tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2265659668411443893.post6689494192234226802..comments2023-11-02T02:20:42.056-07:00Comments on The Ephemeral Frontier: Learning and “Education” in Second Life -- are they two very different things?Diohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14266713613721430111noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2265659668411443893.post-41773203924883565752010-02-22T16:32:46.565-08:002010-02-22T16:32:46.565-08:00Hey Becca,
It was really nice meeting you too. L...Hey Becca,<br /><br />It was really nice meeting you too. Like Dr. Aurilio says, learning in SL is largely socially interdependent, and I hope you're getting the chance to get out exploring a bit more and meeting some new folks. <br /><br />One thing that is coming up you might be interested in, University of Texas at San Antonio is going to be having a sort of one day exposition regarding roleplay-based learning, on March 20. When you want to come visit in Deadwood, just give me a heads-up so we can find a mutually workable time to make the connection.<br /><br />Keep havin' a good time, Hon!Diohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14266713613721430111noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2265659668411443893.post-43937664299322808662010-02-22T13:02:34.561-08:002010-02-22T13:02:34.561-08:00Here's another way education happens in SL - y...Here's another way education happens in SL - you might just be wandering around your campus (SJSU in this case) and happen to run into a nice lady (Dio, in this case) who takes the time to tell you all about all kind of things in SL and introduces you to Deadwood, and before you know it you're downloading a book about the place to your Kindle to learn more about it and you've gotten some nice clothes in SL (c. 1876) so you can go visit the place to see it for yourself. <br /><br />It was great to meet you, Dio - I'll look you up soon at the hotel!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2265659668411443893.post-14041253857547619072010-02-18T10:20:36.655-08:002010-02-18T10:20:36.655-08:00Yes Rhia, I agree.
The other thing , of course, i...Yes Rhia, I agree.<br /><br />The other thing , of course, is that arguably the "old-fashioned" way of teaching may not work all that much better outside of SL either, but it has a lot more momentum behind it in that context. <br /><br />But yes, if you as an educator can find a way take advantage of the strengths of the platform, I think you'd come out ahead. For example, I really like the possibilities it opens up for bringing a group of widely dispersed students in contact with a scholar or researcher for real give-and-take conversation, the way John McKnight describes with his comment about "bringing in guest speakers from around the world."<br /><br />And I think the potential for that kind of thing isn't just limited to use by educational institutions. For example, I would love to get someone like historians Watson Parker or Kathy Luchetti together with a group of the Deadwood people. I think they'd have fun with it and the folks would learn a lot.<br /><br />I wonder if that kind of thing might be something like a state humanities council or historical society might sponsor.Diohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14266713613721430111noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2265659668411443893.post-13361744798594894872010-02-18T09:53:54.669-08:002010-02-18T09:53:54.669-08:00I thought about saying something about using voice...I thought about saying something about using voice for teaching and text for comments, but the comment was pretty long as it was. :)<br /><br />But having a less-unruly way of replicating the real world teaching paradigm doesn't get at the question of why one would want to do that. I haven't thought deeply about the issue, but my off-the-cuff view is that SL is good for some things, not so good for others, and has certain unique attributes. It may make sense, for example, to use SL for a course in scripting projectile weapons in gaming environments - one can see the code, then see how it works. Another example is the exhibit on schizophrenia (I can't recall the sim, but Emilly Orr blogged about it not long ago) that uses SL to try to convey to the rest of us the kind of optical or auditory delusions that schizophrenics may suffer.<br /><br />So, far from saying that educators shouldn't use SL because it's not as effective as the old-fashioned way of doing thing, I'm suggesting that educators consider what works well in SL and what doesn't, and play to the system's strengths.Rhianon Jamesonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13627163137265856251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2265659668411443893.post-28205512235252397342010-02-17T12:47:58.946-08:002010-02-17T12:47:58.946-08:00Hey Rhia,
Interesting that you should mention the...Hey Rhia,<br /><br />Interesting that you should mention the whole back chat issue and the nature of any discussion in SL:<br /><br />"You can't hold a large class in-world - not without serious lag, at any rate - and I expect such a class would be like a rowdier version of the Aether Salon, with random comments from students scrolling across the screen as the lecturer droned on."<br /><br />Actually, I think that reality is part of what makes a class in SL unique, and as Mr. McKnight describes in one of his posts, the result is somewhat chaotic, but there can be an "interesting conversation" going on in this type of situation. It does have its drawbacks, of course (he described a session in which he said he could only follow about 15% of the backchat). So he suggests a hybrid approach:<br /><br />"In all, though, 'speaker in voice, attendees in text' really is the best way to do an event like this: it’s really not possible to do a coherent presentation in text chat, when you’re just one voice coequal with everybody else’s, whose comments are interspersed among yours. The hybrid form still allows a clear delivery of the speaker’s message, while enabling an open conversation much more than physical-world events can."<br /><br />So there you go--a good example of an academic looking at what happens in SL when you try to offer "education"and instead of giving up looking for a new model to take advantage of the unique dynamics of a virtual discussion while still getting your own message across.Diohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14266713613721430111noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2265659668411443893.post-32994512875815761132010-02-17T09:55:45.957-08:002010-02-17T09:55:45.957-08:00Very thoughtful piece, Dio.
I came to SL a little...Very thoughtful piece, Dio.<br /><br />I came to SL a little late to see the RL businesses set up little replicas of their RL shops and wonder why this wasn't an amazing success, but I did see some of it, and wondered what kind of bozos were involved. I'm not interested in, say, a virtual Nike store when I can see the real things in a real store (or see an actual photograph of them on-line, as opposed to someone's sculpty version)...and it turns out I wasn't the only one who felt that way.<br /><br />Similarly, I see universities setting up these mini-campus replicas (I recently blogged about Penn State's virtual campus), and while they look cool, I haven't figured out what the point is. You can't hold a large class in-world - not without serious lag, at any rate - and I expect such a class would be like a rowdier version of the Aether Salon, with random comments from students scrolling across the screen as the lecturer droned on. (And the virtual "student center" was even weirder. But I digress.)<br /><br />But it's a mistake, it seems to me, for universities and businesses alike to abandon their efforts to wade into new technology, just as it's a mistake for them to simply replicate what already exists out here in the non-virtual world.<br /><br />I completely agree that "learning" is a broad term that encompasses much more than traditional, "mass-production" education. Just as you described researching 1870 mining technology, I research Victorian-era clothing, education, jobs, and so on (and then ignore most of what I learn because it's more fun that way). Others learn LSL to make cool scripted objects, thereby acquiring a skill that can be applied to other programming languages. Heck, in interacting with people of different ages, social backgrounds, and nationalities, we all learn things about our fellow humans that we would be unlikely to find out otherwise.<br /><br />I have no idea how a traditional university can translate those kinds of experiences into products that they can sell (i.e., charge tuition for), but educators - as opposed to universities, which are really just big corporations masquerading as do-good organizations - should embrace all this non-traditional stuff.Rhianon Jamesonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13627163137265856251noreply@blogger.com