24/05/2009 by lizit.

Things can change as I get more into the literature, but the plan for my DPhil at the moment is to do something about informal learning in communities within a virtual world context.

The next task is to put together a proper literature review.  This will be accompanied by making a plan for the next 12 months including what I am actually doing as opposed to just defining areas of interest and reading a lot of stuff.

The areas to be addressed in the literature review will be:

• What makes a community - what is meant by the term community?
  • community development models and literature (looking at the literature from the 60’s and 70’s and possibly earlier as well as more recent stuff)
  • online communities, both 2D and 3D and the sense of place and presence found in these communities - are online communities really communities (thinking of argument we had in my OU tutor group).
  • communities of interest - people bound together out of common interests/hobbies/challenges/disabilities/etc rather than people who live in proximity to each other
  • learning communities - both Wenger’s communities of practice and the community of inquiry model from Athabasca
• What is informal learning? (Might be useful to also look for a working definition of learning per se)
  • Recent government white paper and the preceding consultation process
  • Various older NIACE documents, including the McGivney stuff if I can get hold of it
  • Colley’s work on formality and informality as aspects of all learning
  • Peer group learning
  • possibly child development in some way - could tie into Self Determination Theory and intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (which I was thinking about in the Ecolab presentation around competence and achievement focus/drivers)
• What constitutes a virtual world?
  • should be possible to draw on work I’ve done for DELVE and other things I’ve been reading, including the various ethnographic studies in Second Life
  • To include or not to include 2D virtual worlds (interesting thoughts around SLED as a community of peer group learners)

I do need to give some thought to why this matters rather than just being something that interests me.  Initial thoughts include:

• The diatribes on virtual worlds and social networking from Susan Greenfield - are kids brains being fried and kids being turned into anti-social zombies or are they participating in learning experiences.  If the latter, what?
• Government white paper talks about informal learning, but context seems to be as pathway to formal learning or to employment or both, with no real value on informal learning for its own sake.
• There is a lot of formal learning in 3D worlds, but there seems to be an element of informal learning underpinning this some of the time, SLED for example.  that informal learning may be in a variety of places.  If the forms informal learning takes can be identified, it might be possible to use it more formally in scaffolding learning experiences. (This sounds a bit counter to what I think I am interested in if I am saying informal learning should be valued for itself.)
• Informal learning seems to have links to Self Determination theory - competence, autonomy - and community is to do with relatedness. Would be neat to be able to tie this together and say something about the importance of intrinsic motivation.

In the meantime, a couple of possible representations of what I want to look at.  I suspect the second is nearer the mark, but another area for more work.

Posted in informal learning, community, learning, virtual environments, planning | Print | 3 Comments »

27/04/2009 by lizit.

I keep feeling as though I am going around in circles, but struck me that some of the stuff I am thinking about actually relates to things I have thought about before in other contexts but where I haven’t looked at connections.

Nearly 40 years on, it’s difficult to remember details of my social work training and I can’t claim to remember any of the detail of the various theories we learned except that they were primarily psycho-analytically driven.  There was little about the socio-political systems which led to a whole range of inequalities, but a lot about the personal/psychological growth and behaviour and what led to a healthy individual and what led to dysfunction. If I recall correctly we first of all considered ‘normal’ growth and development, then considered what can go wrong and finally looked specifically at issues around mental health, aging and disability. I remember being deeply dissatisfied with what we were being taught as it seemed to me that this particular form of person centred psychology had little to offer people who were struggling through inadequate housing, insufficient income, poor health, etc, etc.

When I finished my training, I became a community worker.  The philosophy here was different and essentially was that people working together can make a difference to their lives and their environment through collective effort and action.  The reality was that most people were alienated from their environments and rather than seeking to change them, they were looking for opportunities to escape to somewhere better.  There was little sense of ownership of the problems within the community, and little belief that anything could be different. At the same time, I can remember individuals who somehow did find they could do something to change some elements of their situations. Perhaps the person who made the greatest impression on me was a man who was probably 30 something. He had grown up in care and had never been in employment as far as I knew.  He lived with his wife and 2 sons in a 2 bedroom flat on a notorious sink estate in a northern city.  As a result of various community development projects on the estate, he had been persuaded to get involved in producing a community newspaper. The hitch was that he was barely literate.  But the newspaper task somehow provided him with the impetus he needed to learn to read and write and to commit himself to ensuring that somehow his sons would have a better future. What struck me most about him was that he took ownership of his situation and began to do something about it in a situation where most people felt unable to take any action at all.

