Filed under: education, second life, students, teaching | Tags: assessment, multimedia design, virtual worlds
(cross-posted from Judy’s blog)
We’re having a Second Life party and Oscars ceremony for Judy’s Multimedia students on Monday 10th March (11.15am – 12.15 (4th years) then 12.15 – 1.15pm (MSc students)). While visitors come to the island in SL, the students and face to face visitors will be hearing presentations from the students and prizes for the best work will be awarded in Real Life.
Come to the island during the above time slots (UK time) to see what the students have been working on and visit each group’s area. Students will be logged on to show you around and give you party hats. 
Please note that the island is not open to visitors until 10th March to give the students a chance to finish off their works in progress.
Feel free to invite other SL educators or students who might like to come.
Looking forward to seeing as many at the assignment-party as possible!
Filed under: group work, second life, students | Tags: participant observation, peer feedback
Today’s lab was all about giving and receiving peer feedback for an aspect of the students’ assignments. Some chose to have their tutorial reviewed (for the marking scheme, check out the lecturer’s blog), others to have their building in Second Life reviewed.
I must say, observing, partly facilitating and partly helping to review (some very interesting videos there, a comic strip, PPT presentations, etc) was really rather interesting. After the first kerfuffle of trying to find their review buddies, most settled down, and I was intrigued to see how some, who had been fairly uncommunicative in earlier labs (even during groupwork) were engaged with their fellows and constructively criticising. That is the crux of feedback, isn’t it? To find a way to convey criticism/suggestions/etc in a constructive way.
Perhaps it was easier to do this F2F and in a lab, with tutors and lecturers around. I would like to see it happening in Second Life one day, but the logistics might be even more challenging. Also, with the restrictions that pure text might bring, the constructive element might become more difficult to achieve, but voice-over might be the answer. Still, so much to do and so much to find out.
I meant to blog about this last Friday, right after the lab observation, but alas, as so often life (first life, aye?) came in between and thwarted my intentions. However, in the meantime, my MACS lecturer pal blogged about the plagiarism issue, and let’s face it, far more erudite than I would have done, because I – as the observer – was more interested/fascinated in the issue than affected.
Computers, Creativity and Learning: Plagiarism in Second Life
I am just now updating my session on “Online Social Networking” for this term, realising that I have to shift the entire focus. This is fine, because everything we do should be influenced by continuous research and thus by learning more about a subject – and possibly changing our opinions, as they become increasingly informed.
I was just thinking, with the blatant disregard that I often encounter, that I am actually encountering misunderstanding and fear. Good old fear. Perhaps of the unknown? Or of the not-understood? Social networking is not the “demon” Facebook or the “horror” of Bebo or “terror” of MySpace. Social networking has existed since humans have been able to communicate – I hazard a guess, well before language capability (and if anyone can point me into the direction of some good papers on this thought, I’d be grateful).
It is just that the Internet enables networking in an exponential way, and that – I wonder – seems to be threatening, or plainly overwhelming.
Of course, it might also be the not-understanding of a generation (the emerging generation/our current students/current teenagers) that grew up with the ability to be networked across the globe and not just across the nodes within a confined space (e.g. a school, village, sports club) and that sees Internet-enabled networking not only as a perfectly natural and normal everyday occurrence (I have the numbers to prove it ) but also as their right.
And rightly so. (excuse the bad pun)
It was a lot easier to control our (Generation X and older) access to social networks by authorities of any kind (parents “be at home from your friends at such and such ‘o clock”, school “let’s all come back into the classroom, no more playing outside during break”) and don’t we all remember breaking the rules and sending wee paper notes to our neighbours under our desks?
So … is it a question of (lack) of control that evokes the often quite emotionally charged negative/worried attitude by many who I encounter? Because it is beyond us? Out of our grasp? We cannot be part of it, or might not want to be part of it?
Is there indeed, fear, and inconvenience, and not-understanding?
How, then, do we connect the generations?
I am – as we say – gobsmacked. A few weeks ago our island in Second Life was a barren piece of virtual soil and sea. I am right this moment walking around the island with my avatar (deliberately walking, not flying) and all before my eyes are the most amazing and creative objects. There is colour, there is movement, there are buildings with purpose and objects that interact. There is green and blue, red and yellow, and all of it has meaning and shape and function.
