Silvertomorrow’s Weblog

I am taking a digital media course this summer with Dr. Mark Grabe and I am learning to use aggregators. I’m embarrassed that I haven’t been using them but nope; I didn’t know which one to use and didn’t feel like I had time to read other people’s blogs anyway. I am really enjoying it though. Using Google Reader (GR) as the aggregator rather than Bloglines which I think might be more intuitive but not sure if it’s as powerful. GR let’s you choose post by post what you want to make public where I think in Bloglines you have to choose the entire subscription. I’m not 100% sure of that – still reading. I want to make my blogroll come up here on my blog but I’m still figuring that one out.

Educational value is quite obvious; social networking of course being the main advantage; for example, Mark wrote about Jott in one of his blog entries, which i saw in my GR page, and I immediately signed up – what a brilliant idea! I also immediately told my husband about it and he signed up. In someone else’s blog that is pushed to my GR page, I read about a 5th grader who blogs and now i have my 4th grader all excited about blogging this summer – she even called her friends to brag about her blog, MoMo Meanders (beware of bright pink; wear shades). When we went outside we took photos to put on her blog. I hope it lasts. Examples of social networking at it’s best.

My only concern is that there will be TOO much information to process coming into Google Reader and it will pile up and then I’ll never want to open it; though I did add my twitter feed which will be neat to see. There are so many ways to reach out I don’t know how to keep up with them all. I started a google portal page (igoogle) so maybe that will help keep everything organized. It’s like pageflakes and netvibe but i’m used to the layot and feel of google so i’m sticking with.

My first Editorial Board position is with a new journal called the International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations (IJGCMS). I did a couple of reviews for them last year and when the call for editors went out, I jumped on it. I’m very excited to be involved and hope that I can contribute value.

So, below is the first call for proposals that i received:

“I am happy to report that we are now working on the Spring Issue (#2) of 2009. If you have a paper that you have been working on, or you know of others that are in the process of finishing up a paper, please consider submitting your paper (or asking them to submit their paper) for review at IJGCMS.  To have enough time to be reviewed for publication, manuscripts for volume #2 would need to be submitted by June 15, 2008.

The full call is available on the IJGCMS website at: http://www.igi-global.com/ijgcms.  Paper submissions can be sent to ijgcms@gmail.com.  ”

Attending this class helped me to realize that I know, well…at least the basics of building. Sally Savard used good instructional design by providing students with notecards to supplement the text chat and slides she was using. That turned out to be a big help to me beacuase I got there late (I couldn’t TP for some reason) and they helped me catch up. Fortunately I knew what was taught in the section I missed. In Part 2 we built a snowman and I re-learned how to link objects and change textures on objects that are already linked.

I cant say it was an exciting class because I already knew a lot of what was being taught, but that fact did help me build confidence and will prepare me for the next level.

I am a member of New Citizens Incorporated (NCI) in SL. They are an active group supporting new and old residents in learning about SL. They hold regular classes in varoius subjects such as building, scripting, and textures. I attended my first scripting class and had a great time!

The instructor covered a a lot of what she called “theory” at first. Rather than theory I would call it the basics; what is a script, how do you put it in a prim, what are the main components of a script. 

She used scripts to insert the information into public chat. At first the pace was fine and the information was easy to follow. She laid it out so that each new subject was separated by spaces for easier viewing. When there were questions she jumped in with live text chat and answered them.

At first I was worried that the text would be really difficult to keep with and so I mentally gave myself the option to leave if I felt overwhelmed, but it really wasn’t bad at all and I ended up getting the hang of it quicker than some of the others (much to my surprise).

When people had problems the instructor asked them to copy the script into a notecard and send to her. She then assisted them in troubleshooting and how to fix it. She also explained what he component was and what it meant. I learned a lot of other people’s mistakes even though I couldn’t see them; she put them in chat and discussed.

I saved the chat to review later and am looking forward to playing with some freebie scripts.

I learned  how to make a prim spin on touch and on collision which sounds mundane but for me it was thrilling. I’ve been in SL for almost a year and have been extremely shy about taking these classes. Necessity won out and now I feel ready to tackle it all…well…at least basic scripting 2!!

