Virtual Learning Environments

Hi everyone,

In our group presentation we discussed using social media to connect Global Potential’s audience to their storytelling contest. Twitter was the medium I chose to extrapolate on. Twitter is a great way for any company or organization to not only establish a voice/online personality, but also to communicate on a personal, one-on-one basis with its followers. We decided that the hashtag #GPStory would be used as a single identifier across multiple media. For those who do not know, hashtags can be used in two different ways: to identify a specific tweet with a movement, contest, topic, etc and as a search filter to show all tweets with that particular hashtag.

The slides below include potential tweets Global Potential could use before, during, and after the contest, as well as encouragement/solicitation of alumni participation and ultimately the announcement of the winners. Long term general engagement tweets can be about relevant news in the non-profit world, updates on current trips, conversation starters for followers (eg- “when was the last time you volunteered”, “what’s your favorite way to give back”, etc). I added another slide that has potential tweets after our presentation due to the fact that some of you guys asked to see some.

Some social media app recommendations: HootSuite is an application that organizes all of your social media accounts and allows the user to create a queue of tweets to be posted at specific times and dates. It also allows the user to see their @mentions and gauge engagement in real-time and in a streamlined manner. Twitter for Facebook is another application that GP may find useful. It allows a tweet to be posted real time to Facebook with the #fb hashtag.

As Laura mentioned in her post, one of the objectives for this project was to integrate all platforms that GP use in order to create and support the community of GP alumni and students. GP has been using their Facebook page for a while, however it wasn’t engaging enough. At the same time, most of the GP alumni and current students are in Facebook which makes this platform, potentially, a very strong tool for increasing interactivity and communication among people affiliated with GP.

In order to make Facebook page a more powerful and significant platform, we’ve worked out several suggestions.

First, and in terms of design and visual power, GP should use their logo as a profile picture. The same profile picture should be used in any other social media, such as Twitter, Posterous, etc. Alumni themselves and any other potential participants in the GP program should be able to identify this organization right away.

Second, and in terms of content, GP should use all available on Facebook options more intensively. For instance, they should organize various discussions and talks in the section “Discussion”. GP kind of use their blog (in WordPress) for that matter, but, as it was mentioned before, most of the GP alumni are on Facebook and use it much more ofter than any other social media.

Third, and in terms of delivery of the content, GP should link Facebook to any social media they use. Any updates that are represented on their Blog, Twitter, Flickr, etc, should be posted on the Facebook page. Gladly, GP’s Twitter account is already linked to their Facebook page. The same should be done to all social media. Their should be internal cohesiveness between all these platforms. Alumni and students should be informed via emails (which is now the major way of communication between GP members) about the possibility to share their relevant experiences on official Facebook page by adding #fb hashtag to their personal tweets, for instance.

In terms of a story contest, Facebook will play an important role of a delivery-content platform. Although Posterous (will be described by Christopher ) is the main platform for this contest, any updates on the Posterous will be reflected on the Facebook, which, potentially will inform more people about its process and results, and reach more fundraisers. Plus, a separate “Note” for the story contest should be posted on the Facebook where the rules, procedures, and the winners’ stories will be posted and discussed.

T check out, how representation of the story contest will potentially look like, I’ve created an account in the Posterous and connected it to my Facebook page and Twitter account. Then I’ve created my story about NYC via photos and captions. Two images below demonstrate visually this process.

It was extremely easy and convenient. I hope, GP alumni will love this procedure.

In a nutshell, Facebook should be a “wrapper” for content, allowing it to sit comfortably in a “social media” setting. It’s a connecting node in between various  platforms, which is able to provide equal opportunities to students who prefer to use different online tools.

Caution! Learning in Progress

I just wanted to take a second to post my overall thoughts on virtual learning environments (the concept, not the class).

Being a gamer, the concept of a virtual learning environment is pretty intuitive.  Just about every game that you have has a tutorial at the beginning that gently guides you through how to play the game.  For those of you who played World of Warcraft, I think you saw some this — the same starts off guiding every step you take, telling you exactly what to do as you go.  As you move further into the game however, things change.  You don’t get as much guidance, not everything is 100% explicit, and sometimes it’s down-right counter-intuitive.

