Ultimate Learning Tools

Ultimate Learning Tools

B3D creates custom learning tools for educators in Second Life.  Recently, we created a flashcard game for Skoolaborate. Using this game, users in Second Life try to guess the answer of the approaching 3D Flashcards.  If a correct answer is typed in within the time limit, the flash card will explode, awarding the user points on a mysql driven scoreboard.  Contact B3D Today to help you with your educational initiatives in Second Life!

DESCRIPTION

The 3D Flash Card game was built and custom programmed for Skoolaborate, a global community of users who use a blend of technologies such as, blogs, online learning, wiki's and  ‘virtual worlds’ to transform learning.  The 3D Flash card game allows teachers in Second Life to create flash card decks for their students to use in order to sharpen their vocabulary skills.  To play the game, students first select a deck to practice. The deck cards then fly into the sky 30 meters above the user's avatar.  The flashcards then start approaching the user one at a time.  The user has a specified time limit in order to type in the correct answer and blast the flash card out of the sky!  The user has 3 chances to guess the correct answer before the time runs out.  All scores are recorded in an external database, and reported on a leader board.  This game is useful for motivating students to learn in a 3D environment.

The flash card system uses LSL and PHP, as well as MYSQL.  Photoshop was used for the texturing, and audacity for the sound editing.  Movies were all done using Camtasia, and Adobe Premier. Several opensource LSL scripts including a modified version of the XY_text script.

DEVELOPMENT TESTIMONIAL

• Chris Flesuras - SKOOLABORATE

“Paul is a tremendous talent and gifted developer. We hired him to build a complex educational tool for our organization in the virtual world client, Second Life and received it on schedule despite the project's overlap with the winter holiday season. What sets Paul apart from other developer's I have worked with is a genuine interest in creating the best possible tools for students based on his intimate knowledge of what they perceive to be interesting and "cool". In today's classrooms it is very difficult to provide content in a way that the students appreciate, mainly because of the generation gap between adult teachers and teenagers. Paul seems to have the ability to bridge this gap by understanding the educational outcomes that the teachers desire, and then developing online tools that the students find visually appealing or familiar to operate. In other words, he has the ability to speak both languages. His success is accomplished by delivering the material in "game" form. I hesitate to use the word "game" when describing what he does, because it usually implies mindless entertainment. However, Paul's builds are educational in nature and simply mimic the best attributes of games, like interactivity, moderate addictiveness, and competitive structure. Students of this new generation are consumers of interactive entertainment, and this is where our organization needed Paul. With video and lectures becoming less and less effective by the day, we needed to piece together a delivery system that provided more interactive content, which meant we needed to learn from video games and the Internet. Second Life provided the proper platform for this change in strategy, and Paul is our new "go-to" guy for development. For these reasons, I highly recommend Paul for future projects in this field.” January 15, 2010

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