Jess’ E-Learning Blog

I made a bit of an idiot out of myself at class a few weeks ago when we had the presentation in Second Life and our lecturer told us that DoCS is interested in using virtual worlds in training. I just went ahead and blurted out “why?” in front of everyone. To me it was simply black and white - virtual worlds don’t check the ‘must be able to function with limited resources’ box so let’s move on - so i thought what I said was completely logical and warranted.

Until I remembered that what I saw in black and white, DoCS and Anne want us to see in shades of grey. So, just because the technology isn’t up to scratch, doesn’t mean that I should void the whole option. Second Life is great because it provides a social learning environment through interaction with others, which is something the NGO learners relate well to and enjoy. In addition, while a lot of e-learning technologies can feel quite isolating, having your own avatar and being able to see other people’s avatars may facilitate a sense of community and personalism in this type of learning.

I still think that there are problems with using virtual worlds. While download pressures may decline in time, issues such as NGO learner’s trust in and knowledge of computers may not improve. If this is the case, it means that the learners will find it difficult to adapt to the idea of a virtual world - students in my class last year had a hard time wrapping their heads around it, and we’re supposed to be technology savvy - and the quality of learning derived would be low. 

I think that if DoCS is determined to implement virtual worlds, now or in the future, then they will need to set up some initiatives so that learners can gradually become accustomed to computers and the Internet in general before they’re thrown into virtual worlds.

It’s kind of ironic; social software is as much about disseminating information as it is about consolidating it. An individual site can act as both spreader and combiner, such as del.icio.us. For the individual user, delicious acts as a consolidation tool to organize and have in one place all the websites which the user may need now or in the future. However, at the same time, the user is broadcasting their pages to other users and thus is spreading information around. Users can subscribe to other users’ pages and therefore be privy to their listings. In the same way, Netvibes acts both as a consolidator and a disseminator with it’s new feature “netvibes ginger”. While the old version of Netvibes acted as an aggregator which only the user could  see (unless they allowed another user to see it) Netvibes Ginger gives each user both a private and a public page. So while the aggregator is, by nature, a consolidator of information from several websites, it is now also a disseminator in that other users can access your information as well and use it on their own aggregators.

While reading ‘Web 2.0: A New Wave of Innovation and Teaching and Learning?’ (Alexander, 2006), I realised one really prominent aspect of social software which has never really occurred to me. When I was first introduced to concepts such as aggregators, social bookmarking, educational blogs and wikis, I was overwhelmed by the multitude and sharing of information, the interaction between people and the presence of identity broadcasting. But I completely overlooked one thing: How time plays a part in social software.

 One thing this reading has pointed out to me is that social software is different from other internet applications not only because it is highly user-generated, interactive and largely informal, but also because it is created over time and as such, the passage of time is evident in the end products of social software (not that there is technically any end product, as it is continually being built, but you know what I mean ^_^). For instance, blogging is highly time oriented in that each post is dated and ordered according to when it was made. Wiki’s evolve over time and often include a function whereby users can access the history of changes made to the wiki.

These sections of the Web break away from the page metaphor. Rather than following the notion of the Web as book, they are predicated on microcontent. Blogs are about posts, not pages. Wikis are streams of conversation, revision, amendment, and truncation. Podcasts are shuttled between Web sites, RSS feeds, and diverse players. These content blocks can be saved, summarized, addressed, copied, quoted, and built into new projects.

http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/Web20ANewWaveofInnovation/40615