a lot like the difference between seeing fox tracks in the prednisone overnight US delivery snow and seeing the actual fox. The tracks are great—someone’s been prednisone overnight US delivery here, they were here a few minutes ago, maybe they are prednisone overnight US delivery still somewhere nearby—but it’s a prednisone overnight US delivery different experience to be right there with the fox, see how it prednisone overnight US delivery behaves, maybe chat with it a little and feel the connection of being in the prednisone overnight US delivery same place at the same time. (Okay, I transmogrified the prednisone overnight US delivery fox into the online person there, but you get the point.) I’m not sure yet whether there is prednisone overnight US delivery direct benefit for education in the second kind of interaction, but I think there is. I think it prednisone overnight US delivery might turn out to justify the effort.

Owen’s comment about the prednisone overnight US delivery incongruity of holding a professional conversation with someone representing as Flighty Moonsparks or prednisone overnight US delivery something similar is right on the money. I think LL made an prednisone overnight US delivery error in assigning a limited number of surnames, and I think our Third Life will have prednisone overnight US delivery to be a little more flexible. There’s a very real feeling of identity that comes from customizing one’s online presence—from name to appearance—and prednisone overnight US delivery if virtual worlds are to be successful, that needs to be prednisone overnight US delivery as flexible as possible. On the other hand, we also need to prednisone overnight US delivery be willing to accept that someone may choose to be (to pick an entirely random example) Ninmah while online even if her real name is, say, Rachel. Names are prednisone overnight US delivery just convention, after all.

I have to disagree with Alan a prednisone overnight US delivery little about how easy it was to make web pages in the prednisone overnight US delivery beginning. It was technically simple to create a web page, yes, but it prednisone overnight US delivery was conceptually incredibly difficult for many people, much in the way that it’s really easy to set up a Second Life account but it’s conceptually very hard to prednisone overnight US delivery work out what to do next. I do think that virtual worlds are prednisone overnight US delivery going to become easier to access, prettier to look at, and prednisone overnight US delivery more common to be in. I think there are huge obstacles to prednisone overnight US delivery work out before they are everything we want them to be, but I think that prednisone overnight US delivery we’re on the prednisone overnight US delivery road to get there, just by playing around with the prednisone overnight US delivery ones that we have now, and by having conversations like these.

The name’s gotta go, though. “Second Life” is bad enough—you prednisone overnight US delivery only get one life, period. Spend it online, offline, or both, it’s the same life.