Virtual Learning Environments

Before I dive into some last minute thoughts on Twitter regarding the reading from a few weeks ago, I want to say that both presentations were incredibly informative.  The work done for my group’s project (group one) and learning about the Ethnography project have both been very helpful to expanding my media studies knowledge base.

The subject of Twitter has been popping up for me a lot lately in my personal, professional, and academic spheres.  Before starting this course, I can honestly say that I had very limited interest in Twitter.  I was aware of its popularity and marketing uses, but I was not interested in signing up for another social medial platform.  Keeping up with Facebook and blogging was enough for me, and I didn’t find it necessary to add to my overall internet presence with creating a Twitter account.  I begrudgingly signed up for Twitter because it was necessary for this course.  However, I quickly was cured of my anti-Twitter stance once I was using it more frequently.

The reading assigned about Twitter seemed to validate many of my thoughts regarding the mark Twitter has made on the media world.  I use Twitter everyday now for my job because it is a great platform to get news delivered to me in a timely manner.  I write for a news website that is in the process of being launched, and we rely heavily on Twitter each day.  We use Twitter to aggregate information for potential stories as well as spread the stories are covering.  Of course, it is also an integral part of the site’s overall marketing plan.  I can say that I was quickly proven wrong this summer on my aversion to Twitter considering the way it allows me to easily and quickly locate news.

In the reading, the importance of listening and giving feedback is discussed.  I think this is the only place where Twitter currently falls short.  People still think of it as more of a “one-way” platform of communication.  However, this is quickly progressing.  Even in the short amount of time I have been using Twitter, I have noticed how people are using it more conversationally.  I think the point made in the reading about the importance of listening and giving feedback is an interesting aspect of social media to consider.  Twitter can be an outstanding platform for any person’s needs if they use it to its full advantage, and sometimes that means responding to others just as much as putting your own thoughts out there.

I’m interested to see how Twitter evolves in the future.  I know that I am not the only one surprised by a sudden interest in Twitter after signing up for it to meet the needs of this course.  Twitter is a much more user-friendly and less involved platform than many other social media sites, and we are still just beginning to see the power to Twitter in the media world.

Here’s an interesting article about the importance of Twitter to American Business.

Hi Everyone!

I just wanted to say that last night was so interesting and fun. I really enjoyed the presentations, and I just feel that Global Potential is such an awesome concept and program. It makes me want to do more as far as educating myself on global issues and being more involved in volunteerism. I definitely have taken away a lot from this course, and I can’t thank Josephine and the rest of the class enough for helping me grow as a Media Studies student but also as a person.

Group 2 – Thank you for being such a pleasure to work with and for taking so much initiative. Everyone was so organized and on top of everything. It really made bringing all of the elements together much easier than some of the group projects I’ve done in the past.

Anyway, I just wanted to express my feelings and to say thanks again! I also love that our information is on the wiki’s, so that we can access it when class is over. I would like to share our projects with family and friends and spread the word about Global Potential as much as possible.

Erin

Ethnography and Mapping the Batey:

Group 2 worked on a project to devise and implement lesson plans to help Global Potential students understand ethnography and mapping.  The focus would be on data collections, analysis and human geography in order for the Global Potential students to see the batey in a new way.

We started off first trying to figure out the best means of communication as a group and Jenn sent out an email welcoming everyone to Group 2.  We talked about a google group but ended up starting off with just emails and blog posts.  After hearing more about the program from Frank and some video question/answer sessions, Venessa posted an overview of the project info drawn from Franks introduction and suggested some possible ideas to get us going.  Everyone was still a little unclear on our objective and Venessa posed questions about what types of “tools” or online applications we should think about.  Her overview covered all the main topics and helped get the ball rolling:

Josephine helped us out by explaining that as far as “tools” went, Frank was more talking about a process or methodology.  She clarified Global Potential’s overwhelming platform base and mentioned utilizing Facbook and the Blog since they were already used the most.  She suggested possible other platforms to incorporate such as Ushahidi and Textmarks but made clear that reverse mentoring would be a concern.  The students and Global Potential staff would need to understand how the platforms we used functioned.  She spoke about the blog being unstructured and maybe the possibility of collaborating with Group 1 working with blog posts.

Venessa pointed out that we needed to know which platforms were already in use and Jenn posted a list of these all (Facebook, Twitter, Ning, SL, Blog…)

Carolyn posted an idea relating to the Global Potential brochure and curriculum sent by Josephine about incorporating video documentaries into the lesson plans.  Students all over the U.S. could post video questions and the Global Potential students could use their experiences in the village to record footage and form video responses.  This could then tie into the collection of ethnographic data but in a video format.

Sofia pointed out that this question and answer format may not be effective for getting the point across, but liked the idea of incorporating video with Facebook and the Blog.  This way these videos could reach out further to kids and parents and other groups.  Jenn also liked the idea but was concerned that Global Potential students didn’t have access to video equipment.  She also pointed out that the group needed to focus in on a topic.  She spoke about looking into specific aspects of the culture and how it compared to the Global Potential students cultures.  This way the teens would be more engaged and interested since it related to their own lives.  She presented an example of National Teen Pregnancy awareness to give the group an idea of what she meant.