The  thing I find most interesting though is that within gaming, those best tutorials are those that are seamless to me as the player – in other words, I don’t know that I’m being taught how to play the game.  Rather, that I’m just learning through the playing (or some close summation thereof).  Yet, at least in my project, we beat the students over their virtual heads with the concept of “YOU ARE LEARNING!” and I’m wondering about this paradigm difference between subtle learning, and clearly labelled learning.  I also see this expressed as the difference between playful learning, and ‘serious’ learning.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I can remember games that required you do math problems correctly completely outside the context of a game to get things to happen.  The one that comes to mind was a racing game in which in order to win, you had to answer a number of math questions correctly, presumably more than other drives, to win the race.  Here, again I have clearly labelled learning.  But then, I spent countless hours of my life playing games like Stars! Supernova and Warcraft I and II, and Starcraft.  Each one of those games requires incredibly complex resource management, making key decisions, and planning a strategy that can last, in the case of Stars!, months.   I think that all that play contributed more to my effectiveness in my job today than any classroom learning or clearly labelled “education.”

Some of this should sound a little familiar from Ms. McGonigal and gamification and learning. But despite being in Second Life which is itself a “game” of sorts, all of the regions that we developed lesson plans did the virtual equivalent of hanging this sign on the door upon teleporting in.  I guess my thought is – why?

Why are so many of the virtual learning environments clearly labelled as “learning,” with the implied “caution.”  I think that’s important – the caution on this sign and what I say amounts to the phrase caution being applied to anything that has an overtly learning potential.  Why do we approach learning with caution?  I wish I had an answer for that, instead of just an observation…

Larissa and I had the experience within Second Life of not only being teachers but also learners in most of the places that we explored.  Now, for Deep Down Virtual Mine, we had the opportunity to also be players, as well as learners and teachers, and I think that’s an important distinction to make.  Within the Virtual Mine, the region played (note: word choice) like a game, where you were given loosely defined goals and instructions on how to complete those goals.  But ultimately, it was up to you actually choose to complete the goals – to drive the bulldozer towards the trees or, as Jenee, Larissa and Josephine did, chase ME around the zone instead of the bulldozing the trees.

But with the other two environments, that element of play was missing.  The Etopia and Virtual Museum spaces (from my perspective) was rife with the ideology of “CAUTION: YOU ARE NOW LEARNING.”  The same with the Abyss Observatory region as well.  Larissa and I approached these environments are first with that feeling of “CAUTION” and determining what it was we were supposedly learning.  I know personally, I felt lot of frustration with that approach, especially with the environments that were not clearly defined in purpose like Etopia and Abyss Observatory.  Attempting to find the clear cut ‘THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE LEARNING” in those regions was like finding a needle in a haystack.

Further more, the spaces had no elements of play–they had some elements of interactivity but not elements of play. The playing in the space was lost under the breadth of the “CAUTION: YOU ARE LEARNING” and we bought into that mentality.  But it didn’t last because for Larissa and I, it wasn’t effective.  Despite our best efforts to the contrary, we had issues determining what we learning in a given environment.  So eventually, we started just … playing in the environment (there’s that word again).  We would run around, click on things, make jokes, question why things were like they way they were, etc.  After we started “playing” to determine what the space had in it and less of what it was trying to tell us, things when a lot smoother in terms of planning our lessons.

There’s some irony in the idea that we used play to develop lesson plans that (out of necessity) have the feeling of “CAUTION.”

Anyway, I can’t help but feel that in virtual learning environments, we have a unique opportunity to move away from the idea of CAUTION: LEARNING and more into the feeling of “play to learn” and I just wish I saw more of that being used.  In my mind, we are still trying to use traditional modes of learning and trying to force them into an entirely new environment that might actually benefit from a less structured environment.  Where it’s OK to make mistakes and to play and experiment to learn – to learn to be “outside the box” thinkers, as it were.

I think if I had the option to do the lesson plans over, I would try to make them more gamified–to bring in more elements of play into them.  I think that we could have increased our student’s engagement and generally enjoyment as well as learning.  I do think that by using Second Life, we captured some of that feeling of playful learning by proxy, intentionally.  But I can’t help but think how great it would have been to have the students have to play to create a farmers market vs. a chain store, or design a transition town, or a cohousing community.  With less of the just interactivity and more the play I think is so easy to attain in virtual learning environments.

