EDUCEDGE,

Since I’ve been volunteering in my son’s class (1st grade), I’ve been looking for web-based educational games for that particular audience. I realize how my professional training and experience has absolutely NOT prepared me for this (Obviously. I never thought that I would be interested in K-12 education). However, this has become quite fun, but at time frustrating because I really REALLY have no clue where to look. So I started by the RezEd-based SIG K-8 Virtual Worlds. For those of you who have not checked out the RezEd.org site, you are really missing an absolutely awesome resource. Do yourself a favor and join (it’s free. and no, i have not personal interests in promoting it besides the fact that the more educators join, the more brains I can pick

http://www.kidscom.com/ is pretty cool. Thanks to Sally Schmidt, Executive Producer at KidsCom.com, for pointing me toward this site. It is well organized. It offers a virtual community (with a purpose) as well as online games.

Sally Schmidt (01/15/09, RezEd communication): “On KidsCom.com kids play educational games to earn Virtual Points they can use the take care of a virtual pet or buy stuff for their house, character, etc. in our virtual world. Many of the games would be appropriate for 1st graders–we have a math game called Math Monster Crunch, Tangrams game, Maze game, Appetite Attack nutrition game (although it is probably a little advanced for 1st graders). You can find these games easily by going to KidsCom.com and clicking on the Games tab in the top nav.”

Jeremy Kemp generously informed the SLED community on July 11, 2008 that he received inside info on Lively. Here is the link to his interview with ASU EdTec Sandra Andrews:
http://amazon.sjsu.edu/html-jkemp/SandraA_ASU_Lively.mp3

In this 30-minute interview she outlines general features, strengths and weaknesses of Lively as a teaching and learning tool and just a few hints on what’s next.

Other links of her projects:
http://whatscool.asu.edu
http://beta.asu.edu/myworld
http://alti.asu.edu

Some more background on this:
There were early rumors of this work in September:
http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2007/09/google-testing-.html

Also related: Google Sketchup models were rezzed in Multiverse in October: http://tinyurl.com/2fl88b

And don’t forget the Linden Lab CEO/CTO gave a bare-all demo on Google campus back in March ‘06:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5182759758975402950

More mock up of what a 3D gadget MIGHT be like:
http://googledesktopapis.blogspot.com/2008/07/gadgets-in-another-dimension.html

Also among the Google goodies, lively connection via cellphone (new cellphone OS: http://code.google.com/android