Erin agreed on the need for a focused topic and wondered if a lighter topic like fashion or dress would be better.  Joe responded that he wasn’t’ so sure about the lighter topics, but was certain we needed to decided on a topic to get the lesson plan’s started.

Venessa wrote a clearer description of what Group 2 should focus on with our lesson plans, zeroing in on a methodology:

“meaning: helping the students understand how to ask the right questions, how to connect dots, how to write compelling and exciting posts, how to then spread those posts around the web to generate excitement, and how to build a larger community and engagement around the culture and issues of these people.”

Josephine agreed we needed to focus in on a topic and mentioned some that Frank had spoke of that were really pressing issues in the batey – then we could get going on the methodology.  She confirmed that the students had no access to video equipment but suggested the incorporation of Flipcams or disposable cameras.  So even though the group liked the video idea, it was not possible in the long run.

Carolyn suggested we use the Clean Water topic Josephine had mentioned and provided some websites with info to get the idea rolling.  Everyone agreed it was a good topic and Erin mentioned an MTV special she found about it as well.  At this point the group was beginning to familiarize themselves with the topic and gather resources.  Joe also was experimenting with Survey Monkey and Zoomerang and reported he liked Survey Monkey better.

Jenn made sure everyone was on board with the Clean Water topic and then took the initiative to create a wiki page for our group.  We realized our emails were piling up and hard to sort through, so she created the page.  On it she placed basic info and outlines for possible lesson plans and we moved forward.

Venessa found a great resource of Working with Stories which helped the group understand more about collecting ethnographic data through collected stories.  Erin also posted another great resource The Water Project, suggesting the students could participate with donations or at a more basic level using the site for research and understanding.

Sofia mentioned our need to start formulating our lesson plans wondering how many plans we actually needed and she provided two possible ideas:

“An example of one lesson plan: someway finding a way to have the students work with the Water Project in some way…..
Another idea: having students interview members of the community about their experiences with water throughout the years….reflecting on improvements that have been made or that need to be made, asking what the community members ideal clean water situation and what their basic needs are.”

Carolyn elaborated on Sofia’s second idea for a lesson plan suggesting the student’s interview community members and use info from the Working with Stories website to help them analyze them.  Then with the conclusions the students could create blog posts and then follow up with thoughts on possible solutions.

Erin liked the interviewing idea as well and elaborated further suggesting each interview be accompanied by a picture (fro the flipcam or disposable camera Josephine had mentioned) as a way to humanize the issues.  She also suggested incorporating a lesson plan of teaching the Global Potential students to speak at the batey schools and asking the young children what their knowledge of the issue was.  She also mentioned having the kids draw pictures of their thoughts and scanning these onto Facebook.  This would add some fun and creativity to our lesson plans.

Josephine was able to ask Frank our group questions making it clear that we had time for 2-4 lessons at 2 hours per plan.  Once we heard these guidelines, Joe presented two lesson plan suggestions.  The first related to what we had been discussing about interviews and ethnographic surveys and the second was about Survey Monkey.  Josephine responded with some lesson plan examples from previous Global Potential participants.

Carolyn created a rough outline of lesson plan 1 and 2 using all the info collected thus far.  Jenn ironed our some of the messy parts and posted six detailed parts that needed to be completed to create two lesson plans.  We decided each member of the group would write one part and then we’d edit collectively on the wiki.

Joe wasn’t sure if our last lesson part about how to post to Facebook and the Blog was necessary, but Josephine reassured us that most people do not know how to optimize these programs with compelling posts and tags so a lesson in this would probably benefit the students.  Joe also suggested some questions for the Global Potential student’s ethnographic interviews that we could incorporate into that part of the lesson plan.

Venessa emailed everyone some more great resources she found about conducting interviews and doing ethnographic research.  She mentioned how she was very informed about online communities and networking and wanted to work on the facebook and blogging portion of the assignment.

Everyone began posting their work on the Group 2 wiki and the lesson plans started to take shape.  We began getting everything organized and getting ready for our final presentation for the class.  Jenn created the final presentation wiki where we all would post our finished work and lesson plans.

Here is a simple chart of some of the major problems we encountered and our solutions:

Final Question…

How does your project leverage and create a richer learning experience for your specific target population?

There is an adage in Education these days that the teacher is no longer the sage on the stage but rather the guide on the side. It simply means that teachers no longer lecture to quiet note taking students. Rather, the students are active learners that spend class time researching and developing meaning with the guidance of the teacher. Students are no longer passive sponges that are expected to only soak up and squeeze out knowledge. Rather they are to be active researchers, guided by teachers, which participate in the creation of knowledge and meaning.

