Joe Sanchez and Leslie Jarmon – The Educators Coop

In the spirit forging ahead and “keeping it real” we want remind ourselves, and each other, who we are and why we got involved with the Educators Coop.

We begin our reflective journey with Chade Villota.

Chade has been with the Educators Coop since its beginning.  He may very well have been the first member and is almost certainly the first tenant.

He is no stranger to Second Life and virtual worlds.  Chade has been in SL since April of ’07, and has been involved with 3D virtual spaces for almost 9 years as a natural outgrowth of his interest in online multiplayer spaces.

His interest in online multiplayer spaces began in the early 90′s in text based worlds working on MUDs and MUSHes.  Chade became involved with the Educators Coop through the Embodiment Research Group where he was working with Bluewave Ogee.  They announced the Educators Coop project and its goal to help educators make the transition into virtual worlds.

Chade currently works with the National Center on Severe and Sensory Disabilities and so he channeled that knowledge and passion into Second Life and the Educators Coop.  He is working to help make SL accessible to people who are blind or visually impaired.  His work on the board of Virtual Helping Hands makes this possible as they’re in the process of rebuilding Accessible Guilds and Club Accessible.

One of their latest projects was the creation of  a virtual German Shepherd guide dog named Max, who can also appear as a cane or completely incognito as a ring for those who choose not to share that they are using an assistive device.

Max has  scripting that tells the owner where they are.  The owner can also tell max to follow, find, or read – among other commands.  Chade also created Marco/Polo scripting which annotates a 3D space.  Max can read the description of an area and tell the owner what’s there based on the description.  Assistance devices like Max make it possible for the owner of a region to tie descriptions to locations.

For example, if you teleport into a region with Max, he can tell you who is there and, if desired, to speak to someone or bring you to them.  Max even does text-to-speech and clicks mouse buttons.

To learn more about the completely free and innovative Max and the Virtual Helping Hands organization, visit www.virtualhelpinghands.org.

In the Educators Coop, Chade primarily helps other members with building and scripting.  He also works to reform education in Second Life; encouraging educators to use and explore all of the possibilities of a 3D virtual space instead of merely recreating more traditional transmissive classrooms.

One exciting example of his assistance with Second Life education was for a project at UT Austin’s Oceanography Department.  Chade designed a simulator to help the students learn  virtually, thereby avoiding the cost of taking research vessels out to the Gulf of Mexico.

In Chade’s simulation, a harbor was recreated complete with salinity, dissolved oxygen, plankton, temperate, wind, air pressure, and any other scientific element the students may need to measure or observe.  In addition, Chade designed instruments that would read the models and display them in real time.  This allowed the students to practice real science; collecting and managing data, making hypothesis and then testing them.  Chade is eager to show other educators of possibilities such as this one that they may use all that Second Life has to offer.

In “real life,” Chade Villota is Dr. Nathan Lowell, professor at Morehead State in Kentucky and currently working at the University of Northern Colorado.  He achieved his M.A. in Educational Technology and his PhD in Educational Technology with concentrations in Distance Education, Instructional Design, and Interactive Media.