Virtual Learning Environments

The three games I decided to play with were Ayiti: the Cost of Life, Hurricane Katrina and Oiligrachy. Also, I watched the Second Life (SL) video on child sex trafficking on Global Kids’s (GK) website http://www.olpglobalkids.org/virtual_worlds/. I found all of the games to be socially relevant in one way or another for the child or adult that decided to play them. I also found the games gave the gamer a nice spinet of the social, economic, and political implications of poverty, natural disasters, greed, etc. through play.

For example, I found the Ayiti: Cost of Life game to be extremely difficult to win as so many factors were stacked up against the Haitian family such as health, work, proper schooling, money, and last but not least, happiness, which the player truly had to learn how to ration so that the family could survive from one season to another. I feel that this type of social game teaches gamers, (child and adult alike) just how hard it is to live in a developing country and how hard one has to balance the health, work, school, money, and happiness factors in their life as well as their family’s life to sustain a somewhat decent quality of life.

Another social game that teaches (children and adults alike) social and political lessons through play is the Hurricane Katrina game. In this game the player steps up in the face of natural disaster to help their fellow man through an avatar called Vivica, a young girl who is a resident of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Through Vivica, the gamer gets a snippet of what life was like before and after Hurricane Katrina, (i.e. friends and family members separated from one another, debris flying everywhere, people stuck in their homes without electricity, running water or food). Instead of lying still while all of this is happening, Vivica goes from neighborhood to neighborhood helping out the citizens of New Orleans by delivering food and water, all the while she is looking for her mother. In a sense, a game like Hurricane Katrina empowers the child playing it by showing them that in the face of disaster, human beings can and should take care of one another.

The game Hurricane Katrina also had a not so subtle political message that unfortunately, a lot of times politics gets in the way of the right thing to do as a human being. An example of this was the newspaper headline that Vivica saw about how Cuba offered to send thousands of Doctors to New Orleans after Katrina but that the state department refused their offer because of the U.S.’s cold relations with Cuba ever since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Also later on in the game a citizen of New Orleans refers to the same headline (when he talks to Vivica) and says that he can’t believe that the State Department refused free Doctors to come and help citizens that so richly needed them.

Oiligrachy was a social game that gave the player the tools to essentially become an oil tycoon. More specifically, in the game’s description the caption says, “Now you can be the protagonist of the petroleum era: explore and drill around the world, corrupt politicians, stop alternative energies and increase the oil addiction. Be sure to have fun before the resources begin to deplete.” I found this game to be dark yet comical in nature as the gamer is put in the shoes of an oil tycoon which has their oil company survey and drill land for oil, (beginning just after WWII) while learning how to create an oil addicted nation, (i.e. lining the pockets of pro oil company congress people and congress people that are on the fence about being pro oil while at the same time lobbying Congress to support pro oil addition bills).

I feel that these social games truly allow gamers to be able to identify with (or in the case of Oligarchy, unidentify with) the social, economic, and political message they try to convey, whether it be positive in a social game like Hurricane Katrina or negative in a social game like Oiligrachy. Thus, I happen to agree with the comment that Josephine made in the SL post, “…playfulness is key in  questioning and exploring cultural identity… (and that) this sort of virtual exploration transfers to real-world affect.”

Lastly, I felt that the SL video on child sex trafficking on GK’s website was really well done as it gave the viewer a moral and political overview of how that horrific crime happens to children and how law enforcement has to fight these atrocious crimes with one hand tied behind their backs. That video was especially near and dear to me as my cousin is the Superintendent of the Tel Aviv Police Department and operates a unit that attempts to put these awful people in jail and he told me that unfortunately, just like in the video, charges brought out against  sex traffickers don’t always stick.

“Moodle is an Open Source Course Management System (CMS), also known as a Learning Management System (LMS) or a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It has become very popular among educators around the world as a tool for creating online dynamic web sites for their students.”