Hey all-

Here’s the media from our project with Global Kids – Let’s Talk Sustainability! This was such a great experience!  While I was familiar with Second Life and had done a project prior for an employer, I never got to this level of exploration within an environment.  I’m really fascinated how I correlate our learning about the different environments as – play.  Anyway, more of that in my final post.  Now – on to the media!

First off – here are all of the Images that Josephine took, alone with the videos from the sessions:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/funksoup/sets/72157627235375805/

Then, I’ve attached our lesson plans.  I converted these to pdfs for ease of use within the blog.  Sometimes, straight up word documents can get funky when uploaded/downloaded.

GK Lesson- Etopia GK Lesson – Sustainable Power GK Lesson – Sustainable Building

Then, here is the PowerPoint that we referenced during the presentation with just some facts from some of the sessions, as well as the SLURLs to the locations we used.  Overall, just a nice reference guide of sorts, especially if you want to see some of the topics we covered a little more in-depth.  The content for informational section of the cards I had to research myself to fill in the gaps in the locations where they didn’t have information about something I wanted to talk about.

Let’s Talk Sustainability! Final Power Point

Finally, the images we used during out presentation with labels (note, we took these from the total list of image from Josephine, but we used the one’s we liked the best and labelled them so you knew what you were looking at).  We included shots from Deep Down Virtual Mine, Etopia, and Virtual Museum, Inc.  as well as the Global Kids Island.

To add to and build on Becca’s summary of our project, we want to provide examples and links for our work from our final presentation.

Here is a link to our Project Blog (http://teachinginpublic.themainestreet.com/), where we developed and articulated our ideas. From our first Skype conversation, we knew that we wanted to be able to document our process and be sure to outline a clear theoretical foundation, before we initiated the design process. Our blog provided a space for us to accomplish this task.

We also knew that we wanted to make use of the Moodle LMS early on, and as Jim articulated in his presentation, we began to think of the LMS as an open room, rather than a closed room with four walls – we came up with the word “gazebo.”

Here is a link to our Moodle LMS (http://m-theorymedia.com/moodle/). Our Photojournalism course is open to the public and all guests – no log in is required. Just click on the Photojournalism link to enter the course.

Here is an overview of the Photojournalism course in Moodle:

As a primary design consideration, we wanted to get away from the traditional LMS text driven access links and organization, so we got creative in adding graphic images and using Moodle’s hyperlink functions to link to images, as opposed to just relying on text links. This worked both within the Moodle environment for text instructions, assignments, and weekly topic modules, but more importantly, it became the basis for building connecting links to our social media tools outside of Moodle.

Here are some graphics and links of examples of some of the web tools that we integrated into the Moodle LMS course.

We employed Evernote as a method for students to journal, both privately and publicly, as they began to research weekly lecture topics and assignments. Here is an example of an Evernote Journal that Becca created for our project presentation. We thought of this as a digital field notebook, that students could not only during the class, but take with them as their own personal learning portfolio.

We used VoiceThread to create an environment for critiques of student work that included everyone in the class (no fence sitting in class critiques!), but also extended outside of the classroom, where guest photographers could be invited to critique student work. Becca and Jim worked up an example of what this experience would be like – you may need to log in (teaching-in-public@googlegroups.com, Password: vlesummer2011).

VoiceThread Example

Jim requires that students in his class do a substantial amount of web based research, so we needed a social bookmarking tool for students to keep track of their research and be able to share them with their peers. For this functionality, we selected Diigo. We also wanted to integrate a Wiki based toolset to begin to create a knowledgebase that would extend beyond the borders of the class and the 16 weeks session – it was very important to us as a group to build knowledge that was open for sharing to the world. For Wiki tools we selected PBWorks.

Jim wanted to use Storify as a method to build media rich digital lectures that could be embedded in Moodle weekly topics. Below is a Storify example we developed for our presentation.

We decided to integrate other social networking applications, such as Google+, FaceBook, and Twitter, to connect in real time virtual environments and to keep connected through social media that students typically use daily. We added Second Life in the mix, as a way to expand on students virtual experience and create connections.