As somebody who doesn’t have a clue how to script nor programme (I am an educationalist, not a computing scientist 
) this is amazing and I want to call out “look at this! Look at what our students have created. In groups, individually, with a lot of effort, thought, and creativity.” Just look at it and then wonder what the students have learned.
I think the island itself answers the question, it doesn’t need us to do so.
Writing good questionnaires is enormously hard, no matter what. However, I’ve done it numerous times and did think I got the hang of it – until I started this weekend to work on the questionnaire and the interview questions for the Second Life … yes, what? Project? Experience?
Asking anything about identity without turning it into a leading question is the hardest thing I’ve done in a long time. I must have about 15 different wordings of each question, and am still not sure if they are the right ones to ask in the first place.
The questions mainly came out of the lab observations, but of course, I observed what I observed – how do I now stop myself from leading instead of teasing the replies out.
Answers on a postcard, please. A virtual one will do.
Filed under: group work, second life, students | Tags: identity, participant observation, virtual worlds
I did another lab observation today, and partly witnessed/was partly told by the lecturer, that now that the assignment deadline is getting closer, there are instances of groupwork trouble, as nerves are fraying some more.
Apparently, since each group has its own parcel of land – and each parcel comes with the same number of prims, and thus with the same ability to build – there is friction amongst some group members, because elaborate objects take up a lot of prims, and one group ran out of them, and the group partner could not build anymore. The situation was diffused by a very diplomatic tutor, who explained that the building by the elaborate student had to be simplified (no doubt a frustrating experience for this student) to allow the group partner the ability to work on the whatever other part they were working on, to complete the group project.
–> hard-earned negotiation and compromise skills within the group, done this time F2F
The next trouble was that some groups changed the texture of their terrain, but that encroached into the other group’s land, changing part of their texture. Obviously, the group was not happy. I have to find out exactly how this was solved between groups.
–> negotiation and compromise skills between groups (probably F2F)
I wonder … if negotiations in-world are more or less successful, but I fear for the online disinhibition effect, avatar or not. (and we are back full-circle at the question of identity)
Friday was another opportunity to observe the postgraduate lab. A few observations were noteworthy:
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one group, the one that had come up with a very creative idea and that had been sitting and talking F2F in last week’s lab to decide on the design of the terrain and objects, almost didn’t talk with each other at all this time. Despite sitting close. Why? They were all in fact working on their objects, prove to how successful their negotiations and decision making in the group has been so far. They had clear objectives and each one was working towards them. Talking to the group members, it became obvious they were very clear about their individual and collaborative goals.
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one other group had obvious problems with their group work/decision making. They still hadn’t decided what they wanted to build on their land (their assignment) and they could not reach an agreement regarding objects, even when sitting together and discussing F2F. Both the lecturer and I tried to facilitate the process, but while I was woking on facilitating the group work, I realised that the communication problems might not just be linguistic (different non-English languages) but that the basic programming/building skills might not be there, thus hindering the creative process. As a result, there will be a specific tutorial this week, focusing on those basic skills.
These two observations got me to think about the mode of communication, and the dynamics of a group – and which of those aspects has more influence on a successful collaboration. Food for thought.
I just read a fascinating reflective log entry by one of the students. They all have to work in groups and each group has a parcel of land to build on – to be assessed. The entry was about negotiations with their neighbours, which they had hoped would be easy “we had hoped we’d all be friends”. The groups idea was to build an object that moved and connected areas on the island, but their next door neighbours refused the idea with a simple “NO!”, which felt very rude to the poster, who would have liked a discussion and explanation as to why.
Even more so, when suddenly a tall wall appeared all around the “NO!” group’s parcel on the island, which the poster called “the Berlin Wall”. (which, incidentally, made me chuckle because of where I come from, but that’s an aside.”
In the end, the poster reflected “I wonder if the same had happened, had I/we asked the other group face to face” [and not in world].
Indeed, I wonder … and I open up the floor for reflections and musings.