Group 2’s project consists of lesson plans that can leverage this adage by incorporating web based research in addition to lecture and discussion. Global Potential students research global clean water issues through such websites as … SUMMIT website: http://www.summitonthesummit.com PUR: http://www.PURwater.com United Nations Foundation: http://www.unfoundation.org Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program: http://www.csdw.org Water for People, Non-Profit: http://www.waterforpeople.org Working with Stories: http://www.workingwithstories.org/

In addition students research clean water issues in the Dominican Republic. Wikipedia description of water situation in Dominican Republic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_the_Dominican_Republic http://www.charitywater.org/ http://wateraid.org/drop/

Students can use this research as the basis for learning about ethnographic research on the topic of clean water issues in the DR Bateys. In this lesson, students learn not only what ethnography is but also how to do ethnographic research. They learn how to create questions that generate data that leads to deeper meaning, understanding, and possibly solutions to these issues. As part of or in addition to the lesson, students can research such sites as… Working with Stories: http://www.workingwithstories.org General Guidelines for Conducting Interviews: http://www.managementhelp.org/evaluatn/intrview.htm Basics of Conducting Focus Groups: http://www.managementhelp.org/evaluatn/focusgrp.htm How to Do Ethnographic Research: A Simplified Guide: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/anthro/anthro/cpiamethods The Witness Blog – how to effectively use video in human rights campaigns: http://blog.witness.org/

In addition, Lesson Plan 2.2 directs the Global Potential students to teach the Batey children some of the lessons they have learned. The GP students will direct the Batey students “to draw or paint a picture of their ideas about the clean water issue or even just of their feelings about water in general. For instance, they could draw a picture of themselves drinking a clean glass of water or taking a nice, clean bath. The Global Potential students may want to take a few minutes to draw their own pictures to bring down to the Batey with them. They could show their own artwork to the children, so they have an example of what’s being asked of them. Explain to the students that they will be collecting this artwork and bringing it back home with them to scan and upload onto the Facebook page for people to see. This artwork could be inspiration for people to help with the clean water crisis via donations or volunteerism. If the students choose, they could even figure out a way for this artwork to be auctioned off to raise money for the Batey children that they visited.” Thus actively developed meaning is leveraged on Facebook to both target population and the world at large.

The lesson plans will also include guidelines for optimization practices for blogging and tagging, as well as how to use Twitter effectively. This is important for the accessibility and persistence of this leverage knowledge content. Best practice sites include… http://www.chrisbrogan.com/40-ways-to-deliver-killer-blog-content/ http://www.thematrixfiles.net/blog/blogging-best-practices-part-two/ http://www.capturetheconversation.com/read/blogging-best-practices-checklist

In conclusion, the project’s lesson plans not only teach GP students existing knowledge that can be used to improve the lives of people who live in the DR Bateys, it also encourage GP students to research and create new knowledge. This new knowledge can be leveraged within internet based rich learning environments that are accessible, persistent, and perhaps potentially improve the lives of people around the globe.

All the lesson plans and final work for our project can be found on our Presentation Wiki

Global Potential Alumni Experience and Mentoring Program

Past:

When our group first looked at the existing platforms that Global Potential (GP) created, we couldn’t help but notice the lack of usage by GP’s target audience of the platforms: Alumni of GP’s program and current and future GP community mentors. The lacking factors we noticed on the different platforms used (website, Facebook page, and personal blog) were as follows:

1) Numerous spaces to communicate with instead of central surface to communicate which led to a decomposed and a non-flowing discussion.

2) Lack of interaction between Alumni as a result of non-engaging, misdirected platforms for them which equated to staleness like feel.

3) Generic looking platforms that did not speak to their target audience but rather seemed to speak to potential donors and/or outsiders (i.e. us before we took on this project).

GP's Website

GP's Old Alumni Facebook Wall Page

GP's Alumni Blog

However, the positive aspects we noticed regarding the tools put in place for the Alumni were:

1) The usage of Facebook, a trendy social networking website that appeals to everyone, especially our target population for that fact that they are familiar and comfortable using it and that probably most of them already consume on a regular basis.

2) The utilization of Twitter, another platform which the youth is accustomed to. It is as well very easily accessible to our target audience.

3) The customized touch given on the GP blog with the incorporation of the use of biographies.

4) The addition of picture and videos of the Alumni on GP’s blog and Facebook page.

Present:

Our goal for this project was to create an ongoing, rich alumni experience through online platforms that keeps the goals of the program running, continues engaging the students in global issues and social entrepreneurship, and facilitates and augments the mentoring program. Our main objective was mostly focused on making sure that the Alumni would be involved in every step of the way to assure that they would be actors in their own platforms and not passive spectators looking at a platform that we thought would suit them best.

You will find below thoughts and ideas we came up with as well as the key components we needed to implement so that Alumni can have their own virtual personal space to share and gather:

1) Building a space that the Alumni can call their own hence we decided to create a fan page within the walls of Facebook.

2) To ensure frequency of use by the Alumni on their own fan page, we thought that it would be beneficial to have GP seek for Alumni that are somewhat tech savvy and willing to take responsibility to maintain the upkeep and constant communication between the Alums. The six roles we came up with of Alumni volunteers that would make sure that their Facebook page would continue to flourish are:
- Youth Alumni and Mentor Coordinator for Text Blogs
- Youth Alumni and Mentor Coordinator for Photo Tagging
- Youth Alumni and Mentor Coordinator for Video Blogging
- Assistant Youth Alumni and Mentor Coordinator for Text Blogs
- Assistant Youth Alumni and Mentor Coordinator for Photo Tagging
- Assistant Youth Alumni and Mentor Coordinator for Video Blogging

3) To give a certain dynamic to the life of the fan page, we decided to incorporate.
- Text Messaging (SMS): this option will allow the Alumni to post on their other peers’ walls on Facebook.
- Direct Link to LinkedIn: by starting to build their profile on LinkedIn, it will allow the Alumni to take their first steps towards professional networking in conjunction with social networking.
- Twitter: application already used in the past and we believe that maintaining it would be proficient to an active participation.

