Several announcements came out of this week's Virtual Worlds Conference which closed today in San Jose.
CNet reports that Google Earth Sketchup models are portable to the Multiverse platform.
NY Times reports on Second Life's announced partnership to explore portable avatars with IBM.
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Interoperability
Well, those are an interesting set of comments that come after the article. I didn't notice a comment on interoperability with real life. Mainly, the focus of the article seemed to be about operating across different vR environments. I suppose that is fine, but the reasoning seems a bit opaque to me. SL (and other vRs are large spaces - if your avatar operates across multiple spaces, it seems you have an even larger space to work across... and one that is more complex and difficult to work with). My thought would be to improve interoperability with RL - a step in that direction could be to provide more RL interaction capability (e.g. RL labeling for names, profiles, etc that is more explicit - a nametag that reflects RL would help educators - role ID (professor of this and that, student studying, ...). Now I know that all exists in some form. I find it sometimes difficult to explain to others why I can't use my real name (...are you hiding something...? etc.)
..John (Milos)...
One needs a view as an anthropologist and political scientist
First, Virtual Worlds are "another country". We need to see this as travel abroad or as an immigration. One does not expect countries to change their culture for those newly arriving.
The panels at virtual world on interoperability are savvy like the founders of the UN. They are trying to make it easy to migrate between worlds, taking your positions and your "being". They are trying to make it friendly for visitors and newly arrived netizens. Even commodity exchanges or cross border banking is happening
We can not expect that our professional interests such as a lawyer, doctor or educator should map into new worlds. In fact, that is the problem with education in brick space. It is about to collapse, like some software, because it is no longer able to be backward compatible to accomodate older models- age makes a difference here.
I would point out that at the Virtual Worlds conference it became very clear that there are other worlds which are friendlier to educators from the old, RL, world than SL. And maybe educators should ask why they are in SL or any 3D world rather than in the 2D world with such technologies as Adobe Connect.
Melville Davisson Post wrote the Abner Stories. In one there is a delightful quote
"our lives follow grooves that the dead have run out with their thumbnails"
tom
tom abeles
http://www.p2gray.com/
Conterpoint
Well, gee, Tom - I don't see it that way at all.. I have nothing against interoperability among different VRs. I was raising the point that interoperability with RL seems more important (at least to me). For example, being able to teach online in a way that provide better learning by using a VR seems to me to be much more desirable than providing ways to transition between different VRs... Interoperability between worlds could well become interesting at some point -- right now, it seems to me a focus on how we enhance learning effectiveness is a preference I have (not to mention, student and faculty satisfaction.....).
education and platforms
Hi John
First, SL was never created as an education "platform" any more than the natives of the new world designed their culture to meet the needs of the Europeans.
Second, NGI Group's "Moveable Life" is a front end to SL which operates through a standard browser and doesn't require a client download as SL does, currently. This means that they see a need for users, whether in the edu sector or other arena
Third, there are platforms which are being developed with education in mind. Whether they meet the need of educators or not is another story. For example, Proton has developed one for Duke's Fuqua business school and Fronterra is working with other universities.
Many schools have "study abroad" programs and go to many different countries or different locations in the same country depending on the purpose of the experience.
Thus:
a)There are many who are targeting the educational market specifically while others are general spaces which welcome all participants. SL is one choice which may not meet an educator's needs. We know that there are many LMS systems which seem to be used more by different education sectors and one size does not fit all.
b) educators, even in 2D are still mapping bricks into clicks. The existence of opportunities to move to 3D exposes this proclivity. All that one has to do is look at how the spaces in SL are being designed and occupied.
c) process and content are still separated in education when it comes, particularly, to 3D space. As I have stated elsewhere, there has not been an anthropological, political science or humanities eye turned on these cultures as educational media.
The academics have not engaged with these worlds as participants as opposed to seeing these as clinical study areas. For example, Ed Castronova, in economics, has engaged in this sphere as both an academic and participant. Most see these spaces the same as they see an overhead projector, a stage or a classroom as a performance space either as sage-on-the-stage or guide.
A substantive understanding of 3D worlds might change how academis looks at their own discipline and how they function within the world of The Academy. It also might suggest which worlds might be most appropriate for their needs the same as any immigrant in brick space worlds. It might even suggest that 2D platforms might better meet their needs.
Incidentally, there were very few academics present at the Virtual World conference in San Jose and while most of the developers understand that learning will be a major market, the interest in the post secondary institutions did not seem to be a priority. Until the academics engage with these worlds, they will probably find that they have the same concerns that you have raised.
In fact, until Boyer standards for promotion and tenure, recognizing educational efforts, are implemented, it will be hard for The Academy to really participate in designing their future in brick and click spaces.