The idea of social capital – the kind of capital you build not only for yourself and personal gain, but for society, both at the micro and macro level – was very important to us as a design consideration as we developed our open learning model. We discovered a tool that can help users track their social capital! What do you give to your community and to the world? Social capital can be measured by Klout.

Finally, we even used some basic Moodle tools! We chose to use Moodle’s blogging features to create a private space within the class for peer interaction and instructor/student interaction. Moodle also allows RSS feeds and we began building a photojournalism related resource collection that includes tutorials and articles from well known publications.

We also embedded topic related videos in weekly lessons to enrich in-class lectures, such as David Dare Parker’s Insight into Photojournalism.

Our design goal is to create specific weekly assignments that direct students when and how to use each of these tools. A type of integrated practice that coincides with their learning of photojournalism. By integrating so many diverse open learning tools we open up the teaching and learning process to the world – make it a public event, a shared experience. We housed everything through the Moodle LMS, to provide structure – a place to start out from and a place to return to as students and teacher embark on their journey of learning together.

See Storify example below:

Teaching and Learning in Public: An Open Learning Concept for a New Age

Social networks are creating distributed platforms of sharing and deliberation, and these networks, fueled by online social media, are redefining the nature of knowledge and what it means to be educated in the 21^st century.

The Network and New Conceptions of Knowledge

Educational reformer John Dewey wrote at length in the early 1900’s about social reform and transparency in knowledge and education. In his book, “Democracy and Education” he writes, “Society not only continues to exist by transmission, by communication, but it may fairly be said to exist in transmission, in communication. There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication”. TLP’s philosophy and work follows this very perspective. We are working to open up the boundaries between those individuals who posses knowledge and the global community: all of us working together, socially, collaboratively, in sharing and building upon the knowledge we individually possess. Our project TLP’s model for education is one in which we expanded on the old predetermined boundaries of teaching within a closed system/network (teacher to student) to one in which the teacher and the student are working together as well as working within a larger collaborative system, whereby opening up the knowledge base to a larger community/network. “The Cartesian perspective views knowledge as material that is constructed and transferred in linear deductive presentation, while the network perspective emphasizes the human interactions around which content is situated” (Brown, 2008). TLP’s hands on work has been to experiment with creating a central educational home base in an LMS called Moodle (a closed system), and then, opening up this closed network of information to the collective, collaborative, open forms available through online social media. Within this model, the teacher is also the student, and potentially, hopefully, the student is also the teacher. Moodle gives the teacher the availability to provide to the students enrolled within the closed educational/learning system:

• Assignments of different types
• Track ability and reports
• Controllability on when students access what organization
• Journals
• Quizzes
• Upload files to give to students
• Students can upload files
• Glossaries
• Databases
• Control over enrollment (even payment through paypal)
• Exporting options to open social platforms
• Importing option from other social platforms

The Social Media Catalyst

The catalyst for the development of networked knowledge construction is social media. Social Media tools such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are connecting people and information, and creating new forms of knowledge construction by eliminating the transaction costs for the acquisition of information (Shirky, 2008). Free and open sources and social media platforms online provide the ability bridge the gap between the knowledge producers and the knowledge consumers. We used the above mentioned forms of free social media within TLP, as well as the additional, cost free social collaborative tools; Blogs, Wiki’s, Voicethread, Youtube and Storify. These tools were chosen by TLP because they facilitate one of the most critical contributions of social media to knowledge construction: weak-tie networks of communities of practice working and blending together with strong tie networks Sociologist Brian Uzzi found that networks with a mix of strong and weak ties foster greater innovation and discovery than weak- or strong-tie networks alone. This is because social media tools, which are predicated on finding and following others, make it easier for individuals in smaller communities of interest to connect with others in different communities of similar interest. These “small world” or weak-tie networks optimize knowledge creation. Social Media tools provide:

• Communication with small tie networks
• Collaboration and sharing
• Authority building knowledge bases
• Distribution
• Multi media venues
• Community building potentials
• Global engagement

Social Learning

Networked knowledge construction and social media are expanding traditional notions of learning to include social learning. Social learning is learning that is shaped, influenced, and directed by how we are connected to others. In this context, mastering a field of knowledge involves not only learning the subject matter but also how to participant in the construction of the knowledge of the given field. Within the TLP model, we have created the Moodle as the home base, the instigator if you will, for teacher to student transference of knowledge and insight, as well as incorporated into the model social outlets for the students to use, research, explore and expand the knowledge they have gained into a larger, global community of knowledge and work, whereby opening up knowledge and education from a closed circuit to the open current on the WWW.

