Federal Agencies |

Federal Agencies

Federal Agencies. Our show on Federal Agencies included Paulette Robinson of National Defense University (and director of the Federal Consortium on Virtual Worlds), along with Erika Vick of NASA, both talking about how Federal Agencies can use a virtual worlds for outreach and education. In addition, Aimee Weber, a Second Life content designer who has contracted with several federal agencies, comments on the challenge of such work.

As virtual worlds grow in size and prominence, real-world governments have increasingly explored virtual worlds as a medium to pursue their missions such as educating the public or enforcing federal laws. Over the coming months, federal agencies are poised to coordinate their efforts to leave an indelible impact on the virtual landscape. The Metanomics community is privileged to be joined by three individuals who have been active on the frontier of e-government.

Guest Biographies

Erika Vick

Erika Vick, Program Specialist in the Office of Communications Planning of NASA. After 15 years in the Space Shuttle Program as an Aerospace Engineer, she moved to NASA’s headquarters. She is now interested in employing virtual worlds, particularly Second Life, for outreach, education, and engagement purposes for NASA through such initiatives as NASA’s Virtual CoLab. Given NASA’s relatively recent interest in using this medium, she is pursuing relationships with other government agencies to leverage resources in order to maximize the potential this technology has to offer. Click here to teleport to NASA’s CoLab sim.

Dr. Paulette Robinson

Dr. Paulette Robinson is the Assistant Dean for Teaching and Learning for the iCollege at the National Defense University. She is also manages technology for the College. In this position, she manages a distributed learning instructional design group, oversees technology purchases, reviews emerging technologies for inclusion in the iCollege labs, and implements technology and facilitates instructional use of technology for the College. As part of her position, she is also responsible to review all student assessment plans and create evaluation capabilities for College courses and programs.

In addition, she is the leader for the Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds. A group of over 1,500 from government (federal, state, local and international), industry, and academia who are interested in the use of virtual worlds in government, confronting and solving common issues, as well as sharing best practices. She is co-leading a vGov project to provide secure access to virtual worlds for government.

Before joining the Federal Government, Dr. Robinson was the Assistant Director for Academic Support in the Office of Information Technology at the University of Maryland where she managed an instructional design team specializing in e-learning, mentored faculty in the appropriate use of instructional technologies in their courses, investigated as well as recommended emerging instructional technologies, and consulted with the Center for Teaching Excellence on student assessment through faculty workshops and campus-wide presentations.

Dr. Robinson has over 20 years experience working in higher education as an administrator and faculty member. She focused her doctoral studies within higher educational policy, planning and administration in the areas of curriculum, instructional technology and e-learning. She has given over 50 presentations at national conferences and is the author of several book chapters and journal articles.