From a philosophical perspective, one must recognize that the post secondary institutions are not the idealized world of Kant, Newman and von Humboldt, particularly in grades 13-16 and that there are tiers that need recognition. Research I universities do recognize the separation between graduate programs and undergraduates. Undergraduate programs are merging with secondary institutional programs and the purpose of education, at the post secondary level is loosing that distinction of what, philosophically, one sets as a "university". Thus, to truly engage with appropriate 3D environments, it is time that rhetoric and reality become more congruent.
thoughts?
tom
tom abeles
http://www.p2gray.com/
A Qualification
Tom's observations are right on target. I note, for instance, our own SL site has a "room" for assessment, which I expect we need to move out of and into the broader virtual space if we are to understand the potential of this new world.
I have one qualification related to Tom's post, specifically the phrase and concept of "meeting educators' needs." In the larger context of Tom's post and the implications of 3D learning, I think it will be useful to understand that phrase as one qualified by one's "current perception" of educational need. It will be important in the coming days to scrutinize the agency as well as the perceived utility of the concept of educational "needs."
On-target?
Well, seeing Gary say Tom's remarks were "on-target" I went back and re-read Tom's remarks. I had the distinct feeling that I was reading a lot of truisms that wandered drunkenly across the paragraphs. I made the observation early in the discussion that interoperability seemed less important that understanding how virtual realities could help learning. What came back was a mass of rhetoric about everything except the kitchen sink. To pull this heavy thread drift back on course -- what do you-all think about the ability of Vrs to enhance learning, improve retention and similar staples of the the Sloan-C larder? How should we approach the use of what we have now - what would work?
From my perspective, Tom's remarks are far from the mark. (this is not to say that I don't believe in all the things that Tom mentioned - the use of multiple spaces, visiting new venues, trying new things, and all the rest -- I do; I'm just trying to get a better handle on what things can be done today to enhance what online education world can use for improving teaching and learning).
John
Wuzza
I fear I've inadvertently stepped into the crossfire with inadequate preparation.... So targets and target metaphors aside, the issue I am also most interested in is improving teaching and learning, and my comment, itself no doubt off-target (forgive the metaphorical relapse), was the suggestion that the costs of new technologies, dollars and otherwise, are rarely realized unless we rethink our desired outcomes. The no significant difference studies amply illustrate this point, and an underlying phenomenon one can read in a very large percentage of those studies is the use of dependent measures that are themselves ill-suited to the potential of new technologies. SL and 3D active learning strategies beg for reconceptualizing what "improved teaching and learning" mean. Multiple choice tests, still the mainstay of assessing learning, have been inadequate for even lecture dominant teaching practice. Essays and even artifact generation, collection, selection and projection (ePortfolios) don't fit intuitively with virtual worlds. What rubrics are called for by SL and, concomitant with that, what activities would we expect to mediate with our students to help them develop the requisite skills and understanding?
not such a mainstay...
Hi Gary,
Not to rain on your parade - but in 10 years of highschool teaching and 7 years at university level I've never used a multiple choice test.. I doubt I even know how to go about creating one (I vaguely seem to recall them, being mentioned in one of my education classes years ago).
Jeremy's Prim Drop Box example is a very straightforward demonstration of the possibility of developing a body of evidence for assessment. Even the machinima tools he used to create the video demonstration add another level to the "artifact" argument. I've been dabbling in my teaching context with some basic uses of Second Life and find there are some other very appropriate mechanisms for artifact generation. The text based chat functions are readily recorded and the subsequent Logs offer a quick and easy mechanism of determining the level of student interaction and their capacity to demonstrate understanding.
I suggest that the main feature of your argument is the claim about an "INTUITIVE" fit. And I daresay that intuition is a function of culture, and that MUVEs have their own cultures. The risk when inflexible teachers try migrating into these worlds is that they bring with them the baggage of their native culture. And the result is often akin to a form of "digital colonisation", where teachers impose their own limitations on the context.
I'm teaching a 4th Year undergrad unit in Process, Drama and Information Technology (yes, I'm a Drama educator and practitioner) and I'm finding that several of the students I'm working with readily surpass my capacity because of their comfort and understanding of dimensions of the online world that elude my "intuitive" capacity.
The capacity to perform within the 3D MUVE adds to the possibilities for meaningful assessment. The rubrics really depend upon what we are asking our studnets to learn. As I've advocated in many other contexts, there is good argument for creating rubrics that allow for evidence to be gathered in praxis rather than jumping through the artificial hoops of traditional "formal assessment" mechanisms.
I suggest that MUVEs allow another dimension of this and that ludic engagement allows for a much broader scope of learning in terms of informal learning - students learning in a MUVE have the potential to develop cross- and inter-disciplinary skills, knowledge and abilities. The MUVE, like Drama, draws upon hybridity and complicates the perceptions of those most comfortable in predictable, concrete, linear contexts.
My research into the performative aspects of 3D MUVEs is starting to suggest that the MUVE also allows teachers to be far less visible in the teaching-learning process and thus students seem to begin to take a more active role in determing the pathways of their own learning.