Toward a Civic Intelligence

In social networks, knowledge is constructed from the interaction of people, information and ideas in a participatory culture. The ability to derive knowledge from this context requires an intelligence in addition to IQ intelligence and emotional intelligence that can be characterized as civic intelligence. Civic Intelligence connects what we know about how people learn and maintain knowledge in a network environment, and provides a framework for developing and assessing intelligence. Intelligence in a participatory culture is the recognition that individual intelligence is based on a person’s connection and contribution to the whole. It’s the ability to engage in multimedia discourse across multifaceted networks, and to construct knowledge from the interactions of people and ideas. These are the skills of the 21^st century and our education systems should promote and engage within them.

Conclusion

To teach and learn in the open is to make one’s intellectual projects and processes digitally visible. It also means to invite others to collaborate and to share all or parts of your work in the collective pursuit of knowledge. In this context, the emphasis of education changes from individual pursuit to social collaboration. TLP’s focus is not only for the current education of a particular class within this Moodle site, but also to incorporate a long-term goal: a Blog and Wiki. These sites will remain accessible, to the students and the public, after each class has ended. They are the social framework for an ongoing record of progress, contributions, participatory collaboration and the expansion of integrated knowledge.

The purpose of the non-profit organization, Global Potential (the part our group was assigned for this project) was to create an ongoing, rich alumni experience that builds and sustains communication amongst alumni.  Our objective was broken down into four categories: the GP Alumni webpage, Facebook, Twitter and Blogging; through these mediums we created and debated about ways to make all the information cohesive throughout all channels.  One of many challenges that came up was how to connect all of these platforms together without having someone create an account that they normally would not check or have much use for but would be able to get all of the information that they needed.

The first part of this project was to speak to Patiwat Bo Changpriroa (Bo for short) at his office to figure out what organization needed help with to connect alumni.  Sasha and Laura went to this meeting and talk about different social engagement platforms that may help alumni stay together after they leave their host country either in the Dominican Republic, Haiti or Nicaragua.  Some of the platforms discussed were Ning, Tumblr, Facebook, Posterous and a few others.  Bo and the group dismissed the Ning platform because most of us thought going through another social site would not bring the alumni traffic that GP was hoping to get.   In the end we decided to stick with Facebook and Posterous.   The bulk of this project was to assess the options on how to link Facebook, Twitter and the GP alumni page and to keep everyone in contact.  As the group meetings progressed dividing up the project and communicating in second life.

The project will give a visual tool to the GP team to see how they will be able to move forward with this project and any others that develop from this.  This will also give examples in pictures rather than words to explain an important key fact into developing the site.  I feel that interlinking everything together, the organization can grow with the volunteers and as an organization.  The storytelling contest will help engage alumni to participate and share their experience to enhance the GP community and organization to grow.  Here are some screen shots of what the potential website would look like.

Happy reading.  Enjoy the rest of the summer!!!

What a course!  I truly appreciate not only the knowledge I’ve gained via our instructor, the readings, working in the sites, etc. but also from my fellow students.  This has certainly been the most interactive and engaging online class I’ve taken, and that interactivity has paid off.

Andrew and/or I will include the files from our presentation (lesson plans, links, etc.) shortly.

Hi all,

I’ve been lurking and reading everyone’s posts and I must say that I’ve learned a lot from this class, especially through my group’s project with Global Potential. Engaging people in a digital space can be difficult, but the value of doing so increases daily as our culture continues to shift into the online world. Solidifying real life connections while also appealing to a broader audience has been the crux of our project, and I think I speak for all of my project teammates that the readings helped us immensely in terms of strategy and long term goal assessment.

Personally, McGonigal’s TED talk stuck with me the most. While she has a personal stake in the investment of video games with a real-life purpose, I think her speech was innovative and I thought of it many times during my team’s brainstorming sessions. Virtual learning hasn’t been taken seriously enough over the years, and I hope that after this class we all continue to implement VLEs in our academic and professional lives. I know I will!

Have a great rest of your summer everyone!