Second Life Part 3

Based on my previous experience on college campuses late at night, I was apprehensive about going to another university site but I was required to visit UC Davis' Hallucination Island for our assignment.  It turns out, that this visit was more objective and impersonal, yet educational and effective.  It helped me to understand how the hallucinations might cause erratic or violent behavior in schizophrenic patients. I was not disturbed by this as I was disturbed by “real people” in other worlds whom without inhibition expressed violence and indecency.  

After visits to various sites in Second Life, and interacting with my teammates and with strangers, I'm concluding that Second Life has fairly high level of social presence.  What is social presence?

Social presence theory was first founded by Short, Williams, and Christie in 1976,¹ and has since come to mean "the perception that one is communicating with real people rather than with inanimate object."  Since the emergence of digital learning environment, social presence is also seen as "the ability of individuals to collaborate effectively through technology, even when they are located in different locations and time frames."²  Steve Wheeler of University of Plymouth states that "...social presence is an important feature of any successful learning activity, particularly within digital learning environments... when social presence is low, group members feel disconnected and group dynamics suffer.  Conversely, when social presence is high, members should feel more engaged and involved in group processes."³ 

For this assignment, our primary objective was to explore and gain some sense of the level of social presence in Second Life.  The secondary objective was to compare Second Life to the more traditional online experience such as Elluminate, Blackboard, and Laulima with respect to the level of social presence.   

I'm guessing that it's the social presence in Second Life that made me feel connected to my teammates as well as feeling apprehensive of strange strangers.

 

As a digital learning environment (DLE), Second Life offers visual layer and virtual reality which other traditional DLE tools do not.  With the presence of virtual world landscape, structures, objects, and people, the illusion of reality allows human minds to "manufacture feelings of connection and interaction, even when separated by distance." That is a remarkably powerful aspect of virtual world such as Second Life.

So why isn't Second Life used more as a teaching tool or as a digital classroom?  I venture to guess that it must be due to the challenges of building a virtual world tailored to each lesson, as well as the challenges of becoming an adept user.  It took me some time to become a functional citizen of Second Life, and I'm still not moving around with ease.  I can't even imagine how long it might take me to learn to build a world.  I also noticed that my quad-core processor occasionally warns of Second Life's high CPU usage.  This might mean that participants need to have powerful machines to make the SL experience relatively comfortable.  That could be a serious limitation.

¹Short, J.A., Williams, E., & Christie, B. (1976). The social psychology of telecommunications. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

²Sarbaugh-Thompson, Marjorie and Martha Feldman 1998. “Electronic Mail and Organizational Communication:  Does Saying ‘Hi’ Really Matter, Organization Sciences, 9(6), pp. 685-698.  

³Wheeler, Steve (November 2005), "Creating Social Presence in Digital Learning Environments: A Presence of Mind?", TAFE Conference, Queensland, Australia

Second Life Part 2

I don't know about this Second Life.  Or maybe something's wrong with me.

Last night I visited a few different places on our assignment list, two of which were college campuses.  Teleporting to Ohio University and Bowling Green State University landed me smack in the middle of characters that I did not care to hang with.  I listened to their drunken rantings and insults, talk of rape and indecent materials, and I had had enough.  I felt totally creeped out, especially when someone approached me.  (Duh, I thought I was invisible!)  I'm hoping that it was just the time of the day that attracted such characters.
I quickly teleported to the Genome site, hoping to find something more constructive.  To both my relief and my disappointment, no one was in that world, and I probably could've learned about the Genome project had I decided to stay and explore.  But my bed called.

Am I taking these virtual worlds too seriously?  Why can't I just say, "ha, this is just made up stuff!"  How would such encounters affect an impressionable young student?  Or is this a generation gap?  Or a gender gap? 

Tom and Elton said we are going to visit the UC Davis' Hallucination Island next.  They didn't say exactly what that place is supposed to be.  I'm a little apprehensive but I'm game.  At least I should have some good materials to write about, right?

