Tropical Fish: NYT's "Online Courses, Still Lacking That Third Dimension," World Univ & Sch in VIRTUAL WORLDS offers Dimensionality & Feedback

Online Courses, Still Lacking That Third Dimension
By RANDALL STROSS
Published: February 5, 2011
New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/business/06digi.html


World Univ & Sch is multidimensional via cyberspace, which is a dimension which engages so many potential dimensions of all of our minds


... and check out the picture in the top left corner and this wiki subject page for a third, visual dimension in a teaching and learning environment ...
http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Subjects .


World University and School is potentially in all 3000-8000 languages
http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Languages

... big dimensions ...

... and with all instruments, as well ...
http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University_Music_School


For multidimensionality, here's Harvard University's Second Life address ...
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Berkman/113/47/25

- and MIT OCW is the standard for courses, in response to Randall Stross's NYT's article.

(I'm not teaching a class on this virtual island this semester).


Virtual world courses, with graduate student instructors in virtual worlds, and with, for example, MIT OCW video-streamed courses, will offer both CONVERSATION, as well as FEEDBACK from real people, and not only in three-dimensions of virtual worlds (3 visual-dimensions on a 2-D screen, actually), but in generative multidimensionality of education on the web. See, for example, Immune Attack, a video game which teaches high schoolers about the immune system, here -
http://fas.org/immuneattack/ -

and here at the Free Educational Software page -
http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Educational_Software.


This has been part of World University and School's plan from its inception - out of a conversation in a class I was teaching ("Information Technology and Society") on Harvard's virtual island - around May 2008 ('Information Technology and Society' course PBWorks transcript: http://socinfotech.pbworks.com/w/page/17175609/May-21-2008-Soc-and-Info-Tech-class-transcript. This is one such transcript, but there may be an earlier one).


Free degrees planned for some matriculating classes, 25 each, beginning in 2014. See this free, on-the-ground, Harvard, doctoral degree in education for 2012:
http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Courses.









*

Here's a first book (Princeton) on Open Course Ware
Unlocking the Gates: How and Why Leading Universities Are Opening Up Access to Their Courses
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9386.html









(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2011/02/tropical-fishnyts-online-courses-still.html - February 7, 2011)