I didn’t remain a grassroots community worker for long, but took the lessons I had learned into a voluntary organisation support role and later into management roles in both statutory social services and voluntary organisations.  It was a time when voluntary agency culture was moving from doing good to others, a sentiment expressed in more sophisticated language in most charitable deeds of governance, to a time when it was slowly being recognised that people could do a lot for themselves. The 1981 International Year for Disabled People challenged us to rethink the terminology to International Year of People with disabilities.  For all the political correctness that has followed, the emphasis was on seeing people first and foremost as people and then taking note of the problematic almost as an afterthought. My MSc research was concerned with intermediary bodies for disability and the change which was taking place from these being organisations with a membership made up of other organisations to organisations with a membership of people with disabilities.  Instead of able-bodied people being the experts in matters of disability, there was a change of ownership and people with disabilities were expressing loudly and clearly their expertise and their right to have a say in what they needed by way of housing, employment and care provision. In the 21st century most provision for people with disabilities is made through direct payments and the client of yesterday is the customer of today choosing how to spend the money to meet their needs.

I could go on tracking this strand through my other work and personal experiences, but that would get boring! Suffice it to say that I have a deep seated belief that people should be in control of their own destinies - and this includes making resources available when necessary to enable that personal ownership and control.

So where does that fit into education and virtual worlds?

The first link is with constructivism, that educational theory which suggests (if I’ve understood it correctly) that knowledge isn’t something which is learned or transferred from teacher to learner, but rather that each individual is responsible for their own learning and constructs their knowledge framework by incorporating new information and ideas into their existing knowledge structure.  This process sometimes involves dismantling parts of that structure as new knowledge leads to re-evaluation of former knowledge.  Underlying this thinking is the idea of a learner owning their own learning. The nature of a virtual world which encourages and enables exploration and experimentation offers opportunities for creating and building knowledge frameworks.

The second link is possibly around ownership and autonomy, one of the facets of self-determination theory, and what motivates learning.  From what little I’ve read about this theory so far, it seems that it focuses on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and seems to say that extrinsic motivation decreases the intrinsic motivation which is a basic human quality.  From my early work experiences, change happened through intrinsic motivation and believe in self rather than extrinsic motivators, whether carrots or sticks. In a virtual world there are few experts as everybody is on a learning curve.  This changes the relationship between teacher and taught and leads to greater fluidity, flexibility and experimentation. Is it possible that virtual worlds enable ownership of learning and contribute to a positive feedback loop which enables further experimentation, exploration and learning?

Guess that will do for the moment!

Posted in creativity, community, motivation, change agents, learning, ownership, virtual environments | Print | 1 Comment »

30/03/2009 by lizit.

Just finished a full week of conferencing.  CAL last Monday to Wednesday and Best Practices in Education over the weekend in Second Life.  Interesting participating in 2 such very different conferences and one f-t-f and one inworld.  On a practical note, advantages of inworld are being able to do other things in between sessions, having a cup of tea when I want, being able to join in the chat channel, and not having to mess around with trains and stuff.  On the other hand, it was nice to experience the buzz of the f-t-f, to meet people I had met before and make new contacts, and to discuss thoughts and reactions to the different speakers as it happened.

CAL is a general education conference.  It drew a number of ‘big’ names and there was a lot of discussion of learning and education theory and practice.  Somewhat disappointingly, there was not a lot said or demonstrated of current technologies. It is the only gathering I have been to recently where there wasn’t a hashtag for use in electronic media.  It felt as though there were a lot of old debates continuing to be worked out.  Having said that, I did meet some other folk actively involved in working in virtual worlds and we were ale to talk about what we are doing and the challenges we face.  There was also a salutary reminder that not everybody sees or uses the virtual world the way I do; I found myself questioning the seamless integration of real and virtual advocated by one speaker with little evidence of using the affordances of Second Life. Unfortunately, he had to leave immediately after his presentation, but we did swap cards and I have contacted him asking for details of his blog on how to teach in SL.  For me, the best session in the conference was Carina Garvin’s presentation of the work she has done on mapping SL affordances and pedagogy.  This is a work in progress and Carina and I have agreed to keep in touch.

VWPBE was less intellectually challenging for me than CAL.  There were many good presentations of different aspects of using Second Life in teaching and learning.  Perhaps because the territory was more familiar, I was able to focus more on content and methodology.  Although I had heard both Carina Garvin and Lisa Dawley present during the previous fortnight, it was good to hear their presentations again and to ‘hear’ things which I had not taken in first time round.  Some brief notes on some of the other presentations I attended:

Joykadia is an international learning community drawing together a mixture of individual educators, students, organisations, and parents of younger students. The focus is on informality and activity. A number of ‘unconferences’ are held during the year. There is a major emphasis on community (Wenger), design and use of space, facilitation and recognising skills.