4) Micro-donations: starting a fund-raising campaign by getting micro-donations ($1.00 to $10.00 cash or credit) from friends and family which will be tallied up either daily or weekly by GP’s fund collectors. The micro-donations raised will then be placed next to their names on the Facebook Page which would be represented by a small fundraiser meter graphic. Giving a little something to GP will give the Alumni a sense of responsibility for raising money for a cause that was once their own as it will at the same time increase their stake in the organization.

Note: Since the Alumni are not using their new Facebook page yet we can’t add the micro-donation meter next to their name yet however, when they start using their new Facebook page the instructions on how to create a micro-donation meter for individual Alumni are here.

5) Logo: Since the alumni will have a specific virtual space (Alumni Fan Page), they should have a visual identity of their own. We then thought that the Alumni should have a logo that would speak to them. To assure that they will be part of its creation, we thought that launching a contest among them would be successful. The Alumni participants would have to draw a logo on paper that could then be uploaded by scanning it. Global Potential would decide who would be the judges in this competition. Once the winner will be selected, the logo will be uploaded on their Facebook Fan Page.

6) Keeping in mind that our main goal is to encourage discussion, sharing photos, videos, thoughts (…etc), our group would like to see new comers (that will become alumni shortly after) ask questions on the Fan Page about the whole experience or simply have technical questions about what they should bring on the trip and so on. In this direction, the Alumni will feel that their advice and experiences are valuable and helpful to the “freshmen”. Secondly, the new members will be happy to connect with members of their own age that have lived these experiences.

GP's New Alumni Facebook Wall Page

GP's New Alumni Facebook Info. Page

GP's New Alumni Facebook Discussion Page

Future:

We had a couple of suggestions that Global Potential can review and might use in the coming years. Due to time constraint, we could not put in place these ideas but our group thinks that by implementing the following, the GP Alumni group would take a step further:
- Run a survey among the youngsters including four basic questions: Do you have access to the Internet from your home?/Do you have an X-Box?/Do you have a Wii/Do you have a Play Station?
Depending on their answers, Global Potential could organize meetings on multiplayer games through one of these consoles but also, the alumni could meet online in Netflix for instance and share the experience of watching a movie together.
- Get Feedback from the youth on their new virtual space. Through a very short questionnaire, we could find out how they feel about their new space and what they would like to add or get rid of.
- Contest of Micro-Donations: The one that gives the most could earn something.
- Photo tagging: Since we have no pictures of the members nor or we familiar with their names, we want to mention that photo tagging will commence amongst the alumni after the platform we created for them will be in use for a little while.

A few final words on the overall project…

During these nine weeks, we used various platforms to communicate with each other. Given the time frame we had to work on this and the fact that this is an online class we got the process started by communicating with one another through emails, Google Groups, Google Wave, Google Chat, Tokbox, and a project wiki page. After multiple exchanges, we realized that Google wave and TokBox were the most suitable for us.
While working in a group in real life is never easy and working in a group virtually has its challenges as well, we still managed to clearly state what we all desired and had in mind for our final product. The asynchronous and synchronous multiple platforms that we used were the tools that helped us collaborate, coordinate and put together this new platform for the truly deserving youth. We must say that doing this project for such a wonderful purpose really helped us stay focus and motivated throughout the entire process. We felt privileged to create a virtual communication tool for these deserving teenagers.
Finally, building a project for not only a real cause but a great one, helped us give some reality to our virtual reality!

Hi Group 2! I hope all is well!

Sofia & Carolyn – I really like the idea of the students interviewing the members of the community and feel that our students would learn a lot from that interaction. The residents of the Batey know the issues and experience them firsthand, so I’m assuming they’re the best people to ask about the issue. They probably have a lot of strong opinions, and it may feel good for them to share them. I also think if our students could take a photo with each person they interview, it would be great. They could use a disposable camera or a flip cam as Josephine suggested. Whatever works will do fine, and it would be nice for people to put a face to a name. I think it humanizes the issue. It says this is real, and these are the real people that it affects. It may inspire people to volunteer and be a part of social change.

I was thinking about something that I also think would be a great part of our lesson plan. I thought it might be good if our students went into the Batey schools and spoke with the students there. Whether they’re elementary or middle school age, it would be interesting to hear what their knowledge of the issue is. They may not know much, especially if they’re very young, but then again, they could know more than we think. They have probably been affected by the issue, and may not even have running water in their homes.  

I know that education is also an issue in the Batey, and their schools are quite different from our schools here. They are lacking the supplies and space that we so easily take advantage of. But they are young, impressionable kids, and I think they could learn a lot from our students and vice versa. Our students could interview them and then could also give them a little lesson based on their research. They could teach them about saving water. An example would be teaching the children about turning off the faucet when they’re brushing their teeth, etc. The children may be inspired to do some fundraising for their community or to volunteer.

