FriendFeed and Second Life chemistry networking assignment

This term I am teaching introductory organic chemistry (CHEM 241). As an extra credit assignment, students had to use FriendFeed and Second Life to find 3 people on each platform doing something related to chemistry. They also were asked to take 4 pictures of chemistry content in Second Life.

The first of 2 deadlines related to this assignment has just passed and 4 students completed the assignment. I think they did a great job - take a look.

I think the networking aspects of these platforms is immense in educational fields. But it requires overcoming a bit of a barrier to entry, which was the purpose of this assignment. Students did need a bit of guidance at our workshops to get going but they caught on very quickly.

Thanks to everyone who agreed to be interviewed!

Future of Education Room in FriendFeed

I have created the FriendFeed room Future-of-Education as a means of gathering and sharing information about the future of education to assist a task force at Drexel seeking to create an environment to nurture new educational initiatives.

At the first meeting last week I shared my thoughts about the growing importance of openness in both education and research. I invite other members of our task force and any others from around the world to share relevant information and thoughts.

Hopefully I'll be able to liveblog one of our upcoming meetings on FriendFeed. This has worked very well at recent conferences - see for example the Southampton Open Science Workshop. More info on this after I discuss it with the committee.