This post is in response to another instructors response on the T&L in SL discussion board:

I have recently studied what some call “minimally guided instruction.” (Kirschner, 2006). Basically the idea of the paper is that methods that have little to no instructor guidance, like problem- case- based learning, experiential learning, and pure discovery, tend to flop. The key to this finding is the scaffolding provided for the instruction, whether from an in-person instructor or other methods like worked examples. The reasoning behind this finding is that as we take in new information, we hold it in working memory which has a very limited capacity (4 +/- 2) and duration (@20 seconds). If we place students in a learning environment in which they have to simultaneously learn the information while also attempting to discover a solution to the problem, they will not learn a thing. The information will come into, and pass out of, working memory without being processed into long-term memory (LTM).  Kirschner says ‘learning is a change in LTM” and “LTM is the central structure of cognition.”  This may seem obvious, but it really brings the point to a head- if we don’t remember it, we haven’t learned it, and how can we learn it if we can’t even make sense of it?

That brings me to another issue with minimal guidance; learners in these settings frequently create incorrect mental models of the concepts they are meant to learn, and/or they completely miss the important rule or principle. The only way minimally guided instruction can be effective (according to this research review article) is if knowledge already exists about the subject. This is why we hear so many complaints about medical education; doctors aren’t learning the range of information they need to make accurate diagnoses; they learn about one specific type of heart condition, for example, because that is the particular case they experienced, and they cannot transfer or generalize that knowledge because they don’t have enough of the background information to do so (Grabe, 2008)!

So, my point is, even if you have to create structured, detailed lesson plans to please the higher ups, I am glad to see that your approach includes initially guiding students to the information they will need to know before they participate in conducting open ended research. This is good because once they have the basic knowledge, they will be forced to activate their mental models, test them during the activities, and revise what they know according to what they experienced. Good strategy!

Kirschner, PA, Sweller, J, & Clark, RE. (2006). Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: An analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential and inquiry-based teaching. Educational Psychologist. 41(2), 75-86.

 Grabe, M. (2008). PSYC 501 Educational Psychology. University of North Dakota. Notes from class.

1.  Should there be agreement with your institution about what is acceptable

2.  appearance and dress for a faculty member in SL?

3.  Should there be an agreement with the institution at some point?

4.  What are the implications relating to teacher identity in SL in relation to:

o  multiculturalism

o  inclusiveness

o  middle-aged white stereotypes

o  gender

o  “local standards of decency” – what is “local”?

5.  What might reasonable institutional expectations be?

6.  What about your academic freedom of expression?

With regard to the institutional issues raised above (from the T&L class):

These are difficult questions. I can understand an institution’s collective desire to represent a certain standard of appearance and behavior, and at the same time I think academic instructions should encourage and support freedom of expression. There is too much censorship in this country as it is. Honestly, I don’t know how to answer this question, but I think much of the answers will depend on the institution, its alumni and its geographic location

This is a pic of Silver as a mermaid which was created in honor of Rowan’s birthday party. Rowan ( a wonderful builder friend) created a gorgeous cyber mermaid for me but it’s very high prims so I decided to go shopping for an alternative. There were many beautiful options to choose from but I settled on the purple rainbow look in honor of my children who love purple ( and so do i). The hair took me hours to find; I looked while I sat on the phone with a friend listening to her talk about her problems so I didn’t feel like I was wasting my time doing either task! I didn’t realize that the shape and skin were going to change as well but I really loved the end result and got many compliments on her looks at the party. I did not get a swimming script with the outfit which I think would have made the experience more enjoyable and engaging for me. By the end of the party I had removed the fin and walked around on bare feet. I did not relate very well to the mermaid persona. I have noticed that I dress Silver very much the same way I would dress in real life (if I spent that kind of money on clothes!). I’ve decided to begin branching out and trying new things with her look; the mermaid experience gave me confidence that I CAN get back to my beloved skin/shape/hair.

 From the T&L in SL class discussion board; questions written by Dr. Mauri Collins and Ann Jeffery, instructors:

       Berge, Zane, The Role of the Online Instructor/Facilitator http://www.emoderators.com/moderators/teach_online.html

       Mason, Robin, Moderating Educational Computer Conferencing http://www.emoderators.com/papers/mason.html

When instructors move from the classroom into online courses, their roles change – and change again when they begin to teach in Second Life.

Please read the Mason and Berge articles.  For those of you who are teaching in Second Life reflect on your own transition; for those of you who are working with inducting faculty into Second Life, consider how you can help them transition in their roles:

       Pedagogical

       Social

       Managerial

       Technological

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Last summer I worked as a student grunt worker for UND’s Online Team. Most of what I did was copying and pasting from a pre-written storyboard in Word to cookie cutter courses in Blackboard with occasional HTML re-working for those pain-in-the-butt M-dashes. The real learning happened as I eavesdropped on the professional instructional designers gently guiding and sometimes not-so-gently cajoling instructors towards good online practices. I had the privilege of acting as ID for the building of a Music course and learned a TON about the transitional process instructors experience. As I’m sure most of you have seen, professors who have been teaching for a long time tend to be resistant to change. But the bottom line is, methods have to change when you’re not standing in front of a room full of people to teach them. Even when conducting a video conference, which would probably be considered the closest online alternative to face-to-face, there are different dynamics that the technology brings to the classroom. Many of the instructors that work with the Online Team come back saying they have altered their in-person instruction to reflect what they do in the distance courses they create simply because it works better! Imagine that!