Moodle is used for both completely online courses and blended courses (partially online, partially face-to-face). There are over 50,000 active sites on Moodle from 214 different countries. Moodle is free to download and registration is voluntary. At first, the Moodle demonstration page appears similar to a Wiki : we see basic text, links, and navigation buttons but no graphics or video. However, video and photographs can be added to the Moodle interface relatively easily. The instructor can use the Moodle ‘classroom’ to upload links, files, media content, even quizzes. The quizzes will be graded and students will receive an immediate grade after finishing, then see how this grade affects their overall grade for the course without consulting the teacher. The classroom sites in Moodle are very secure, requiring a password and, at times, teacher confirmation before allowing the student to enter and begin working.

I have taken blended and completely online courses in Moodle over the past six years or so. Currently, my continuing education classes use Moodle for my job requirements. Because all the classes are on one company’s page, I can track which courses I have completed and see/record my quiz and final grades for each class. However, there does seem to be a lack of organization when it comes to the Moodle interface. BlackBoard is in no way the ideal course management system, however if used properly, Blackboard can be very effective in organizing class contact information, grades, assignments, discussions, lecture notes, etc. in an easy to access left hand panel. This also makes the courses taken in Blackboard relatively consistent – you know where to look for the information you need. In Moodle, how the course looks is designed by each individual educator (or group of educators). This means that the course syllabus link may be in one location for one class and in a completely different location for another.

This also means that the usability of the online Moodle class is directly dependent upon the creator’s abilities. For example, I have taken a few classes where multiple elements of the page or assignments would not show or play because I was accessing the page from a Mac. In one of these cases my teacher said I needed to access the Moodle class from a PC, because it was designed by and for one. I have also been in classes where the online Quizzes were inaccurate due to an Instructor’s error when entering answers. Of course, a grading error can occur at any time by mistake. But if it happens in Moodle, an Instructor will need to review and regrade an entire class instead of one student. Overall, I have experienced Moodle classes that have been designed well, and also those that have been designed poorly. If the information is too cluttered, a student can miss assignments or other needed information. It seems you never know what you’re going to get with a Moodle course until the first time you log in.

(source: Moodle.org)

Hi!
I just wanted to say thanks to Josephine for the Second Life session last night. The Prison and the Holocaust Museum were really cool. I had no idea that you could do so much in Second Life, and especially something so important and profound. It really is like a whole other world. I look forward to honing my Second Life skills, so that I can get around more easily and be able to observe those kinds of things more.

Anyway, I found it really interesting and had a great time learning about Global Kids. So, thanks again!

Erin

I really enjoyed Siemens reading as it explained why LMSs fail in some way. I strongly believe that giving a dynamic to your class whether online or not is essential to a successful learning experience. LMSs cannot allow students to be passive in front of an array of information. An LMS is not meant to be a bible of countless information but more so a tool to engage students on one topic. The same rules apply in a regular classroom.

Like Fran, I also find interesting that we are using other platforms than Blackboard for this class. These previous semesters, after talking to students, I realized that students thought of Blackboard as an archaic and obsolete tool as far as conversation was concerned. Indeed, in most of my classes, the conversation aspect required by the different professors on Blackboard was not followed due to its unappealing side.

Therefore I believe that the focus of e-learning should not be focused on the different technological tools that could be used but more on the human aspect and the various needs that learners require. The tools given to the students have to be means of transportation taking them to a learning experience but not systems that they will try to figure out for the rest of the semester. LMSs need to keep in mind that they need to have a pedagogical approach.

The reading this week is fascinating for me as a teacher as I have not fully had the context for all of the various online educational platforms.  Reading about the history of Blackboard (used by both my learning institution The New School and my teaching institution UCLA Extension) the various other platforms was really enlightening.

For those who have read my other posts, you know I remain unimpressed with the LMS I have used.  I also found it interesting, when starting this course, that Josephine  eschewed the Blackboard system and is encouraging use of tools that might be more organic for her course.

I found this quote from the Siemens article to match my thinking when it comes to my own experiences with using Blackboard, “unfortunately, beginning learning with an LMS is often a matter of wrong tool for wrong purposes”.   It simply seems that navigating the “system” becomes the focus of the class rather than the content initially indicated by the instructor.  Further, the technology and format can obscure the “message”.

Exploring the Moodle platform was equally informative.  As an open site with a wide user base there is an engaging quality that I felt when visiting as a student.  I explored a course on Moodle itself and found it easy to navigate.  I would be interested in considering it as a platform for teaching.

