I was devastated when my 5 year old son came home and said that he didn't like computers. Accounts from a 5 year old of what actually happens at school are prone to inaccuracies and exaggerations, but it was clear that he felt, or had been made to feel, that he wasn't very good at computers. Apparently, he had been told off for taking too long to complete some godforsaken educational typing tutor 'game'. Anyway, the problem was easily fixed. I opened up NotePad and encouraged him to take as long as he liked, typing whatever he liked, making as many mistakes as he liked. No bouncing clowns or stupid multi-media distractions. Just simple and ultra-easy. Just the keyboard, some words and someone who cares to provide help and encouragement. When you are just beginning, things need to be as simple as possible.
I kind of see OpenSim as the equivalent of NotePad in this context. By hiding some of the 'features' of virtual worlds from new users, it might be easier for them to get a handle on things. It might also be easier for someone who cares to provide help and encouragement.
Wednesday, 30 January 2008
Jiscland suggestion 2
A different suggestion for how islands might be joined together. JISC/eduserv would run the show on the centre nine sims, with orientation island at the centre. Maybe. It's a suggestion.
Tuesday, 29 January 2008
UK educators landmass
We've been talking about the advantages of moving some of the UK education sims together to form an NMC style land mass. I have a suggestion for how we might do this. If each project/institution placed their islands next to each other, west to east, then anyone with more than one sim could place them north to south. This would allow institutions to expand north and south without any other sims getting in the way. This picture shows what I mean:
Monday, 28 January 2008
Incentives and prizes?
One issue I have with the plan to set a competition and award a prize is that it might distort our evaluation of the successfulness of OpenSim for drawing new users into MUVEs. Someone could quite easily knock a big hole in our claims of success for the OpenSim pre-induction approach by pointing to the prize.
The other thing I've realised is that once the students are in Second Life for the pilot proper, they will need to be able to upload images, which will cost them 10 Linden dollars per texture. We are going to have to give them some cash to ensure that they don't hold back on the uploads. Might this promise of free cash serve as the legitimate and necessary incentive to participate?
What if the end products of the pilot, i.e. the knowledge sculpture artifacts, were set to 'for sale' by the students, and the deal was that the 'judges' went round and bought what they liked? (It's all starting to get a bit free market economy, perhaps.) The prices that the students place on their objects might reveal how much they valued the artifact that they created. "How much is this learning worth, in Lindens?"
The other thing I've realised is that once the students are in Second Life for the pilot proper, they will need to be able to upload images, which will cost them 10 Linden dollars per texture. We are going to have to give them some cash to ensure that they don't hold back on the uploads. Might this promise of free cash serve as the legitimate and necessary incentive to participate?
What if the end products of the pilot, i.e. the knowledge sculpture artifacts, were set to 'for sale' by the students, and the deal was that the 'judges' went round and bought what they liked? (It's all starting to get a bit free market economy, perhaps.) The prices that the students place on their objects might reveal how much they valued the artifact that they created. "How much is this learning worth, in Lindens?"
Evaluation
What do we need to evaluate? How do we evaluate it?
There are two things about MUVEs that are potentially beneficial for art and design students. The most obvious one is the opportunity to produce art and design using this new media type. I believe that MUVEs like Second Life are a future graduate destination, and I fully expect some of my students, at some point in the future, to get a full time job in a MUVE. So this first area is about MUVEs as one particular form of creative practice. The criteria for evaluating this first area would be to do with the success of individual artifacts and their application.
The second aspect of usefulness, and one that has broader educational relevance, is the opportunity for MUVEs to enhance learning through the act of creating stuff. I'm keen that we evaluate whether the process of building a structure in a 3D virtual space has helped students to understand themselves and their practice more fully, whoever they are and whatever their practice may be. This second area is about supporting the development of knowledge pertinent to many different types of practice. The criteria for evaluating the success of this would relate to the development and consolidation of knowledge.
It is important to separate out these two areas and make a firm commitment to the latter. The danger is that we focus too much on technical skills and aesthetics, and skirt over the deeper, more generic learning that is taking place. It would be easy to mistake the best bit of design that comes out of the pilot for the best bit of learning. Our evaluation needs to be able to reveal the learning of the individuals that created a bit of a mess, but got loads of learning out of the experience.
There are two things about MUVEs that are potentially beneficial for art and design students. The most obvious one is the opportunity to produce art and design using this new media type. I believe that MUVEs like Second Life are a future graduate destination, and I fully expect some of my students, at some point in the future, to get a full time job in a MUVE. So this first area is about MUVEs as one particular form of creative practice. The criteria for evaluating this first area would be to do with the success of individual artifacts and their application.
