USC Faculty Seminar 4.8.2008

Faculty Seminar on Virtual Worlds

Episode 6 - Education - 4/8/08cory ondrejka - cory.ondrejka@gmail.com

what this talk will not be

a survey of education projects in virtual worlds -- for that try:

http://www.simteach.com/

the sled listhttps://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/educators

the slrl listhttp://list.academ-x.com/

listinfo.cgi/slrl-academ-x.com

or try google

instead, will try to look at categories of education use

and how virtual worlds and education interact

since already meta

as we would expect

given the previously discussed lack of a magic circle

beating crap out of each other OK

beating crap out of each other frowned on

which we all understand now

so we would expect some other educational forms as well...

education and commerce

commercial education

(ie “training”)

exploring new media

large scale (http://sl.nmc.com/)

even trying to educate congress!

even trying to educate congress!

(where much of the testimony was about virtual worlds applications to education)

so, rather than a general survey, let’s explore the classes of use

(and maybe try to relate back to education theory as well)

which is, admittedly, a bit like

since this is what you do

so, once again, remember

not only that...

IANAL

not only that...

IANAL

not only that...

(I Am Not A Lawyer)

IANACSOET

but that...

IANACSOET

but that...

(I Am Not A Cognitive Scientist Or Education Theorist)

however, what I am going to talk about has been strongly influenced by these folks

first, keep in mind the idea of“learning by doing”

whether we call it that

(Lev Vygotsky)

or situated learning

(or lpp, for that matter)

or performance before competence

there is a long history that we learn best

bydoing

not by skill and drill

we want to see how to learn

why to learn

with different motivations

with different goals

and then be able to practice

with feedback and assessment

of many different types

maximizing the opportunities for situated learning looks a lot like

innovation

who are we allowing to try?

recall the innovation limitations

capital

stigma of failure

regulatory/legal challenges

these all exist when trying to enable situated learning

and all can be addressed more easily in virtual worlds

capital

stigma

regulatory

students and teachers want opportunities

and will leverage technology in unexpected ways

situated learning is just one aspect

of good learning practice enabled by virtual worlds

returning to lave and wenger

communities of practice

virtual worlds allow connections

at a distance

around virtually anything we can imagine

graduate students

or software development

fashion

architecture

history

not just long tail, but long tail communities (of practice)

and communities given a broader language for signaling and

preserving what makes them a community

and if you have broader communities...

from all over the world

virtual worlds can enable heterogeneous learning

easier than real world

to connect distant locations

to cross pollinate communities

and generations

of course, deep questions about transfer

and need for more research like Dmitri’s

but yet another advantage is that we can study behavior

within these worlds

if we remember privacy

there are myriad opportunities

and different approaches

to how we learn about learning

but there is a final category of education I’d like to cover

what uses of virtual worlds should be part of education

but aren’t

specifically

entrepreneurship

cross disciplinary teamwork

not to hit too close to home, but consider how APOC works now

take an amazing group

bombard them with classes

and make them create a community

a pretty amazing program, imho

(and one that leverages lppand heterogeneity very well!)

but how would we do it in a virtual world?

you’d start with a mix of skills

then production would begin

ideas would change

competition would evolve

teams would start anew

all the while learning on the go

making mistakes

and starting over

how many communities could this group create in a year?

I bet the answer is more than 1

and many professions know this

what can real world education learn from this lesson?

that when given low risk opportunities to try, people will

often working incredibly hard

and learning along the way

how would we do that in the real world?

a bit of housekeeping...

So, we’re almost done

april 22ndfuture of virtual worlds

stop talking now

cory.ondrejka@gmail.comhttp://ondrejka.net