This said, I found myself in agreement with the readings that questioned the CMS’s, altogether.  As a teacher, I watch as my students gravitate to tools that suit their needs.  As a mother, it is most fascinating to watch how children do the same, jumping from platform to platform to manage their projects.  My daughter wanted to shoot a little skit the other day.  She grabbed my SLR camera, shot the skit, uploaded it to my Mac, edited it in iMovie and uploaded it to YouTube.  She then emailed her friends the link.

I wonder, if this were an assignment, if she would have been assigned tools and platforms to use?  If so, I am certain that the original goal, of shooting the skit would have been lost while she figured out how to manage platforms…the creativity muted as the technology is mastered.

This is my own concern with CMS and dictating the corridors to learning.  The internet is open.  There are new tools and platforms everyday.  Encouraging learning without dictating how is a goal that I continue to pursue.

I think we are at an interesting time, where the question of how people learn is being well considered.  I enjoy this discussion as the commercial interests, the open source developers, and the vast community of educators and potential students continue to inform the discussion.

Fran

Sorry to post a bit late, I was looking into alternative ways to read the texts for Project NML and the Jenkins article. (syllabus links would not open on my computer) The readings in total were a bit of a review, but had some great new ideas and company links that I had not encountered as well.

Jenkins is to have coined the term ‘participatory culture’- which has been enabled by Web 2.0 developments over the past ten years. His main declaration in the article is that YouTube is the fullest embodiment of convergence culture. I think we all would agree that the reasons YouTube has reached its stellar level of success is due to its amateur content, and the fact that this content can be globally visible. Jenkins does not touch on copyright issues, which have been a concern in the past for professional photographers/videographers/Graphics designers/etc looking to use the site for increased publicity. Jenkins maintains that it was made for and should be used by amateurs – to experiment, for family connections, for fun, and other individual reasons. My thoughts are in agreement with the notion that YouTube is a powerful creative outlet that will continue to grow. It provides users with immediate gratification, the videos are quick in length and small/compressed in size, making them easily transportable on cell phones/iPods/iPads/etc. It is convenient to access a quick tutorial or comedic video when a busy user only has a few moments to be entertained. It also works for education, especially in the K12 market where, as we know, attention span is a major issue.

Moving on to Havenstein, who praises the use of Wikis in the classroom. We can see this working first hand in our class, with group 2 implementing Wiki use to edit and eventually finalize lesson plans for the Global Potential project this term. In the article we learned that the “teacher becomes more of a guide” when using a wiki in place of a textbook. I think this technique works well for Higher Ed- students can discover their own knowledge (along with classmates) rather than be lectured. It is even more helpful in an online classroom, since Wiki use encourages groups of students to work together on one final outcome/document. When teaching a technology-related course (such as my digital video class) textbooks become dated at lighting speed, this is another key reason Wikis have the advantage.

….addtl readings continued below

While reading Networked Scholarship, I thought it was interesting for the authors to use the word encapsulated as they were referring to communities and people. It reminded me of a text that I read last semester extracted from Capsular Civilization written by De Cauter.

De Cauter introduces the term capsule in his work as he explains that no network exist without capsules. The Capsular society is a consequence of the speed of the technology present in our daily lives. According the De Cauter, individuals feel obliged to run to our different capsules such as our vehicles, our computers and urban enclosed areas such as malls and gated communities.

Therefore, following that logic, it seems that our openness to the WEB is not contributing to our decapsularization but rather to our capsularization.

After reading this week’s selections from the syllabus I am reflecting on the many insights to current and future student/instructor interaction.

Henry Jenkins is always ahead of the curve when thinking about these issues and though the piece is a few years old (light years in media time!) he hits the nail on the head when referencing the fact the ever narrowing gap between consumption and production of media.

I have noticed, in recent years as a media executive, that  the more collaborative the project, the more rich the outcome.  When I say “rich” I mean that there is MUCH more learning throughout the process from the varied experience of the group members.  With technological expertise and work experience varying widely, the group-think is evermore important.  Furthermore, the learn-by-doing approach is inherent in the current technological savvy culture.  Which leads to Henry Jenkins noting…, “Much as engineering students learn by taking apart machines and putting them back together, many of these teens learned how media work by taking their culture apart and remixing it.”