Devon Alderton spoke about the ethics of undertaking research in SL and reminded us that behind every avatar there is a person. Linden Labs ToS and Community Standards are very clear about no disclosure of personal IDs.  IRB tends to focus on potential harm to research subjects, and may be phased by avatars and virtual worlds.  Tom Boellstorf offers some useful guidelines, eg double blind avatar names, locked and encrypted storage, waiver for written consent of inworld subjects (written consent would mean revealing ID) and very clear explanations of what would happen.

The Theorists’ Project was advertised as teaching difficult concepts in SL and turned out to be a total learning experience developed by and with counseling and psychology graduate students.  A fascinating place to visit and experience.

Jackie Darkstone (Jackie Marsh from Sheffield in rl) presented her work on literacy and ClubPenguin.  I found this more interesting and meaningful having seen ClubPenguin.  Hopefully she is sending a copy of a paper currently in press.

The DELVE project made two presentations based on different aspects of the current research project.  Interesting for me to hear Shailey and Ahmad talking about what they are doing.  Should be helpful with the work I am doing for the project!

Now the conferences are out of the way, I am hoping to be able to focus on doing some thinking and starting to pull some of my own ideas together and beginning to work out the way ahead!

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25/01/2009 by lizit.

I seem to be living in Second Life at the moment with setting up the island for ILE, getting my OU tutor group inworld and attending building classes.  On a personal level, I am noticing how long it takes to do stuff (though hopefully some stuff will be re-usable).  Creating a notice board involves making textures (Word then image capture and resize canvas to meet SL requirements then upload to SL), building a notice board (re-usable once one has been created) and applying appropriate texture, then putting in appropriate place and making sure positioned OK.

The major achievement today has been doing some land parceling - should make life easier with managing extraneous objects, builds and debris.

One of my OU students has been asking more about safety in SL.  I think it might be useful for all the projects I’m involved in to put together a quick hints and tips sheet.  Simple things like adding real life name and context to the notes section on an avatar profile so I know who I am talking to.  It seems something more may be needed than the keeping safe advice in the ‘Getting into Seconf Life’ guide Anna and I have been using.

Although the Constuction Junction course is very tiring, I am thoroughly enjoying it and gaining a lot from it.  Hopefully, I will be able to experiment with some of the stuff I have been learning before I forget how to do it! Having access to a course wiki is useful for reference too.

This next week I really must spend some time in real life catching up on some reading and other stuff I am falling behind on.  Still Rome wasn’t built in a day and I can’t work 24/7 if I want to stay sane!

Posted in Second Life, virtual environments | Print | 1 Comment »

24/12/2008 by lizit.

I’m starting to feel a bit as though I’m drowning with all the different things that I’m reading at the moment. This is an attempt to pull some of the threads out from some of the things that I have been reading and get some kind of overview on the basis that if I can get some kind of picture of the big map then I might be able to start seeing which bits of the detail I am actually interested in. Just how that will relate to the ILE course, I’m not absolutely sure at this instant.

So what kind of things have I been reading? So far today, I’ve read two papers which are quite contrasting in content and style. Winn considers developments in the use of learning technologies over a lengthy period and links the description to a range of different learning theories and how they have grown in or out of favour over the same period. He highlights the advantage of virtual environments in making it possible to do what it is not possible to do in real life for a number of different reasons, focusing mainly on simulations. On the other hand, de Winter and Vie focus on Second Life and identify a number of considerations educationalists should bear in mind when considering teaching in that environment. These range from the technical to considerations of the environment itself and the experiences students may encounter in the spaces. It is interesting that Winn makes no mention of virtual worlds, though the idea of 3-D graphical interfaces underpins much of what he says. On the other hand de Winter and Vie differentiate games from Second Life but take it as a given that their readers will be familiar with such environments, at least in theory if not in practice.

Thinking more broadly about the stuff I’ve been reading, quite a lot of it has had a focus on instructional design, for example (Cheal, 2007; Dickey, 2003) and many others are concerned to place 3-D virtual environments within a model of development of instructional design which leads almost inevitably to the adoption of such environments. Other papers have adopted a case study approach; and these have varied between straightforward accounts of what has been done and how it has been done to much more complex descriptions linking theory and practice.

A number of authors offer taxonomies for use in differentiating between different virtual worlds or environments. These include (de Freitas, 2008; Mayes & de Freitas, 2004; Robbins-Bell, 2008). A number of features or characteristics are generally identified such as the immersive nature of the virtual world, its persistence, user generated content, communication within the environment, and the social nature of the virtual world. The most complex of the taxonomies is that developed by Robbins-Bell.