Dr. Berge’s list of recommendations seem dead-on with regard to the things that instructors need to be cognizant of when teaching (in general and) online. I have experienced both exceptional and not-so-great online instruction (from the same person, ironically) and as I look down this list of recommendations, I can easily pick out the reasons why the good instruction was good and the bad instruction was bad. I would say the biggest factor in this is feedback. Dr. Berge states, “Provide Feedback. Provide swift feedback, especially to technical problems.” In fact, the problem was that we were getting little, if any, feedback on the discussion board and on the assignments. The complaint was universal; this course is well–designed and I am learning a lot, but I’ve had to do it alone and I’m getting no guidance as to whether I’m going in the right direction. What am I paying for? The fact is, we’re paying for the expert’s input and guidance on our work so that we can model ourselves after someone who knows what they’re doing. So, they need to make their presence known through timely and thoughtful feedback.

When it comes to Second Life, I think management of in-world courses is a monumental task which requires a second or even third person. For example, there are many good reasons to conduct a two-track session; voice and text. One is ADA which requires us to accommodate all learners; another is simple courtesy for those in the class who cannot use audio or voice. If time cannot allow good planning for prewritten text, then other instructors or students can be assigned the task of transcription. This is also a method for archiving which is good to have for students who were absent.

From the T&L in SL Discussion board (names used with permission):

Learning spaces is a subject of continuing debate between your instructors.  One instructor, MissAnnie (Ann Jeffery) is an advocate for the abandonment of formal mimic-RL learning spaces (classrooms and ampitheatres) in SL in favor of experiential and immersive learning spaces.

The other instructor, MsMauri (Mauri Collins) is of the opinion that they have their place.  Humans are encultured into the formal learning space from the moment they first step into a preschool classroom and it can reduce cognitive load to be learning in familiar (if dysfunctional) learning spaces.

Both agree that “bottoms in seats” learning spaces do not meet all the learning needs of all adults all the time.

I agree that we have to find more immersive ways to use SL, but I have to say I agree with the way MsMauri states her opinion here. I have watched many people coming into SL and I see them struggle with the process of building skills in-world. Experienced gamers tend to acclimate more quickly but still the learning curve is steep. Students and instructors who go into SL for the sole purpose of instruction still require a varying degree of skill to function. Whether the level of skill is high or low, I see the process of scaffolding or transitioning new users into the environment as vital to a positive experience. Using tools (like powerpoints) and settings (like replication of RL) that are familiar seem to be one way to do this.

Once I was showing SL to a group of faculty on campus (in RL at UND) and one person saw a building in-world that he recognized from real life and he became very excited…I believe it helped him identify with the unfamiliar environment. I perceive other tools that are replications of RL as the same potential benefit. I do believe that the amount of RL replication should be minimal but I think it has a place as scaffolding. As the learner matures as an SL user, as the educators in SL grow and come with new and innovative ways to use the space, as more research is done and as the environment itself evolves, this need for scaffolding may lessen.

Virtual Hallucinations has been one of my all time favorite sims thus far in SL. It was one of the first experiences I had in SL and it really turned me on to the idea of using SL as a learning tool in ways you cannot achieve in RL.

It’s layout is such that you have to put on a badge to hear the voices that a schizophrenic would hear and walk through a building which has other “tricks” to demonstrate what a person with schizophrenia would experience in that environment.

As I put on the voice badge and listened with my headphones to the very negative voices, I found myself feeling very disturbed. As you move into the main section of the building, a poster shifts from normal to some obscene name calling, the floor appears to fall out from under you, and the TV tells you to pick up a gun and kill yourself. After walking through the sim with a friend I started thinking I should turn off the voices – they were REALLY getting to me. I started to panic when I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off and I was so immersed it didn’t occur to me to take of the headphones!!

The pedagogy here was experiential and somewhat authentic. I can imagine using this sim to teach psychology and counseling psychology students about psychosis, schizophrenia, paranoia, hallucinations, etc. I have in fact used this sim for my learners but that is because my learners are SL beginners looking to understand how it can be used in education!