Polish in the educational space of Second Life

W artykule przedstawiono polskie inicjatywy edukacyjne w świecie wirtualnym Second Life (SL), w tym projekt Second Poland z replikami kilku polskich miast, a właściwie ich starówkami. Najczęściej był to rynek z okolicznymi kamienicami i uliczkami. Ponadto autor prezentuje polskich nauczycieli akademickich na VIRTLANTIS (wyspie w SL poświęconej nieodpłatnej nauce języków), a także Languagelab (największą komercyjną szkołę języka angielskiego, działającą całkowicie wirtualnie w SL). Autor opisuje też dwa polskie przykłady akademickie: Second UMCS (wirtualny kampus uniwersytetu lubelskiego) oraz Academia Electronica (powstała w 2007 roku, istniejąc na kształt Uniwersytetu działającego w sieci). Dwa z wymienionych projektów - Second Poland oraz Second UMCS - zostały zawieszone, jednak nie można o nich nie wspominać ze względu na ich niepodważalne znaczenie wśród polskich aplikacji w historii trójwymiarowych światów wirtualnych.The article discusses Polish educational experiences in the virtual world Second Life. First, the project of Second Poland is discussed. Replicas of some Polish main cities, or rather their old towns, were created in Second Life (SL) in 2007. Then, the author presents Polish university teachers at VIRTLANTIS (an island dedicated to teaching and learning languages) and LanguageLab (the largest commercial school of English in SL). Finally, two examples of virtual campuses in SL are described: Second UMCS (Maria Curie-Skodowska University in Lublin) and Academia Electronica (a virtual academic school). Two of the projects – Second Poland and Second UMCS – have been suspended; however, they still need to be mentioned due to their unquestionable importance among Polish applications in the history of 3D virtual worlds

School 3D

W artykule omówione są trójwymiarowe światy wirtualne jako środowiska edukacyjne. Autor koncentruje się na tzw. światach wirtualnych „na serio”, czyli środowiskach nie będących grami. Przedstawione są dwa przykłady szkół 3D w wirtualnym świecie Second Life (SL). Pierwszy to LanguageLab – największa szkoła językowa w SL – zatrudniająca kontraktowych nauczycieli, specjalistów glottodydaktyków, głównie mówców natywnych języka angielskiego. LanguageLab jest instytucją komercyjną i studenci płacą za naukę. Nie ma podziału na lata lub roczniki studiowania, lecz na poziomy kompetencji językowych. Drugi przykład szkoły 3D to VIRTLANTIS. Jest bardziej nieformalna, mniej „zinstytucjonalizowana” i co ważne, otwarta dla każdego, a nauka całkowicie darmowa. Szkoła oferuje naukę kilkunastu języków. Na koniec artykułu autor podaje dwa przykłady polskich inicjatyw edukacyjnych w świecie Second Life.The article discusses three-dimensional virtual worlds as educational environments. First, a general introduction to the so-called Serious Virtual Worlds is given. Then, two examples of 3D schools in Second Life are described. First, Language Lab, the largest school of English in Second Life. It employs contracted, highly-qualified faculty, mostly native speakers of English. The school is commercial and students pay for education. It has no years of study but levels of language competence. The students advance to higher levels along their study. VIRTLANTIS is the second example. It is a less formal and less institutionalized 3D school where one can learn several languages across the world. The author concludes the article with two examples of Polish academic initiatives in the world of Second Life

Nowe obszary edukacji - trójwymiarowe światy wirtualne

Autor porusza problematykę trójwymiarowych światów wirtualnych i ich miejsca w edukacji. Są to jednocześnie środowiska edukacyjne i społecznościowe, jak i narzędzia edukacyjne w rękach nauczyciela lub ucznia. Światy wirtualne 3D są w momencie tworzenia tekstu zjawiskiem stosunkowo mało znanym w Polsce. W pierwszej części rozdziału podano krótką charakterystykę tych światów. W dalszej omówiono pokrótce największy z nich – Second Life wraz z kilkoma przykładami wirtualnych kampusów oraz instalacji o zastosowaniach edukacyjnych. W kolejnej części autor formułuje kilka implikacji dla pedagogiki oraz dla nauki

Shaping Behaviors in Virtual Worlds – Gender, Culture, Education. Teacher’s Reflections from Second Life

The article focuses on the phenomenon of how human behaviors are shaped in the environments of three-dimensional virtual worlds. The so-called serious virtual worlds are taken into consideration. They are sometimes defined in the literature as social environments. The largest ones – like Second Life which has several millions of user accounts – are indeed multi-national and multi-cultural in character. Users, or residents, take part in social, cultural, artistic events or just explore the virtual space for their own reasons. The total area of Second Life is comparable to several Manhattans, so the opportunities to find new interesting spots or to meet new people seem endless. Some key questions covered in the article are: How do people – through their avatars – perform in the three-dimensional virtual world in communicative situations? Do they copy their physical world behaviors onto the virtual? Do they adopt behaviors from other people/avatars, or maybe they reshape their own? The final question is what possible implications for pedagogy and education are –with reference to learning and teaching practice in 3D environments. Examples from author’s experience in virtual worlds will be given