It is supremely important to understand that “playing” with the media is an important part to understanding and communicating using media.

This, I think, will continue to inform the “classroom” experience.

As a teacher I like to teach in a “lab” like atmosphere where there is a lot of collaboration and a platform for individual contribution within it.  I only wish (as I have mentioned before) the right software platform would emerge.

One of the commenters on the Henry Jenkins site posted this link.  If anyone hasn’t seen it, it is worth a look.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE

Fran

I found this week’s readings to be particularly relevant for me, as I have been engaging in an open collaboration process online to develop an (…wait for it) open collaboration platform. (Junto) We’ve been looking a lot into creating 3D environments with livestreaming video in order for people to be able to engage in dialogue on a global scale, and have patiently been awaiting Cisco to release their multi-billion dollar telepresence system open-source later this month.

As I’ve been embedding myself into a networked environment more and more, the points brought up in the presence article rang very true for me. In fact, I’ve actually had a paradigm shift in how I understand human networks and our connectedness as humanity from a meta-systems perspective, based on my usage and research into the power of the Web. One of the big shifts was a shattering of the illusion of ego.. ok, sounds kind of esoteric, but in becoming hyperconnected and really LIVING in this space, in constant communication with a group of globally distributed humans, I really have lost the sense of self. I am a part of a greater whole, and that has changed my perceptions about personal identitiy, and increased my levels of empathy and compassion. Speaking of empathy, I recommend watching this video based on Jeremy Rifkin’s new book, The Empathic Civilization – it rocks!

In terms of the other readings on collaboration and play, I found that I’ve come to many of those conclusions through our experimentation online and through intuition. Keeping excitement and passion and energy sustained online is a challenge, and there is so much that gets diffused through various individual networks, that it is impossible to track, but keeping it FUN is definitely key. I found the 5 ‘control parameters’ in the Highsmith chapter about keeping teams on the edge of chaos very insightful. Without having identified them in words, we have definitely been practicing those behaviors. The suggestions about role-playing and creating personas/archetypes also very much resonated.

Though what we’re doing isn’t “school,” it is VERY much an online public learning environment – I suppose you could call it a community of practice. I engage with people from all disciplines, from design to knowledge management to business and so on, but the common thread is that we are all trying to learn from each other and grow.

When it comes to transferring these insights to answering the question of how to engage students online… I really think a big part of it has to do with everyone being willing to put themselves out there without fear, and also to remove the silos between the individuals and the rest of the world. I don’t think it is enough for students to only engage with each other (though in many cases this is ideal). I see the Web as being a huge opportunity to express oneself out into the ether, and then see what comes back. There are so many people out there with similar interests and a willingness to share their perspectives and experiences, that choosing not to engage is a wasted potential. I know that there is still a lot of fear with the web as a communication medium, but that can be overcome when an individual takes personal responsibility and accountability for their actions and behaviors online. It is public. If you wouldn’t say/do/show whatever you are doing online in the middle of the town square, just think twice before doing it online, because it will be seen, and unlike “in real life,” the archive lasts forever.

After  reading Presence, Interaction And Data Space by Mike Leggett, I began to think about what presence meant. I am quite ambivalent when it comes to the definition of presence.

However, I came across a paper on the internet written by Rita and Ijsselsteijn called Being there: The experience of presence in mediated environments. The writers mention Lombard and Ditton for their categorization of presence into three distinct elements:

-          Physical Presence: idea of being physically present in a mediated space.

-          Social Presence: idea that refers to the sensation of being together with a virtual or remotely located communication partner(page 5).

-          Co-presence: In the middle of physical presence and social presence. Sense of people gathering in a communal space with physical and social characteristics.

You will find in this paper, ( http://www.neurovr.org/emerging/book4/4_01RIVA.PDF) on page 6 , a figure illustrating the liaison between these three concepts as well as the corresponding media that fall into the different categories.

I could not agree more with the SVE’s incorporation into the co-presence category. Video – Gamers, playing  on common virtual platforms as well as First Person Shooter (FPS) games, are involved in a combative platform in which each avatar plays a significant role. These games are played online with multiple video gamers who prefer to use the voice channel to communicate. They are socially present through their voice chat but they are also physically present through their avatars on their virtual platform.