Jess’ E-Learning Blog

One of the problems with Help Island is that there is not enough direction. I arrived on the island and my HUD display said something to the effect of: you don’t need me anymore, you can bar me down, explore the island. The only reasons I didn’t just head to the exit sign was because I knew that there were some freebees for hair that I could pick up and I thought that I should at least explore the learning environment if I am going to post about it.

I think that one problem with having such a lack of structure is that people become bored easily and can easily miss important things. There is a certain element of ‘if you stumble across it, then you can learn from it’ but there is nothing to point you towards the right area to stumble, so your chances of learning from it are greatly reduced. For instance, I had heard from a classmate that you could find links to education islands on Help Island, which I had forgotten about until recently. It was only through my aimless wanderings over the island that I unexpectedly found it. 

Another problem with Help Island is that there is much less interaction. I found that the HUD on orientation display was good in that it felt as if someone was there helping you, there was a presence. With Help Island, you are stuck on your own, with no presence to guide you and the only people who interact with you are other newbies, who are just as lost as you. It’s really quite isolating, as odd as that sounds for a technology which is inherently social.