Some things in my head this week regarding Second Life and what we’re learning both in class, and how the filtered lens that I use sees it.
Regarding class activities:
we spent one period this week looking specifically at sounds, and how they are both used as well as the skills of bringing them into Second Life. We visited a site — a garden called new Hope Sound garden
http://slurl.com/secondlife/New%20Hope/95/71/23
it was striking for what it brought to the sensory experience that is unique to audio. Birds chirping, bees buzzing, rain and wind these all have unique sensory experiences that give us a sense of mood and place. It strikes me that coming back from a recent trip to Kona Village resort, the thing I enjoy most about it is the sense of serenity — no motorized sounds: cars, air conditioners, radios, TVs — nothing. Permeating the resort is a sense of when, birds, and ocean — very serene.
So this experience in the garden was both powerful, and refreshing because it allowed the visitor to detach themselves, even if for just a minute, from the busyness around them.
Now tied in with that, I was reflecting on a research article that I find particularly powerful from a MacArthur foundation grant written by Mizuko Ito that is titled “living and learning with new media: summary of findings from the Digital youth Project”
this is a great read, that looks at the different ways that young learners in particular news new media. One of the profound ideas that they develop through their ethnographic study, is two ways that use use social media: friendship driven and interest driven. Although I have not read all of the article, yet, it is clear that this developed idea is important in learning institution. Essentially, learners use social media through friendships to build relationships, and may use interest driven connections to help them build new knowledge. How to Second Life into this framework?
Although many of the experiences in Second Life lineup with friendship driven activities — social events, explorations with friends, communication, It is clear that if we are going to look at Second Life as a learning platform, we need to take advantage of the interest driven nature of social networks for adolescents.
article finishes with this quote:
“Kids’ participation in networked publics suggests some new ways of thinking about the role
of public education. Rather than thinking of public education as a burden that schools must
shoulder on their own, what would it mean to think of public education as a responsibility of a
more distributed network of people and institutions? And rather than assuming that education
is primarily about preparing for jobs and careers, what would it mean to think of education as
a process of guiding kids’ participation in public life more generally, a public life that includes
social, recreational, and civic engagement? And finally, what would it mean to enlist help in this
endeavor from an engaged and diverse set of publics that are broader than what we tradition-
ally think of as educational and civic institutions? In addition to publics that are dominated by
adult interests, these publics should include those that are relevant and accessible to kids now,
where they can find role models, recognition, friends, and collaborators who are co-participants
in the journey of growing up in a digital age. We hope that our research has stimulated discus-
sion of these questions.”
so sometimes we are thinking of Second Life as a venue that we will build old schools new. another avenue that this article suggests is thinking of these new learning environments as extensions of learning experiences that we haven’t yet fully utilized. Not sure where we go with that, but it’s a provocative thought all the same.
The article in full can be found at this address:
http://digitallearning.macfound.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=enJLKQNlFiG&b=2108773&content_id={83F36A9D-A8DE-4496-B8F9-52C3C2416216}¬oc=1
or shortened:
http://bit.ly/vSLkE
your