Have asked Johnathans permission to grab extracts from his thoughts so will keep posting this conversation here. Its an interesting one.
"You could, if you wished, develop a "Virtual Portfolio Module" to integrate with your (possibly larger) 2D Moodle ePortfolio System there at Oakland University. By using SLoodle to form multiple bridges that should fit neatly into your learning curriculum ePortfolio plan that the students and teachers co-design and enact (to meet standards and your school mission statement of course!), you could successfully balance a 3D and 2D portfolio. If the students and teachers in your program spend time in Second Life, they can now, I bet, use 3D - to 2D - 3D Sloodle tools like quiz, blog, chat, login zone, etc. (see Brent Capriotti's awesome site: http://edtech2.boisestate.edu/capriottib/sloodle/) to plug into each student's individual Moodle course ePortfolio.
What students build in SL, they could fairly simply incorporate into their Portfolio in your institution. wow.
Students can build Personal Quests in Second Life as part of their personal Moodle Course-made ePortfolio using Sloodle tools. Faculty determine the appropriateness of the quest by going INTO the quest and using the assessment rubric that the student-teacher team created.
Students can build Personal Museums in Second Life as part of their ePortfolio using Sloodle tools best if your ePortfolio shell is done with Moodle.
Students can participate in Communities in Second Life where they collaborate and contribute a significant piece to the construction of a project -- as part of their ePortfolio. They can do it most efficiently and effectively if they use Sloodle tools to port into your Moodle ePortfolio.
The experiences available to students in 3D worlds appear ready to now be integrated into a student's portfolio, with a just a little research and development . Really though - the pieces are ALL there! What I mean is that schools will be able to use, if they desire - the tricky-but-workable knowledge of running a performance-based, standards-driven ePortfolio System (see my friend Helen Barrett's site: http://electronicportfolios.com ) with the more experimental, but WHOLLY different set of strengths and affordances found in Second Life - (our new SLamander Project to catalog Learning Objects in SL) ... and by being able to both modulate the amount and the degree of student virtually moderated experiences in a formal learning program through the SLoodle interface, the Learning Objects available in Second Life will be served a channel for classroom potential use. I seems to me like --WHOOOOM!!-- a big key to adding Multi-User Virtual Environments and MMPORGs to the functional learning evironments that exist for us in the 21st Century has bumped together.
I know the question as to what degree the school systems should actually be doing the bending to be incorporated within the 3D Virtual World is out there with much good voice & motion.... There are many possible improvements on the present School Machine that we should be worried about making. But those issues: for me, in a nutshell, that schools need to teach Critical Thinking, Creative Problem Solving, and Future-focuse Scenario Learning - in addition to Content Knowledge, Content Knowledge, Content Knowledge and the acquisition of a Discipline (read Howard Gardner's new book "Five Frames for the Future" - and Tom Lombardo's new book, "The Evolution of Future Consciousness" - PLEASE!) - those issues are not possible until we leverage the power of collaborative, constructive 3D media to bring to bear on the knowledge of teaching and learning we have discovered over millennium - but particularly in the last 25 years.
Anyways! <<ahem>>... we might have a way to make the scripted games, things to do, and collaboration opportunities in Second Life sing - because whatever collection of 3D immersive learning tools and builds in SL might be available, many educators have not had many ways to connect them with what we do in our organizations. But now we could.
this is totally crazy thinking, I know, but I just keep thinking it's worth saying out loud. .... um, is it? ha!
I totally am itching to put one of these 3D - 2D ePortfolio programs together!
Conceptual Framework - purpose - audience - goals - program needs - artifacts by course - selection process - reflection modes - rubrics - assessment and celebration benchmarks - feedback mechanisms - formative / summative processes - portfolio development processes braided into matriculation - and technical / conceptual negotiating ---- there is a LOT to these teaching and learning engines. They aren't for everyone, but I bet we can mix things anew and get much closer to a Universal Design for Learning (UDL).
~ Jonathon / Wainbrave
University of Oregon"