OK.. not sure whether I've added to the rhetoric or offered something to think about in terms of the answers you're chasing... thanks for reading. Now, to find how I can use a multiple choice test to find out how well my students can teach!
artifact generation
"artifact generation, collection, selection and projection (ePortfolios) don't fit intuitively with virtual worlds"
Actually, this new phenom of user-generated virtual world (ie. SL for now) is very well suited to assessment by ePortfolio. I presented at AERA in Chicago on this very topic. My co-presenter Dr. Jonathan Richter and I took some pointed questions from Helen Barrett who knows a little about ePortolios. She was skeptical but kept an open mind.
We showed example portfolios created by my students and explored related logistical issues. The ability for students to mold this flexible environment and employ metaphors helps them project their work marvelously.
See an example of a 3D object created by students and then marked by me. This is a prototype 3D assignment submission and critiquing tool.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=VUUnnLm-AG4
--j
A little red virtual school house?
Thanks, Jeremy. I do believe the ePortfolio and some kind of rubric strategy is a good starting point, though I think the original question persists. I wonder if we build the ePortfolio in SL or collect and reflect on SL artifacts as they might be, eventually, linked to an online ePortfolio and, most importantly, why, when, and where we would want to make the distinctions.
In fact, for me those concerns are further surfaced when I view your Sloodle presentation. The metaphors you, Richter and the students have produced in SL are clearly mapping old to new, with all the trappings of tradition—the search for strategies for “course management,” students who “submit” and create “information silos” and, most clearly in the tradition, “the drop-box” metaphor. All of these are mainstays of the teacher-centered tradition. With the assertion that it is the 3D that makes the difference you have identified the fundamental hypothesis that we need to interrogate. How was the modeling of the principles of information fluency that students produced in SL more valuable than guiding them through an exercise in annotating library search tools? How is the “prim-drop-box alpha” different from one you and students might weld from iron in a little red school house (which might also be handled asynchronously using day and evening shifts or even parcel post)?
This is not meant to belittle your pioneering work. What you have developed is useful, I think, for helping us sharpen our understanding and, for me at least, my questions.
Right on
Yes, indeed - I agree completely -- thanks, Gary.
John
tools and more tools
Let me try to be more targeted and clear since John wants to know what "tools" are there to help a faculty member.
1) I do not believe that we can select "tools" without understanding the philosophical "meanderings" that John seems to eschew. For example, the desire to find vehicles for more effective learning/teaching and evaluation certainly points to the idea that grades 13-16 are much the same as grades K-12 with the exception that educators in grades 13-16 have more hours in their area of specialization, currently.
We are now concerned with the same issues that universities are now fighting- "standards" and measures of competency, and maybe NCLB in the near future?
I can't help thinking that searching for tools makes us susceptable to the education equivalent of TV infomercials or the Snap-On tool salesperson visiting the local mechanical shop. One can just see Ron Popiel touting the latest 3D world instead of the latest Veg-O-Matic.
And that may be the issue that Sloan-C has asiduously avoided. Having committed to Asynchronous Learning tools and how to use them leads one now to look towards trying to find another "tool" and develop skills courses around that one, like a physician adding to his or her armamentarium so that all problems are no longer nails because we now have more than a hammer.
2) As I said earlier, SL is not the educator's dream tool. But for those who want an available 3D platform in which to play its like turning the old VW vans into a poor man's Airstream or Winebago instead of going to a custom shop and having a conversion van built.
One lives within one's budget whether it is money or time. And for post secondary faculty, few have the luxury of either because the ROI is not there. Unlike K-12 teachers who have no choice or few choices, the post secondary faculty has many choices and some of those have different cost/reward structures built in. Searching for a "tool" is the vain hope that technology will change the cost/reward structure. Making those determinations rather than having them made for you is a philosophical dilemma.
3)There is a strong movement within the K-12 school systems to create alternatives to the system going in both directions, a more disciplined, back to basics, and a set of models based on a constructavist approach. Both of these are tempered by the intersection of education with the internet and the ability to access much that was locked within Ivory Towers. Open access, open source, blogs, wikis, listserves, email and the many googles couple with cell phones and other portable devices.
Unfortunately post secondary education can not be bound by walls of brick or electrons such as a 3D world. The only control is one of "certification". The stick and the carrot of the institution and the poser that this gives to the faculty, regardless of the platform.
As some in this conversation have sensed, tool seeking is mapping brick space into click space or seeing click space as brick space- the fish-in-water myopia.
If one does want a "user friendly" 3d world, I suspect that between 150-250K will buy you that space with an annual support of, perhaps 25-50K. On the other hand, there are several good open source platforms on which one can build their learning experience at low or no costs as far as writing checks goes.
It boils down to cost and what you want for your educational environment. And, who in the institution makes that determination and at what level at the institution.
The philosophical can not be avoided.
tom
tom abeles,
http://www.p2gray.com/