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The Use of Moodle and Virtual Reality in Classics Teaching Dr. Lisa St. Louis, Dean Dr. Shawn Graham, Vice Dean Slide 2 RWUs Moodle: Main Page Slide 3 Greek Font Slide 4 Latin 101 Opening Screen Slide 5 Latin and Greek Audio Files Latin file Latin Moodle file.mp3Latin Moodle file.mp3 Greek file Greek Moodle file.mp3Greek Moodle file.mp3 Slide 6 Pronunciation Assignment Slide 7 Homework Assignment Slide 8 Gradebook Slide 9 The Moodle Site Slide 10 Quiz Module Slide 11 RWUs First Graduation Ceremony June 15, 2007. Back row from left: Dr. Graham (Vice Dean), Mr. Spilker (Registrar). Front row from left: Dr. Dallal (Hebrew and Arabic), Dr. St. Louis (Dean) Slide 12 Expand your Vocabulary MUVE MOODLE LMS CMS Immersive World WIMBA WEBCT Blackboard (no, not that kind) Slide 13 How Do Students Learn? Visual Auditory Reading Kinaesthetic Slide 14 Other Learning Management Systems WebCT Horizon Wimba Slide 15 RWUs Moodle: Now with Wikis, Skype and Games Slide 16 The Value of Games in General Quotation from Chris Crawford, 1982. Slide 17 The Value of Historical Games Why do people play historically-themed games? For the pleasure of finding out what happens next In many ways, the same motivation for historians: What happened then? Why did it happen? To play a game successfully, the gamer has to learn why things happen the way they do in order to win To be a successful historian, the historian has to learn why things happened the way they did Slide 18 Games: Good for building knowledge Seymour Papert James Paul Gee Slide 19 Games: Good for Problematizing Knowledge Playing games is a cyclical process: Formulating hypothesis Testing Revision Cognitive Disequilibrium (paraphrase of Van Eck statement 2006: 20) Feedback Slide 20 Commercial off the shelf games Caesar IV is pictured here. Others include Civilization IV. Slide 21 Second Life: a multi-user virtual environment (A game? Most people would dispute this.) Slide 22 Slide 23 Second Life Some ancient-themed areas already exist But be careful, as this world is based on land ownership and sometimes what *was* an ancient- themed area is now something rather different Slide 24 RWUs Plan for Second Life Private island for students, faculty to meet Until we buy our own island we are using our Moodle providers island EduNation. Greece, Rome, Israel sections. Students interact with characters programmed to speak to them in the ancient languages. Simulations for learning and practice: senate house for Cicero, theatre for Euripides, grassy field for archaeological methodology Slide 25 Potential For Learning in Second Life Better bond between students Increased connection between faculty and students Increased student learning (Paraphrase of the statement of Sarah Intellagirl Robbins, Ball State University)