First: I'm having a very bad brain week; my attempts to form proper-sounding sentences have generally been failing, muddling the communicative content, or both. I want to catch this open thread, though, with this question, so I'll be posting in what is to me an easier way of stringing words together. Please don't take it as anything but that; I'm not trying to be difficult or to display any particular 'tone of voice'. (Do feel free to ask about this; I don't mind talking about it. It's not entirely unusual for me, and is one of the reasons that I'm fairly sure I'm autistic. Just don't ignore the actual question in favor of picking my brain, please.)
The company that I work for has been hired to create a virtual campus (3d, in opensim, with some traditional web-2.0 parts) for this school. They appear to be fairly new to virtual worlds and online education (more so than the web page suggests: I'm not sure that they have any students following the shown program yet), and we're in a position to guide them toward or away from certain technologies and ways of doing things. We're already, for example, suggesting that they consider minimizing the use of realtime lectures, and use recorded presentations followed (not necessarily immediately) by both realtime and non-realtime discussions instead. We're pushing for them to incorporate options that allow and encourage students to learn (and learn to learn) in whatever way is best for them, rather than enforcing one-size-fits-all methods, and we're intentionally trying to include 'covert learning' as well (simple example: purposefully using more formal avatar animations in more formal areas, to let the students literally see how to carry themselves in such situations). The first group of students to be using our virtual campus will be in grades 4-8, and I don't believe we'll be able to influence their actual curriculum at all (though if someone wants to offer to mentor some kids in one topic or another, they might be interested).
Those who have made a formal effort to learn via online resources: What advice do you have to offer? What kinds of technologies, or uses of technologies, have worked for you, and what kinds of tech do you wish you had access to?
For me personally, I would prefer transcripts and written summaries of any audio or video content. I find it very difficult to listen to and learn from hearing audio when sitting at a computer, and having text or a transcript to read from instead helps a lot. It allows me to read at my own pace and go back and forth when I need to.
I'd also like any audio and video content to be easily and separately downloadable, so I could listen to it at my own convenience. And I'd want any slides or demonstrations to be easily printable, so I could see it on paper and w...
And happy new year to everyone.