Second Life Part 1

I signed up for a Second Life account last year and even made an avatar, but stopped there.  I really did not know where to go or what to do.  Being task-oriented, I needed a reason to spend a lot of time to explore and become familiar with Second Life.  So I'm glad that our new assignment is to explore life in Second Life!

When Tom said we should meet in Second Life on Thursday, I thought I should at least survey this new place before the team meeting.  So in the morning I briefly visited the UH COE campus and managed to walk and fly.  Then a "Vera Johnson" showed up and asked if I was interested in organic and fair trade products.  "No, not really," I said.  "Why not?"  "I'm here to look for my project team.  Nice meeting you."  I quickly left.  Then I got an email from her offering to sell me organic and fair trade products.  Social presence note #1:  you can be spammed and feel "harassed."  The email follow-up even made me feel as if she stalked me. Hmm.

At 4:30 pm, Tom, Elton, and I met at the UH COE campus.  Oddly, it felt a little awkward and odd just like when you meet someone new for the first time in person.  They helped me figure out the mic volume and other basic settings.  Then I went through the guided tour with Tom, a very patient mentor.  I learned to teleport, view using camera, sit, dance, purchase objects, change appearance, etc.  I read directions and followed the guided tour but Tom patiently explained almost everything.  (Thanks, Tom!)  I couldn't have asked for a better mentor.  It was fun to learn.  It was fun to explore a new place.

When the tour was over, and I had to leave SL to make dinner (in real life), I felt as if I had been out having fun and neglecting my job of taking care of my family.  Hmm.  Social presence note #2:  the virtual world had the power of creating emotions similar to one I would have felt in real life.  Now I think I understand what the objective of this assignment is.  I think I understand better what is meant by "social presence."

As for the educational value of SL?  I'll have to learn and experience much more before I can say.  Right now, I wonder about the power of SL being a distraction in a learner.  I can see how it could be addicting, just like a video game or social media.  Ask me again what I think of SL, in about 3 weeks when this project is done.

Intercultural Competence

It happens regularly in our ETEC 647 class:  inter-cultural exchange and collaboration of ideas using a Web 2.0 technology tool, Elluminate.  We have heard from Annie Saint-Jacques in Canada,  Jin and Ayako in Japan (although Jin is from China), and from Dr. Kumiko Aoki in Japan.  It seems to be a regular event in this class, that I never gave much thought to skills needed for inter-cultural exchanges.  But when I think about it, it is true that even in those short meetings, participants on both sides of the culture had to exercise patience, desire to speak in a foreign language or try to understand despite the heavy accent, and be open to new ideas or perspectives.  Those moments were good exercises for both the speakers and for us.

Here in Hawaii, the melting-pot of many cultures, intercultural interaction is a regular part of life.  We all had classmates and neighbors from another country or another state, and we tried to understand why they act, think, eat, or dress differently. We Hawaiians have been given the gift of learning intercultural competency from childhood.  Therefore, transitioning our youth to become inter-culturally competent global citizens should be easy and natural.   We can apply educational technology in classrooms to enable and enhance opportunities to collaborate internationally, beyond our own neighborhoods and social circles, so that the learners can become competent global citizens.

Internet vs. Horse and Buggy

How would you advise a colleague who says, "The Internet is unsafe and therefore, I will refer my students to only use traditional library reference materials"?

 According to the UN, 260,000 children aged 6-18 worldwide die per year from auto accidents.  363,000 children die per year from other accidents such as drowning, burn, fall, poisoning, etc.  (BBC News)  That's a staggering number of childhood accidental deaths.  Yet, no country has banned automobiles, swimming pools, or the playground out of fear that children would be hurt or killed.  We don't avoid using the necessary transportation or deny our children the pleasure of playing on the playground because of the possible dangers.  The  possibilities are always there, but we take precautions to minimize accidents, such as using car seats and supervising the children when they are playing in water.  We can also teach them skills to enjoy the water safely.  Sometimes however, parents try their best to protect their child and yet accidents still happen. 

