Chris Craft's Page

Hi Chris. I was wondering if you have students or educator friends who would be interested in participating in a nationwide SAT Vocab Video Contest @ MIT university. You can view contest details at BrainyFlix.com Please let me know. Thanks!

Hey Chris,
Steve Hargadon suggested I make contact with you. I'll be a first-year after-school arts mentor for an elementary school in Napa, Ca. I'll be working with 2nd--4th graders myself, and I'm planning on beginning with bilingual poetry. The kids will examine the words that we use to describe weather in the two languages, and then write poetry that mixes the two to best convey their experiences. I'm glad to do this on good old paper, but I'd like to begin incorporating web 2.0 technology into these kids' lives (not sure if they're getting it in the regular school day). Steve mentioned that you've done work with foreign languages before, and with skype/video conferencing. That's what I'm interested in. I have friends in Spain in education, and I'd like to have our kids link up with them somehow and share their poetry. Any suggestions? One concrete question I'd like to ask is if you can recommend a good freeware video conferencing download or something like that? Anyhow, let's connect.

Chris, we meet again. Just wanted to offer some opinion. I use the software Elluminate everyday when I teach. Elluminate may be beating SL right now, but I think that virtual environments are the future. Think 2D vs. 3D. There are many virtual worlds already being used and developed by users (http://www.virtualworldsreview.com/info/categories.shtml).

SL is only one example of a virtual world. The internet will eventually be run in a 3D environment, so products like Elluminate will fuse with virtual worlds. Personally, I can't wait.