A recurring theme is the relationship of 3-D virtual environments to virtual reality. This focuses on immersiveness, presence and flow. Different authors use these words in different ways and some deliberately use immersion and presence as synonyms. Understanding of flow seems to vary between a general feeling of well-being and a total absorption.

A further strand relates to the activity taking place within the virtual environment. There is some focus on Second Life as a third place (Peachey, 2008) and this links with other authors focusing on social context of learning. Alternatively, and not often found in the same paper, is a focus on the creativity possible within many 3-D virtual worlds linked to constructivism and sometimes to experiential learning.

Cheal, C. (2007). Second Life: hype or hyperlearning? On the Horizon, 15(4), 204-210.

de Freitas, S. (2008). Serious virtual worlds: A scoping study: JISC.

de Winter, J., & Vie, S. (2008). Press enter to “say”: using Second Life to teach critical media literacy. Computers and Composition, 25, 313-322.

Dickey, M. D. (2003). Teaching in 3D: pedagogical affordances and constraints of 3D virtual worlds for synchronous distance learning. Distance Education, 24(1), 105-121.

Mayes, T., & de Freitas, S. (2004). Stage 2: Review of e-learning theories, frameworks and models.

Peachey, A. (2008). First reflections, Second Life, third place: community building in virtual worlds. Paper presented at the ReLIVE08, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK.

Robbins-Bell, S. (2008). MMORPG, MUVE…What’s the difference? Examining the communication facets of virtual worlds. Paper presented at the ReLIVE08. Retrieved 29/11/2008, from http://stadium.open.ac.uk/stadia/preview.php?whichevent=1248&s=31&schedule=1470

Winn, W. (2002). Current Trends in Educational Technology Research: The Study of Learning Environments. Educational Psychology Review, 14(3), 331-351.

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22/11/2008 by lizit.

I guess I should start a blog entry on the conference even though I haven’t really had time yet to assimilate much, if any of what I heard and experienced.  Perhaps the biggest highlight of the whole conference was the high quality of so many of the presentations - thought provoking and lots of evidence for conclusions throughout - not a load of case studies and icing sugar. Although the most mentioned virtual world, perhaps inevitably, was Second Life, there were presentations based on other virtual worlds including World of Warcraft - is WoW a virtual world or a game or both? An excellent presentation by Sarah Robbins focused on the development of a taxonomy of virtual worlds - in my opinion much more thought through than the recent JISC review of serious virtual worlds - I must read the paper and look at the slides!  Another presenter dealt with the necessary issue of what standards do we apply to our research in virtual worlds - and how do these compare with work in the ‘real world’; a number of research tools were considered alongside ethics and informed consent - remember there is a human behind every avatar (very few non-player characters in Second Life at present).

I have a lot of reading to do if I am to assimilate the content of the presentations I saw and also get a flavour of the many I was not able to see.

An interesting observation on my presentation from Mike Hobbs - he hadn’t considered using students to facilitate change in his institution before.  Even though I had left change from the table on my presentation and had said we did not consider ourselves change agents, Mike has a point.  We were engaged in a change process and maybe I am failing to notice the obvious - the effect of being involved in this type of project on the attitudes and practices of the staff involved. Moves into the world of psychology.  I need to think more about this!

Looking at the blogs and twitter feeds, it is clear people enjoyed the conference - and frighteningly are talking about ReLIVE09! It even seems as though some might be considering offering some funding!  For the moment, I need a good rest and an opportunity to recuperate before thinking of going near organising any more conferences!

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07/10/2008 by lizit.

Interesting email - taster of what will be in the latest snapshot report on use of virtual worlds in UK HE and FE.  A number of quotes from people who have taken a look at virtual worlds other than Second Life.  Minimal detail, but a reminder that SL is not the only option - and in the future may not be the best option.

I need to ensure that I do not over-focus on SL without ensuring what I say is either relevant to other IVWs or that I clarify why it isn’t.

I also need to think about whether to have a look at some of the other IVWs - but I am aware I need to be conscious of cost/benefit given the overhead involved in really getting into and understanding any of the virtual environments.

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06/10/2008 by lizit.