I also thought it might be nice if our students asked the Batey children to draw a picture or do a painting of their take on the issue. If they don’t know what to do with that, they could just draw a picture of what they love about water. For example, they can draw a picture of kids swimming or even of a child just drinking a glass of water. Then, our students could bring their artwork home with them, scan them and put them up on Facebook with pictures of them with the students and their accounts of the experiences they had there.

I think this would be a really positive experience for our students and the students of the Batey. It would be educational and fun for all involved!

Talk soon!

Erin

Hi all,

Just wanted to touch base about group 2 and the ethnographic project. I’m still a little unclear about the objective… In our class wiki it says the goal is to create lesson plans of how to understand ethnography and mapping. To me, this is just a matter of creating outlines of how to effectively conduct research. If that is the case, that information is already out there, and we can just point them in that direction. But from the video, Frank described wanting a data gathering “tool.” Maybe just from being in the mindset of software development, I interpreted “tool” to mean an online application that would visually express the aggregation of the gathered quantitative and qualitative data. If anyone has clarification on this (until we hear back from Frank), please comment. Otherwise, here are the points I extracted from his video:

Task: Students spend 6 weeks with communities, understanding their needs and issues through dialogue. They conduct a 20 question census over 200 households, and need to make their findings publicly accessible.

• Suggestion: Use Zoomerang or SurveyMonkey, online survey/questionnaire tools, to input data and generate the visual and graphical displays which can be used for blog posts or reports.

Target Audience: classrooms around the world, media groups, parents, siblings, neighbors

• Suggestion: decide the types of formats most appropriate for the various audiences (i.e. white paper, video, ongoing blog)

Information to be Collected: Demographics & Key Community Issues (STEEP categories: Social, Technological, Environmental, Economic, Political)

• Suggestion: determine types of data to be collected and source for retrieval; Quantitative data may be best collected from research or governmental agencies, Qualitative data, like the opinions/feelings of the people, best collected by one-on-one dialogues and interview format, Real-Time Data, like which roads are cut off during rainy season may be best collected from live radio/television reports & mapped onto an online infrastructure

Collaboration Opportunities: Which other international NGOs or organizations are already collecting this data and can be approached as alliances?

• Suggestion: research the places this information can be found, via online resources or by contacting local organizations on the ground

Integrated Social Media Platform: Looking for a way to consolidate social media effort, via Facebook, Ning, and blog

• Suggestion: Create a website that links out to all these social media applications, and streamline a methodology for updating the various platforms and monitoring the ongoing conversations. Consider approaching Ushahidi to empower the local people to update local conditions when it comes to crisis or disaster response, and to have platform customized for local needs.

#

These were the initial things that I came up with in response to Frank’s request. Let’s get a conversation going about what comes next!

I’m happy to introduce you to Frank Cohn, Founder and Executive Director of Globalhood, which is the umbrella organization for the Global Potential (GP) program. The Global Potential program empowers low-income urban youth aged 16 to 25 to create positive change in their lives and communities. For 12 weeks, youth participants engage in a social entrepreneurship and leadership training program run at their high school, where they gain skills and knowledge that will prepare them to live and volunteer for six weeks in a rural village in a developing country (where at least half the students have a cultural background).

This semester our class will be working with GP to create two multi-modal educational projects: 1. a Global Potential Alumni Experience and Mentoring Program and 2. Ethnography and Mapping the Batey. I think GP is an amazing program and I’m excited to be working with them and hope that you’re looking forward to it, too!

You can get a good overview of the Global Potential program here:
http://global-potential.org/brochure
and at their blog:
http://www.global-potential.org/blog/
and Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Global-Potential/27679576083?ref=nf

So, without further ado, here’s Frank Cohn, giving an overview of Global Potential and the projects:

Here’s a follow-up video with more detail:

TokBox – Free video chat and video messaging

Our objective for this assignment was to to create a richer learning experience for high school students by combining entertainment, games, virtuality and education on an easily accessible browser-based platform. Ultimately, we developed Fractor World to be a collaborative learning hub on the Metaplace platform that exposes students age 13+ to social, political and economic issues and encourages action on their behalf through a confluence of Fractor newsfeeds, games, videos and other multimedia.

As a brief overview of our project, Fractor World is designed for use by high school teachers and their students. Games embedded within the Fractor World learning environment are suitable for age 11+, while the Metaplace platform is navigable for age 13+. Overall, the Fractor World community is a “gamelike” environment that allows educators to aggregate appropriate topics and activist opportunities for students age 11+.

While the site is game-oriented, it is carefully structured and organized based on the topics and activist opportunities Fractor hopes to advertise and encourage. Primary emphasis is placed on learning from playing, and supplemental information is available on both The Playground and The library in the forms of RSS feeds, instructional videos, relevant websites, and articles of interest. As a functional platform, one of our main goals for Fractor World was to create a sense of community and interactivity within Fractor. Interactivity is present through the nature of the 3-D virtual worlds and chat settings, and through the game-like nature of such environments (chat, avatar, world-building, games). Additionally, Fractor World features a rich sampling of RSS feeds, videos, images, and web links, which all make integrating Fractor World into classrooms simple and effective; it’s easily adaptable for the needs of the students and educators, and makes learning more fun and dynamic than only following lesson plans by the textbook.