Academic environment in the Second Life – groups, courses and academic programs

The article presents the three-dimensional virtual world of the Second Life as a filed of academic activity. The educational sector in the Second Life is still powerful and active despite certain decrease of virtual worlds’ popularity as social and business environments in the recent years. The paper provides a description of member and thematic groups as the academic cooperation tools. It also discusses the workshops, certified courses and academic programs organized in the Second Life, whose aim is to educate the scientific and didactic staff working in virtual environment

Wydawnictwa CD-ROM w Polsce

CD-ROM technology becomes cheaper, and consequently more available. The number of CD-drives sold in Poland has doubled within a year. Most computer shops in Poland offer nowadays the so-called multimedia sets, which additionally contain: a CD-ROM drive, a sound card, speakers and appropriate software. This creates new opportunities for Polish producers of CD-packages. The first part of the article describes briefly the hardware-software development of CD-technology. The second part deals with main applications of CD-ROM in education. A division of CD educational software is presented and some typical examples are given. The third (the main) part of the article gives a comprehensive and up-to-date list of Polish CD-ROM packages available on the market (Dec. '96/Jan'97). The whole list covers almost thirty titles: 14 packages for language learning, 8 encyclopedias and thematical databases, 3 dictionaries and a few other programs. Each title is described for its characteristic features and capabilities. A selected bibliography is given and a number of supplementary readings. Part four of the article lists those packages which are either being developed now, or are announced by the producers themselves to be published soon. The last few paragraphs deal with some perspectives of CD-ROM production from the technical point of view

Methods and Forms of Distance Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Conclusions from the Literature Review

The main goal of the text is to collect conclusions from the experiences of educators and researchers with regard to various aspects of distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusions were collected on the basis of the author’s own experience and the selected source literature. The article consists of two parts: “Conclusions from Polish literature” and “Conclusions from foreign literature”. As the article presents mainly the Polish perspective, the first part is significantly longer than the second one. Part One deals with such issues as: the model of distance learning, the time of pandemic as a crisis situation, priorities in distance education in conditions of isolation, the issue of isolation, and some principles of assessment, among others. The university e-learning platform was also discussed as an example. Part Two addresses such issues as: seven lessons from the pandemic, effectiveness of online testing, psychological aspects regarding a student and a teacher, and augmented reality in distance education during COVID-19

CD-multimedia dla dydaktyki

CD-ROM, a new technology of high-capacity disks, becomes more and more popular, also in Poland. It is extremely useful for educational purposes, especially in multimedia, interactive programs and simulations. CD educational software develops in a few directions. The most popular kind of programs is the multimedia encyclopaedia, where the student searches through articles on a wide variety of subjects. He explores knowledge making use of text, movies, narrated animations and sound samples. There are others too. The article describes different kinds of CD-ROM software and its educational implications. It presents its most powerful features and gives a number of examples of CD software available on the Polish market. „Microsoft Bookshelf for Windows", „The New Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia" and the „Knowledge Adventure" series are discussed among others. There are also some examples of Polish CD software given

Wszechobecne środowiska uczenia się

W artykule poruszono wybrane, szybko rozwijające się trendy w pedagogicznych i edukacyjnych zastosowaniach technologii informacyjnych. Postępująca miniaturyzacja sprzętu komputerowego wyzwala nowe koncepcje dla edukacji wspieranej elektronicznie. Jedną z nich jest mobilność, a drugą wirtualność. W artykule przedstawiono dwa równoległe nurty nowych i nowatorskich koncepcji: [1] indywidualne środowiska uczenia się, uwzględniając środowiska w technologii mobilnej; [2] wszechobecne uczenie się (u-learning), koncepcja pedagogiczna, która narodziła się na początku XXI wieku i rozwija się do tej pory. W u-learningu ucznia otaczają wszechobecna oferta edukacyjna w rozumieniu materiału i strategii, właśnie dzięki urządzeniom mobilnym. Autor przedstawia powyższe trendy, omawia implikacje pedagogiczne, podaje przykłady projektów edukacyjnych różnych krajów.The article covers some of the most rapidly developing trends in pedagogical/educational applications of modern information technology. The ongoing miniaturization of computer devices results in bringing new approaches to electronically based education. Mobility is one of them, experiments with virtual educational offer is another. Two main streams of modern and novel approaches are discussed: [1] individual learning environments based on handheld devices and mobile technologies; [2] ubiquitous learning (u-learning), a pedagogical concept that was born in the early 21st century and still gains growing popularity, which puts the learner among omnipresent learning opportunities that are available ‘here and now’ hence mobile devices. The author introduces the new trends, discusses their pedagogical implications, gives examples and describes some present and future research projects