Preliminary Thoughts

This post won't discuss specific things that I am reading--I'll get to them another time--but I need to get some jumbled thoughts down. I might be onto something here.

I have been reading (well, often skimming) a variety of things to try to prepare, at the least minute, one of my presentations for the Sloan Conference in a few days.The presentation is on designing virtual spaces for learning, not that I know a lot about this, but I may have some ideas.It started a few years back when I saw a newspaper (NYT) about Second Life in education which showed a Harvard Law School classroom that had been recreated in SL (withut all the walls). Granted, it was a high-tech classroom, but it bothered me that, given the opportunity to make the learning space (I won't say "classroom"), they chose just to recreate what they had in meatspace.

Now one of the items I have found is a blog post that defends the re-creation of the physical world, since the physical world is the way it is because it tends to be familiar, meets needs, and so on. I agree with the blog that we should use the principles developed in the real world to build in virtual spaces. But that means using the principles, not re-creating the exact spaces (unless they are real good!). For example, there are much more interesting experiments in designing learning spaces than a tiered lecture hall with extra high-tech gizmos. So we want to learn from the physical world--the best designs, the best design processes, the beest design principles--but we don't what to slavishly imitate it.

So what does thtat mean for designing virtual spaces for education? I think it is interesting that we have started talking about virtual "spaces" before  we designed virtual worlds. We think of the Web as consisting of "sites" that we "go to." We talk of "cyberspace." Our course mananagement systems are now sometimes referred to as "virtual learning environments." As far as I am concerned the best collaborative software I have used is still Groove, where one opens a space, where you can store documents, meet people, converse, etc, all without it looking much like a space at all, in the virtual reality sense. We already have a sense of place online; the questions are whether adding virtual reality can add to that and how we can maximize that.

First, we need to stop using virtual worlds, like SL as something tacked on to a course to see how it works. A lot of the literature on campus and learning space design emphasizes making it more unifired. You can't just design a classroom, you need informal learning spaces, niches in the corridors where people can meet and groups can collaborate. You need an information (now "learning") commons which provides acces to information, collaborative learning spaces, and a variety of other functiosn. Within that, you need classrooms whose "built pedagogy" supports a variety of approaches to teaching and learning.

Therefore, in virtual worlds you want to create a unified experience. First, we may have to move away from the document metaphor, even though it is so familiar to people. You want people to come to the virtual learning space for your class or program or insititution for more than just attending a short-term class. For example, each course could have its own information/learning commons where all the course materials, links to resources, and so on are available. Plus, there would be places where small groups could collaborate, with the information and the tools (to co-edit documents, for example) they need at their fingertips. In addition, people need reasons to come to the vitual space beyond just attending class. At ther very least that should mean that everything connected with the course is accessible through the space. The space must take the place of the CMS, websites, and other things. It won't work if people have to use a variety of different toool and programs .

When we do that, we can use the emerging principles of designing learning spaces to make the vritual spaces both familiar to the students, easy to use, and effective. That's what I'll talk about in the preesentation.

It's fitting that I present this at the Sloan Conference, since I am hardly the first person to think in these terms. I first saw Croquet at Sloan a few weeks ago. That is an attempt at creating Groove-like collaboration capabilities in a virtual world, where you can have a unified comprehensive experience.

More later.

Starting Over

I got way behind on this blog, so I'm going to try again. As part of that, I've expanded the scope of the blog a bit. Rather than just discussing things that I read, I will also discuss technologies that I try. That should give me things to write about even when I haven't been able to read much in the field.

So, I just found a little website that allows one to make animated "movies" by simply choosing a scene (with characters), typing in dialog, and then making choices about camera position, gestures, movements, etc. Not being very creative type, I doubt that I will produce the next Schindler's List with it, but I'm starting to try it for developing short explanations of Instructional Design and other concepts. Well, "explanations" might be the wrong word. Perhaps "demonstrations" would be better. I'm trying to find ways that would show students how individual concepts work in practice. I'll probably go for the paid version ($40 per year) so that I can have more options: more than two characters, new scenes, and so on. Oh, the whole thing is at www.xtranormal.com

Wikis in Education

Stewart Mader (Ed.) Using Wiki in Education.

This book (which I read on Kindle) presents a series of case studies of the use of wikis in education. Although there are a few very interesting cases here, including what sound like some excellent wikis, the book itself disappoints. The discussion of wikis and their background is superficial. Most of the cases similarly do not give much depth, and give little in the way of interesting analysis or evident understanding of collaborative learning and related issues. I can't go along with the editor when he calls it "deep." Read this for a few interesting ideas about how to use a wiki, but not for any real understanding of why.