Fractor World Playground

By design, Fractor World is more interactive than Moodle and Blackboard, although it is a somewhat unconventional LMS platform. For some educators chiefly concerned about storage capacity, Fractor World may be used as a supplementary learning tool and one that is easily embeddable on a class blog or within other LMS platforms like Moodle. See: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10275758-2.html. For educators who wish to use Fractor World as a primary LMS, surveys, quizzes, and lesson plans may be easily incorporated throughout the platform. Additionally, depending on the educator’s abilities, new worlds can represent new lesson plans allowing for easy chronological transition through course curriculum.

As primary administrator of Metaplace/Fractor, educators have the option to tailor RSS feeds, videos, and games for their particular curriculum. Additionally, educators have the authority to serve as content managers, space-designers, and overall administrators of site, bringing creativity into education and tailoring lesson plans as necessary. To facilitate educator’s module building, Fractor should distribute a complete functionality – topic, links, RSS Feeds, and games list – so educators can maximize Fractor World’s potential. Overall, Fractor should consider Fractor World a central hub through which it can partner with teachers and schools to increase awareness, organize fund raisers, and create community outreach programs. Fractor specific newsfeeds, “action” feeds, and games can be used by teachers to promote social action and build enthusiasm for the issues that Fractor identifies as critical problems in need of attention.

Fractor World Library

While we hope that our presentation reflected a relatively polished product, we encountered a number of social/collaborative and technical challenges developing Fractor World. In terms of our social/collaborative challenges, one big factor was geographical separation and time differences. To build a successful project, we all needed to organize and keep each other up to date on goals despite significant time differences. Furthermore, coming to a consensus about project goals and methods proved to be difficult, but ultimately beneficial. Individual ideas, while duly recognized, had to be set aside to allow for a mutually agreed-upon consensus about the overall direction of the project. Also, ensuring all edits and additions to the site remained fluid and consistent with the work of the rest of the group was a priority as we needed the end result to be as cohesive as possible. As such, organizing all of our efforts to create a specific “look” and “feel” for the site, and assigning roles and responsibilities to each member to ensure that every topic was sufficiently covered and no gaps were left in our work were top priorities.

We also had a number of technical challenges as our group members have varying technical training and experience with computers/programming/internet navigation. What’s more, Metaplace itself is a relatively new platform and we experienced a few major issues. One was when Metaplace lost our site for over a day and we had to rebuild everything we had created. Smaller, but equally substancial challenges we faced were: access to well-made, good looking objects that suited our needs, functionality issues when assigning behaviors to objects (Youtube videos didn’t always work, and some external links would cause Metaplace to freeze), and site consistency when inserting objects and organizing our World (objects didn’t always stay where they were supposed to, and landscaping and other terrain building functions were unreliable and hard to work with). Over all the biggest challenge was that we had very specific ideas and goals for the project which needed to be adjusted because team members lacked the technical understanding to accomplish them. In many instances, Metaplace lacked the functionality to allow us to realize many of our ideas, and especially so in relation to game-creation.

Moving forward, we envision many important applications for Fractor World for teachers, students, and the general population. While Fractor World is currently somewhat limited by the ongoing development of its Metaplace platform, we believe Fractor World might be considered for the following uses:

Games: “The Activist”, “The Paper Boy”

Mobile: Josephine’s suggestion of mobile apps/collaborative play on mobile devices.

Geotagging: The user’s ability to click an area in the world and see what non-profit groups exist in that specific region.

For a better view of our project and to see some relevant screenshots, supplemental videos, and game descriptions, please visit: http://docs.google.com/Presentation?docid=0AZ_UMkdL1leRZGdwcXNxN21fNzAyZGI0bTNoZg&hl=en&invite=CLzmqtUE

Critical Foundations for Fractoplace

The response process models the responsiveness, cooperation, and content-relevant communication between the learner and the group. (Chang/Lim) 9The base of our project was created out of the ideas of shared creation and information transfer. Both Fractor and Metaplace are based on the idea of sharing information and relevant action and therefore support a “game” model that allows for exploration, cooperation and communication.

Much social organization no longer fits a group-centric model of society. Work, community, and domesticity have moved from hierarchically arranged, densely knit, bounded groups to social networks. (Hunsinger) Internet communications have given rise to a new tribalization of society, based on interests and on individual concerns, but because humanity is social by nature, individuals gravitate towards others with similar interests in lieu of space and family.

Research has shown that computer-mediated communication supports a range of instrumental, informational, social, and emotional exchanges in work and leisure contexts (e.g., Baym, 1995; 1997; Rice et aI., 1998; Wellman & Gulia, 1999; Quan-Haase & Wellman, 2004; 2005). There is little need to argue that the Internet is both a colossal waster of time and the biggest resource for information ever conceived by mankind. Fractorplace echoes the world of the internet—a user can walk around, see some sights, have a conversation, take in the news, etc. It allows for exploration, gathering of information and a platform to share it. True feedback loops may occur here. …A more complex form of play; the game which is constructed not upon the premise “This is play” but rather around the question “Is this play?” And this type of interaction also has it’s ritual forms… (Bateson)Fractorplace blurs the idea that research and exploration are boring, partially just through the medium, but also through the ways in which students can explore in the world. For example, they can learn about SlowFood through a hot dog stand!

