Welcome!

Gabe here, the instructor of the course. I'm a former teacher, education researcher, and now CEO of an ed-tech company in the 3D/VR space called Edorble. This is just a quick note about how this class will be conducted, along with some tips on how to navigate it. At the bottom you'll find ways to contact me, and I am always all ears for any feedback or comments. If you like what you're seeing and think your colleagues might be interested, the more the merrier - just share this link. If you'd like to repost to your own site any of the content you see on this course, please ask for my permission before doing so and source it back here. If you're willing, introduce yourself in the comments of this post, sharing whatever you'd like about yourself, and include your Twitter handle if you'd like to network with other teachers interested in this space. I'm also curious to hear what you're hoping to get out of this course.

Each week will revolve around a particular theme, and I'm going to post the units for each week on each Saturday. Each unit contains a few readings, questions, and tasks to complete. Most tasks in week one will involve responding to the material in the comment section at the bottom of each unit, but in later weeks, tasks will have you doing some creating and tinkering with tech tools, and then sharing links to those creations with the class. It's worth noting that week 1 has us doing some thinking and reflecting about this technology, and it's not until later weeks that we do more playing/tinkering. I think it's important not to leave out this piece, and I hope after looking at the material that you'll agree.

You can do these units at your own pace, but I'd like us all to stay together at the weekly level. In other words, as best we can I'd like us to be working through the content within the same weekly time frame. I want you to respond to the comments and work of your peers, and this will be more impactful if we are looking at the same material in the same rough time frame. So, do the units at your own pace but stay within the weekly time frame. When week 2 hits, we should all be finished with the units from Week 1. The work we've done in Week 1 will help nuance our conversations moving forward, and so forth.

I also encourage you to communicate any of your thoughts or interesting links for the class with the hashtag #vredchat on Twitter. I'll be actively monitoring that hashtag, and I encourage all of you to check in on it and contribute to it! I'll also use it to share new articles or items that are relevant to the class. I'll be tweeting from the @edorble twitter handle.

I recognize that many of you enrolled in the class have been working in this space for years, and will undoubtedly have insights or materials that I haven't furnished. I am always open to hearing your thoughts on things the class should check out if you think it would be worthwhile. Email me, share them on #vredchat, or post them in the comments on a relevant unit ...help us all out! I also know that we have people here from a wide range of disciplines, educational contexts, and grade levels, from K-adult.

Not all units and materials will be relevant to everyone. In the future, we'll be offering more courses that hone in on specific subjects. Feel free to email me if you have specific requests, or if you'd like to collaborate with me on a course in the future.

If you're curious to know more about what I do when I'm not doing this, feel free to check out edorble.com. If you have a "multiplayer" 3D/VR project that you'd like to bring to life, we can probably work with you to make it happen. Shoot me an email.

For comments, questions, feedback, ideas, or trolling I can always be reached at:

email: [email protected]

twitter @edorble

phone: +1-717-713-3610

whatsapp: +1-717-713-3610

skype: skygabe3