Archive for June, 2008

Am home from the NMC 2008 Summer Conference, so it’s about time I knock out my first real blog post in a month or so. I had the opportunity Saturday morning to listen to Peggy Sheehy (SL: Maggie Marat) talk about her two years of Ramapo Islands experience on the Teen Grid. Her presentation provided one of the most important take-aways from the conference for me regarding virtual worlds and Second Life in particular.

Briefly, if you have the opportunity to hear Peggy speak, take it! And, if you’re going to be at NECC, you should make time for at least one of her presentations. In particular, the 3D Storyworlds presentation on immersive digital storytelling should be of particular interest; Peggy was only able to allude to that project, in very vague terms during the presentation this morning; I wish I could be there for the presentation in San Antonio. It may also be worth checking out her personal site as well: Metaversedl.com

Saturday morning, Peggy provided an overview of Second Life for the relatively uninitiated in the audience and then described how they’ve gotten through the logistical issues of starting their well known Ramapo Islands SL project on the Teen Grid. Peggy then focused on what they’ve been doing and the impact it has had on the learning environment.

I’ve written frequently regarding the notion of “quality instruction” via Second Life

while maintaining proper focus on the desired learning outcomes, develop authentic learning projects that allow learners to engage learning content through interaction with communities and/or creation of content or products in a manner not possible through a physical or standard web-based learning environment.

For me, a significant part of that, which I have also written about, is not doing in Second Life what can be done more easily or better in the physical or web-based environments. Peggy’s and the Suffern faculty’s work on Ramapo makes it very clear that whether or not something can be done “more easily or better” isn’t always obvious.

Specifically, Peggy described a Second Life project completed by learners focused on John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.” Following the reading and study of the novel, students prepared for and conducted a mock trial via Second Life. Of course, given the notion of Occam’s Razor within the context of educational technology, the use of Second Life seems entirely unnecessary. The role play could be done in class without the use of any technology; and Second Life only seems to a layer of technical complexity. Peggy even alluded to that complexity when she suggested any faculty beginning a Second Life project needs to be excessively nice to tech support personnel (“start baking brownies”).

So, why engage Second Life in a traditional face-to-face environment for an activity that can be accomplished without technology?

I specifically asked Peggy if the English teacher had used the same activity in the face-to-face environment and how learner participation compared between the two environments. Peggy indicated that every learner participated in some respect, and that the student response was overwhelmingly positive from top to bottom. That contrasts starkly to learner interest for the same activity conducted without technology and Second Life. So, the answer to my question is simple – learners engage the activity with a significantly greater enthusiasm and interest when it’s presented and conducted via Second Life rather than through non-mediated interaction.

I don’t think there’s any question that the “novelty effect” has at least some impact on the situation, but given some of the comments by learners in regards to other projects at Suffern, it seems as though there’s characteristics of Second Life that have a unique effect on learner willingness and interest in the project. In short, Second Life mediates the personal, social risks many students may perceive in a traditional learning environment; even when learners are perfectly aware of which person is behind an avatar, Second Life still provides enough perceived anonymity that learners are comfortable engaging peers in a social environment. This blog entry by a Suffern teacher, in reference to a different Second Life project, clearly demonstrates the social buffer Second Life provides.

Going back to the definition of quality instruction via virtual worlds . . .

while maintaining proper focus on the desired learning outcomes, develop authentic learning projects that allow learners to engage learning content through interaction with communities and/or creation of content or products in a manner not possible through a physical or standard web-based learning environment.

The Suffern projects are demonstrating that projects in Second Life may allow learners to engage content through interaction in a manner that is not possible through a physical environment because the physical environment does not provide a social buffer and level of comfort that Second Life can and does provide.

Peggy and Ramapo’s experience with Second Life is pretty powerful. First, the Second Life experience is extending from Suffern Middle School into the High School – to allow learners to continue engaging Second Life. And, relationships via Second Life are transcending real life cliquish type social structures; here’s the short, paraphrased, condensed version of a story she told (I’m taking A LOT of liberties with the text below to communicate what Peggy shared with us during the session).

An observer in the classroom noticed one student receiving a message from a classmate.

Observer: “Who’s asking that question?”
Student: (looking over the top of the computer and pointing) “She’s sitting right over there.”
Observer: “Is she a close friend?”
Student: “Not really. We used to be, but she’s one of the popular kids now.”
Observer: “Do you talk very often.”
Student: “We never talked before, but since the Second Life project(s), we’ll say Hi if we see each other and talk on occasion.”