Boundaries between play and production, work and leisure…are increasingly blurring. (Pearce) Metaplace provides an avatar for each user and through that avatar one experiences a secondary life that also is linked to our first lives through our minds’ connections. It looks as though a conversation is a game if a person takes part in it with one set of emotions or ideas—but not a game if his ideas or emotions are different. (Bateson)For students, it is important to blur this line because the work-learn paradigm in education is failing due to information and media saturation.

More Shots of Fractor World Playground

A space of mixed collaborations provides variety in play experience and flexibility in learning. Our findings suggest that lightweight collaborations can be enjoyable and enlightening and need not be negatively valued. (Nardi) Fractorplace provides these abilities to collaborate and to play—with enough customizable flexibility on behalf of the development team to create something worldly. The ability of some communication technologies to support simultaneous feed- back can signal listenership and turn-taking during the learning process. (McLaughlin) The ability to move around in Fractorplace allows for this asynchronous learning model to take root. The teacher and student are on a level playing field, thus allowing for true explorative and project based learning, with enough options to garner the attention of myriad groups.

The response process of asynchronous learning will encourage higher degree of response with media having higher social presence than with media having lower social presence during cross-cultural communication. (Chang/Lim 15) By setting up the form factors in Fractorplace, the Fractor community can help students to be active members in their society in ways that interest them, and it gives them the ability to research what actually interests them!

Polysynchronous environments are defined as virtual spaces that closely approximate real life environments. People..communicating polysynchronously not only talk synchronously (in real time), but also create temporal objects such as mail messages, newsgroup messages, as well as objects that can be experienced by others. This form of virtual reality has potential as a dynamic learning environment. (Robins)The ability to interact with each other, as well as with almost every object in Fractorplace provides a depth and a breadth of experience for the user, teacher and student alike.

E-Iearning has become an integral, valuable, and highly valued component of education, and standard-bearer for state-of-the-art learning and teaching as we advance into the 21 st century. (Harasim)

How does your project leverage and create a richer learning experience for your specific target population?

Our project, Global TextBook, allows students to engage in documented discussions where their responses, questions and answers can be calculated and well-planned. The online nature of the discussion forums and potentials for chat room interactions also allow for students who may be shy in face-to-face environments the chances to say what’s on their mind. The amalgamation of RSS feeds and video/photo posting in one space allows students a wide range of access to sources to supplement their textual reading material.

The typical targets of Global Potential are lower income and underprivileged urban youths who typically wouldn’t be exposed to critical analysis of sensitive topics; they would typically only see the perspective of their local community. The Ning platform offers a compelling multifaceted forum that is engaging, yet not limited by many of the usual barriers to entry that students from lower income households tend to face. Ning is not dependent upon a speedy internet connection or advanced computer hardware. Its windows are easily formatted when one needs to print and it is not blocked by many of the filters used on public internet access computers. Our Ning community will also allow students to break their geographic limitations and form a new community whose purpose is to critically discuss differing historical texts. This elaborates on the idea that students are encouraged to think more critically about historical issues.

Ning allows students the chance to see two sides of an argument, giving students an opportunity to create a new perspective for themselves for the situation they are discussing. It also gives them skills that they can transfer to other parts of their lives. Additionally, the format that is being used allows students to learn debating skills.

Screenshot of Discussion Forum

Given that Ning is fairly easy and accessible, it also allows a high level of personal customization both at student and moderator level and easily facilitates connection and networking with like-minded individuals and communities. In addition, given the increasing interest in NING, customized skins and applications specifically designed for NING are becoming more and more prevalent, thus making the student, teacher and classroom experience ever more personalized and focused.

Screenshot of Profile page

Given that virtual learning environments are becoming increasingly cultivated into educational experiences, Ning is an excellent choice for segueing into this form of technological learning. Because it is simple and direct, it provides the student a solid understanding of how to interact in a VLE, as well as how to contribute on an equal level as his/her classmates. As mentioned before, the opportunity to be more “vocal” in an online educational forum will allow for more students to better express themselves and share one another’s knowledge and viewpoints, decreasing the shyness factor that can be brought out in a typical classroom setting. It also gives more freedom to question the subject matter and inspire a deeper level of critical thinking; one that is tougher to reach learning out of a textbook.

Briefly summarize your project objective, obstacles, modifications/solutions, describe project progress to-date, and include relevant processes/screenshots/links.

The Group:

Each member of our team worked diligently to contribute to the various parts of our Ning social site, Global Textbook. While each person has their own skills, we all did our part to pull together a solidly constructed virtual learning environment that students can benefit from and contribute to.

As a group we worked on the organization of the main page. We also agreed on what tools we should provide to our community. This includes the Photos, Videos, Forums, Links, and a reference page. We also agreed that we would create a Global Textbook user manual using a separate wiki space. We met weekly to revise our Ning site and brainstorm ideas on how to make it better.