The second aspect of usefulness, and one that has broader educational relevance, is the opportunity for MUVEs to enhance learning through the act of creating stuff. I'm keen that we evaluate whether the process of building a structure in a 3D virtual space has helped students to understand themselves and their practice more fully, whoever they are and whatever their practice may be. This second area is about supporting the development of knowledge pertinent to many different types of practice. The criteria for evaluating the success of this would relate to the development and consolidation of knowledge.
It is important to separate out these two areas and make a firm commitment to the latter. The danger is that we focus too much on technical skills and aesthetics, and skirt over the deeper, more generic learning that is taking place. It would be easy to mistake the best bit of design that comes out of the pilot for the best bit of learning. Our evaluation needs to be able to reveal the learning of the individuals that created a bit of a mess, but got loads of learning out of the experience.
Sunday, 27 January 2008
The 3D Learning Agreement
The Graphics course that I teach on is very broad. My students are studying all sorts of stuff. Animation, kinetic typography, editorial illustration, scriptwriting, design for print, documentary making, printmaking, interactive media and everything in between. One of the reasons the instructivist approach doesn't work on our course is because a traditional lecture on anything subject will only be relevant and useful for a handful of the audience. We don't really have one course, but lots and lots of mini courses, each relevant to an individual student. How do we manage this potential anarchy? We use something we call a Learning Agreement. This is a document that each student produces that documents their progress, allows them to reflect on, negotiate and plan their learning, and enables them to explore the underlying theories related to their practice. In level 3 it combines aspects of a dissertation with elements of a personal and professional development document, and is central to the assessment of work. It acts not only as support for the development of learning, but also provides the window that we view the work when we assess it. We have become more and more adventurous in what we permit this document to be, with students making films and producing image based Learning Agreements. It personalises learning in a structured and coherent way, and when it works well, it is hugely effective and popular with staff, students and external examiners. The Learning Agreement is introduced towards the end of level 1, developed in level 2, and is central to everything in level 3.
As we are running the first pilot at the end of level 1, it would make sense to link it in with the learning agreement. If the brief for the A&D pilot asked the participating students to create content based on the work that they have produced so far in their first year, and then asked them to arranged this work in the 3D space in a meaningful way, then got them to add more content to connect the work together, investigate any areas that were unclear and create new content to add to the sculpture, then that would be very useful.
They would effectively be creating a 3D learning agreement.
The other possibility here would be for students to make links between their individual 3D learning agreements, to create a collaborative 3D map of the collective knowledge that had been gained in the first year of the course.
As we are running the first pilot at the end of level 1, it would make sense to link it in with the learning agreement. If the brief for the A&D pilot asked the participating students to create content based on the work that they have produced so far in their first year, and then asked them to arranged this work in the 3D space in a meaningful way, then got them to add more content to connect the work together, investigate any areas that were unclear and create new content to add to the sculpture, then that would be very useful.
They would effectively be creating a 3D learning agreement.
The other possibility here would be for students to make links between their individual 3D learning agreements, to create a collaborative 3D map of the collective knowledge that had been gained in the first year of the course.
Saturday, 26 January 2008
Doing a philosophy degree? Be a builder.
Why can't students that don't do art & design build things in Second Life? I'm sure most people that build things in SL are not from an art & design background, otherwise the mainland would look a lot nicer. If we are thinking that building stuff is a good way of learning, then aesthetics isn't really that important. It's the knowledge that is gained and cemented that is important. So, what if it was the philosophy students that built the shrine to a philosopher?
Some potential problems with this, maybe. Teaching building skills at a distance is a nightmare. I've tried it. Mind you, Steven did a good job at the emerge online event, so maybe it might work. Maybe it is too much to expect them to take on the technical burdens that many claim building is.
The other thing we could do is team up the newly enthused and skilled A&D students, fresh from the first pilot, to do some building for the philosophy lot. This would work well for ours, as the Phil lot would be like clients with a brief. Mmm...
Some potential problems with this, maybe. Teaching building skills at a distance is a nightmare. I've tried it. Mind you, Steven did a good job at the emerge online event, so maybe it might work. Maybe it is too much to expect them to take on the technical burdens that many claim building is.
The other thing we could do is team up the newly enthused and skilled A&D students, fresh from the first pilot, to do some building for the philosophy lot. This would work well for ours, as the Phil lot would be like clients with a brief. Mmm...
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