Why would using the Internet or any technology be different?  The technology, and the Internet in particular, is a large and necessary presence in modern life, that it does not make sense to avoid it or deny access to it.  The Internet's advantage of offering resources that are current, relevant, and immediate cannot match the print materials found in the traditional library.  The Internet should not be the only source, and it is known for having some untrustworthy materials, but with some practice of safe searching and filtering, and safe online presence, the information one can glean from the Internet can be powerful and plentiful.  Unless the teacher wants to return to horse and buggy (wait, the horses cause accidents too!), I would encourage the teacher to include the Internet as a resource in teaching and learning.  There is abundance of materials (on the Internet -- where else?) on how to teach safe online behaviors, ethics, and web search.  Such education can precede any assignment that might send the students to the Internet.  Yes, we can continue to teach our children how to buckle up, how to swim, and how to not talk to strangers in real life and in cyberspace.

Perhaps  one is more likely to be run over by stepping out on the technology super-highway on a horseback.   :)

Styles

This week Dr. Bert responded to the class' concerns about the workload and other related issues.  He quickly adjusted the amount of work and the communication methods.  That got me thinking about different styles.

Dr. Bert from the beginning told us that this was an emerging course on emerging technologies and things could be fluid.  That was very difficult for me as this is my first graduate course in ETEC, I had no idea what to expect, how to think, how to plan, and whether or not I was even understanding what the course was about.  So I was a little surprised when many other classmates said the workload was too much.  I thought I was just spending a lot of time researching and thinking because I didn't know very much.  I appreciate the lighter workload, but oddly I also miss the forced late-night learning.  ;]

Back to the styles:  when I started teaching 10 years ago, I had no training on teaching (I was told "please teach these courses and here is the book.") and the only role models I could recall were my stern teachers from the 60's and the 70's.  So I began with my authoritarian, stern style and evolved from there.  My goal is to emulate Dr. Bert some day:  adaptable, personable, innovative, and very much involved.  He could be comfortably retired but continues to teach to learn new technologies and to inspire the next generation of educational technologists.  I wish I was 10 years younger so I could pursue a PhD in EdTech and teach like him.

Other classmates expressed that the group work has been the most challenging aspect of this course.  That got me  thinking about the various collaboration styles.  Different styles and different schedules make the collaboration challenging, yet as Dr. Bert assures us, that is part of our learning.  I hope I will continue to improve on becoming a better collaborator.

Don't Knock the un-Emerging Technologies

We've been immersed in identifying and learning emerging technologies.  It's been fun; I love exploring and discovering new tools and technologies: contemplating the possibilities, consequences, issues, and what all these mean for education and for the society.  Heady stuff.

Last Tuesday, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake crumbled buildings and killed many, in Christchurch, New Zealand.  It happened during the busy lunch hour of a work/school day, so many people were caught by surprise.  The city is now digging for hundreds still missing. Where was technology in all of this?  Could technology have detected  an impending earthquake and warned people?  Is technology being used to find and rescue survivors still trapped in rubble?  I hope so.  That, would be an amazing application of the Internet of Things.  A sensor might detect an impending earthquake and sends an alert to everyone's phone or some smart device.  The device might even direct them to a safe shelter.  Trapped survivors could send out a signal of their location if his smart device sensed an emergency situation (its owner might be injured or unconscious).  I can imagine many positive applications of technology.  Perhaps these tragedies will be catalysts for further development.  Christchurch's economy has been badly damaged along with a third of its buildings, and one article mentioned rebuilding with a technology-driven economy.  I'm not sure what that means, but it's encouraging to hear hope and vision already emerging while mourning for the loss.

On the personal side, my daughter's New Zealand Environmental Studies group is based in an old convent 95 miles north of Christchurch.  About an hour after we heard the news of the earthquake, the director of program in Auckland emailed to let us know that the group was still in Samoa on a field trip.  Good ol' email.  A wonderful technology for worried parents!  My daughter and her group returned to their home base on Thursday, and thankfully their "home" was not damaged.  But they will be emotionally and spiritually affected by what happened to their neighbors and neighborhoods in Christchurch.  An opportunity for growth.  For now, email is all we have to keep in touch with her.  I'm so thankful for the unemerging, unglamorous emails.