Screenshot of Chat page, where we held some of our weekly meetings

Each member played his or her part in bringing the project together and we were not hampered by ‘wannabe superstar egos’.  As such, workloads were apportioned evenly and according to individual talents and schedule; and thus each member was able to shine in his or her own way. We worked efficiently and without ‘pomp and circumstance’; keeping true to Katzenbach & Smith definition of a successful team. We simply remained throughout… a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals and [a common] approach for which they hold themselves accountable. [1]

Individual Tasks:

Although each of us went to considerable lengths to make this project the best it could be in a short few weeks, we will briefly summarize below what each member completed throughout the duration of the Ning site and the supplementary Wiki page.

Katharine’s main duties were to set up the interface for the Global Textbook site, where she chose “Social Sunny” as the theme (silhouetted conversing figures) which best demonstrated the purpose of the site. She also edited the colors to be similar to Global Potential, and added some initial features to the main page, while doing some html coding for the Links tab for easy navigation. She also wrote instructions for six of the tabs, which can be found on the Wiki page.

Kelly’s main responsibility was setting up RSS feeds to the Ning site. Google News had a decent sampling of the current news from each region (Haiti and D.R.), which she chose to feed into the main page of Global Textbook. She also contributed to rearranging the page, initiated the Wiki, and wrote about starting a discussion, while also giving a tour of the main page.

Henry set up two forums for Global Textbook and wrote the instructions and rules for posting on them. The first forum is Lessons, for administrators only, and the second forum is Open for all members to start discussions on their own topics. The restricted Lessons forum would allow Global Potential to use the site for its educational purposes, while a less restricted open forum would provide students and other members a place to share their ideas and views in order to build a better sense of community. Henry also contributed to the Photos section to provide a sample of how it could be used by instructors, as well as to include supplemental images. He also wrote Wiki entries for Photos and Videos, and contributed to the “How to post to the forum” section. These entries explain how the sections are meant to be used for educational purposes, and how to post in them.

Vicki worked on researching different videos, articles, and relative information about Haiti and the Domincan Republic to provide a solid base of information for Global Textbook’s main page and additional tabs. She included a Reference Texts tab (with the help of Katharine) to add a bibliography of relevant texts and information written about these countries. There are a few videos that better visualize the relationship between Haiti and the Dominican Republic that are posted to the Video tab and take the user straight to the video’s host page. She also included links in the Links tab to both nations’ United States Embassies home pages. She also included a map of the island of Hispaniola in the Photo tab to add to the visual element of the learning experience in Global Textbook.

Helen was responsible for getting the site off the ground, which she did by initiating the Google Groups forum and creating the Ning network name and ID project, where Global Textbook could get underway. She also contributed to setting up RSS feeds on the Ning site, which are linked below. She added a list of NGO/UN and other links, easily located in the Links tab. She also wrote the four sub-sections under “Your Members” for the Wiki.

Screenshot of Videos page

Concluding thoughts:

There are always obstacles to working with a group on a project that is done completely through virtual methods, but we are all confident with the outcome of the Ning site and are proud to have created this educational platform in a rather limited time frame. There was a clear lack of direction and misunderstanding of the project in the first few weeks of the course. Once we received clarification from Salman that our goal was to construt the skeletal frame work for Global Potential, and not to actually create and implement lessons, we were able to pick up momentum and pull things together. Every time we met, we found new ways to improve our site. Another issue was the general simplicity of Ning itself. In the end, the simplicity of Global Textbook actually compliments the goal of the project, emphasizing the analysis of text rather than toying with new online networking trends.

One issue with the site is the overall appearance. We have gone with a neutral style using a default image provided by Ning. Though this works and stays with our simplistic nature, it can still seem mundane. Global Potential may want to find a design student to create a more unique logo for the community.

This was no small feat. When things run smoothly, it’s often easy to overlook the unspoken work that each of us put in to making room for the other, and for each of us to pull their own weight. This level of maturity is rare and yet is a key element in the ultimate success or failure of a project such as this. Consequently, we feel that we should congratulate ourselves on the efficient flowing work environment that we created and acknowledge the accomplishment of this.

1] ‘The Wisdom of Teams’ J. Katzenbacj & Smith [1993], p.45

From Highsmith Ch.5 Adaptive Software Development

a. http://globalvoicesonline.org/-/world/americas/dominican-republic/

b. http://globalvoicesonline.org/-/world/americas/haiti/

Visit our Ning site here: http://globaltextbook.ning.com/

Hi everyone,

So it seems that our work is finally coming together! I added about 6 slides tonight and made some minor edits on a few others.  I plan to have all my slides completed by tomorrow night so I can spend the remainder of our time making edits and polishing the presentation.  It seems that our initial slides were created using lower-case for all words except for proper nouns with the Courier New font.  I used this formatting for the slides that I created to keep things consistent – does this work for everyone else too? I think it looks kinda cool and jives with the flow of our project, so kudos and thanks to whoever started it.  I’m assuming that we’re just working on the slides that we signed up for, correct?  If any presenters are swamped and need me to post their slides for them I’m happy to do so – just let me know!

Are we all meeting at 8:00 tomorrow?  I think it would be great to touch base before we head into the final stretch.  All in all, we’re on the right track and things are coming together well.  My only question is on videos.  Have we decided who is going to create them?  I can make one if we need another; I’m just a little confused as to who’s doing what in this regard.

See you  tomorrow!