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I’m expanding our work on “questioning”, emphasizing “true” inquiry-based approaches to learning science and the process of research. I’ve been following education in SL and also considering the use of other social networking environments -- myspace, youtube, stickum, etc.
Frankly I have some concerns:
- Kids (high school is my target) use these “places” mostly for socializing;
- I see the SL work as being more about SL itself — how to use it, what you can do, etc. -- rather than the actual educational effectiveness;
- Much of educators’ enthusiasm falls short of the mark by deferring to what I’ve called the “You can...” syndrome. That is, the endless possibilities inherent in a system are the source of excitement, but get nailed down in very few instances.
I’m interested in your comments about my perceptions, and perhaps you can suggest some links to resources which demonstrate educational effectiveness in areas other than those where social interaction seems to be the end goal. I’m also interested in seeing some real benefits achieved in science, rather than demonstrations, while impressive, are really suggestive of future developments.
1. Our target student group, K12, are involved intensively and extensively online through social networking sites such as myspace, facebook, youtube, etc.. This is "where the kids are", and this phenomenon merits exploration as an adjunct to educational activities which would be in part, socially driven.
2. The web has made a major transformation in the past several years to a world where the content is created by millions of users, as opposed to companies, government, schools, and so on. "Web 2.0" is characterized by wikis, like wikipedia, blogs, photo sharing like flickr, video sharing like youtube, and so on. The notion of user-created content has motivational factors which need to be better understood.
3. Universities are already on board with social networking and virtual worlds. (Even U. of A. !!). They have set up dedicated channels on iTunes for audio and video podcasting of course material (and marketing), channels on youtube for video presentations and student responses, and an emerging use of cell phones which are evolving into video devices.
4. About 200 schools and universities have a presence in Second Life and Teen Second Life, virtual 3D worlds where students and faculty can interact via their "avatars" in real time. (There are many other virtual worlds operated by entities as diverse as MTV, PBS, General Mills, etc.). These virtual spaces are being explored because of their potential to provide platforms for innovative approaches to teaching because they are not constrained to the "real world".
So, in general, it's about the value of new technology for education in a world, which for better or worse, is increasingly technological. As new technologies have emerged over the years there always has been a flutter of interest in their applications in education. Here goes another round.
It was no surprise that in between short, online classroom tasks, these students checked their myspace and facebook pages, email, and cell phone text messages without skipping a beat. It was not noticeable visually and I knew for sure only by asking them. I mean I knew they were from experience with many other HS students,but I didn't want to just assume that here. These kids are as comfortable with multitasking with online social networking as their parents are with their TV remotes. Interestingly, and somewhat problematically were the few students who resorted to using other other online resources when their only task was to ask questions without knowing the answers. Our main task is to teach them to improve their questioning skills, so it'll be interesting to see how this same exercise goes at the end of the program.