Background

Over the past 2-3 years there has been an increasing interest in the education community in the potential for using MUVEs (Multi-User Virtual Environments) in learning and teaching.  There has been a particular interest in the virtual environment known as Second Life and a strong community of education professionals is developing. That this is not just an interest of a few individuals on the margins is evidenced by the recent £200,000 JISC funding to PREVIEW, a joint project of Coventry University, St George’s University of London and Kingston University to “investigate and evaluate a user-focused approach, linking the emerging technologies of virtual worlds with interactive PBLonline, to create immersive collaborative tutorials”. [i]

During the past 12 months there have been a number of major education conferences focussing on MUVEs and Second Life and more are planned in the coming months. Some of these have been held entirely within the virtual environment - Second Life Best Practices in Education: Teaching, Learning, and Research 2007 International Conference, some have been held in the real world and streamed into the virtual world – Eduserv Foundation Symposium 2007: Virtual worlds, real learning? and others take place in the real world with workshops in the virtual world - Researching Learning in Virtual Environments - ReLIVE08.

I have been involved personally in Second Life for about 18 months.  During that time, I have explored the virtual world, visited many of the educational facilities, engaged in discussion on the SLED (Second Life Educators) list, and been involved in facilitating projects in Second Life through The Open University, the University of Sussex and the Sussex Learning Network.  In general, I have been disappointed by the tendency of much of the educational presence in Second Life to replicate real life educational facilities and environments rather than make use of the possibilities inherent in the virtual world.

Focus of research

Following on from the ILE 08 project undertaken with the University of Sussex, I intend to further explore the potential of Second Life as a learning environment.  It has been suggested that Second Life provides an opportunity to reinvent problem based learning in an environment free of many of the constraints of the real world. [ii] In the same paper, Savin-Baden begins to explore the relationship between Second Life as a transitional learning space and threshold concepts as discussed by Meyer and Land. [iii]  In reading this discussion I was strongly reminded of the language I encountered in therapy and personal growth circles in the 1980s, for example “Transitional spaces are places where shifts in learner experience occur, caused by a challenge to the person’s life-world in particular areas of their lives, at different times and in distinct ways. The notion of transition carries with it the idea of movement from one place to another and with it the necessity of taking up a new position in a different place. Leaving the position and entering the transition may also be fraught with difficulties that may result in further disjunction for the student….” If in the same passage, the words “learner” and “student” were replaced by “patient” or “client”, the passage would not be out of place in a psycho-therapy or counselling text.

ILE 08 presented students with the task of developing learning experiences in Second Life for real life clients. The clients were asked to identify learning themes which were difficult, dangerous or impossible to teach in real life.  In ILE 09 it is proposed to look for clients within the University of Sussex, but instead of presenting problems which are difficult to teach, identifying projects where learners experience problems, including disjunction. ILE 09 students will be asked to develop learning experiences in the virtual space relevant to these areas of troublesome knowledge, and may themselves undergo a learning transition in order to understand the concept they are working with.

Contribution to knowledge

The research project will explore:

• The potential of Second Life for developing learning environments in areas where students experience problematic learning experiences;
• Whether learning experiences in a virtual environment can affect the degree of disjunction experienced by students confronted with threshold concepts;
• Whether the experience of learning does in any way correlate with the experience of therapeutic change

Methodology

ILE 08 gave an opportunity to pilot the development of learning experiences in Second Life. This needs to be reflected on and lessons learned identified before proceeding to ILE 09. Areas to be considered are the preparation and infrastructure of the project as well as the actual content and how the products have been utilised.

ILE09 provides an opportunity for a more structured approach:

There are 3 distinct areas of activity which are of interest:

• The ILE students, their response to a problem based learning scenario and their use of Second Life
• The learning experience of students on other courses when experience in a virtual world is offered – including the need to distinguish the learning curve of getting into Second Life with the learning experience being presented in Second Life
• The nature of learning experiences themselves and the extent to which therapeutic language is appropriate in describing the movement from “stuckness” to ownership of knowledge

Relevant Work by others

There is a considerable amount of work being undertaken in Second Life by academic institutions in the UK, the USA and elsewhere. There is a need to clarify which of this is most relevant to this project and to engage in networking with others involved in the field.

Meyer and Land have provided the lead on thinking about threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge.  The Teaching and Learning Network at the University of Cambridge has been extending this work through projects undertaken by the Centre for Applied Research into Educational Technologies (CARET).[iv]

[i] http://www.coventry.ac.uk/researchnet/d/467/a/4432

[ii] Savin-Baden, M. (2007) Second Life PBL: Liminality, Liquidity and Lurking

[iii] Meyer, J.H.F. and Land, R. Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: issues of liminality, in Meyer, J.H.F. and Land, R. (2006) (eds) Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge. Abingdon: RoutledgeFalmer

[iv] http://www.caret.cam.ac.uk/tel/index.html

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