Rhetorical Question:
Would the world be a better place if everybody could talk, learn, and work with each other?
It's rhetorical because I'm pretty sure most would answer "Yes, but that's impossible."
This page devotes itself to making the impossible possible.
In the early days of the Internet when people connected using a really annoying sounding modem to AOL, there was text based email, listservs, MUDs (Multi-User Dimensions) and MOOs. Using tinyfugue I was able to connect to 50 educational MOOs simultaneously while teaching English & ESL at Richmond High (of "Coach Carter" fame) in 1996. Please read "Building 21st Century Collaborative Learning Communities" which I wrote in 2004 and highlights one of my success stories there. I left the next year (Coach Carter's first) for a computer position in Antioch. Unable to support my family on a teacher's salary I moved to Forest Grove, Oregon where I was the Education Technology Specialist for the College of Education at Pacific University.
During that time I also supported educators online at an educational MUVE (Multi-User Virtual Environment) called Tapped In which closed its virtual doors in 2013 due to lack of funding. Of course I had a MySpace account and used it until my kids excoriated me because I wasn't using Facebook. So I created a Facebook account in 2006 and still use it every day... uh... unless I'm in Zuckatraz! Although I'm no longer employed I consider myself a career educator (Semper Sardonic) and lifelong learner. Currently I am attending the Integrating Technology: Connecting Online conference hosted by Dr. Nellie Deutsch. During that conference many interesting presentations were made regarding collaborative techniques. There was also concern and disdain for cloud sites like Google etc. with the major concern being privacy. Fees for extra storage in particular and any cost in general have a chilling effect on who can use the site. Reliability and ease of use and learning curves for site use and navigation were also concerns. Another problem is when a site goes down and you lose your work forever. The problem is there is only one Google just like there is only one Facebook, who monitors its users with bots and not humans. This centralization needs to be transcended.
My proposal is to use the Tapped In Open Source Code to rebuild a system available freely for educational use. This way every school district and university worldwide could create their own virtual district or campus on their own dedicated server. One of the developments should be adding speech to text, text to speech and instant translation. This would allow students to collaborate and acquire a second language from the first week of school. My dream is having a million of these dedicated servers running before I die and students will be working together for a much better and peaceful future.
Please friend me on Facebook and/or connect with me at LinkedIn.
please feel free to join my groups on FB:
Sustained Online Support
i'll hold a live virtual meeting (it's a FB Event) at 7:30 on Monday:
Sustained Online Support & globalCLUE
Free download to view or install Open Source Tapped In Zipped File
Contact Jeff Cooper: jbcoops@gmail.com 503-357-3577 "Please leave a message. I'll get back to ya." --Jim Rockford