Conference, Post 2

More from the Virtual Worlds conference in SL.

The second session I attended was about the Teen Grid and the Eye4You Alliance.

"Education on the Teen Grid: The View from Eye4You Alliance Island" Presented by Kelly Czarnecki (Bluewings Hayek in SL), Anthony Curtis (Stone Semyorka in SL), and Beth Kraemer (Alice Burgess in SL)

Location: Turing Hall

So what's it like to be an educator on the teen grid? Eye4You Alliance Island has been a source of education, creativity and fun on the teen grid since 2006. Librarians, professors, authors, technology specialists, subject matter specialists, and teens from around the world are involved in projects ranging from classes about SL and RL skills; recurring events like book discussions, space talks and island management meetings; special events like the recent literary festival, last year's college fair and craft fair; and a host of other activities. The presenters will provide an overview of what it's like to be an adult educator on the teen grid, describing the challenges and opportunities, and will discuss recent activities and plans that are underway. We'll compare the experience with education on the main grid and discuss our view of the future of education for teens in Second Life. The presentation may also incorporate comments from the teen residents themselves.

The team started with a wonderful video showing the amazing things that teens were doing on the Alliance Island. Please click the link to watch it. As someone who has worked with teens for many years, it was so wonderful to see them in their element!

Alice Burgess, BlueWings Hayek and Stone Semyorka all spoke about how they got involved with Eye4You and why. I of course asked my Chris Hansen question - "How can you be sure that the kids are all kids, if there isnt a credit/age check?" The answer - you cannot. But, that's part of life, isnt it? As an employee at a Children's Museum, we tend to be overly cautious. But, as Alice said "The MG is full of inappropriate stuff, like the web, television, and world in general are all full of inappropriate stuff. Even speaking as a parent of teens, I’d like to see educators help teens navigate that richer world rather than maintain the relative isolation of the current arrangement." Amen! I left this session with a note to BlueWings that I would love to volunteer come summer, when school is less intense.

Next session had to be my favorite.

· "Immersion Environments and Recreational Learning: Opportunities for Informal Education on the Virtual Landscape" Presented by Aldo Stern and JJ Drinkwater

Location: Muriel Cooper Coliseum

When the residents of an online three-dimensional platform such as Second life are able to create their own immersion environments, learning opportunities abound. Experience with a number of recent experiments has indicated that the educational potential of these builds comes not just within the context of a formal, institutionally-managed didactic approach, but also--and in some cases, more successfully--in the context of informal, self-directed learning opportunities.

Panelists Aldo Stern and JJ Drinkwater draw upon their real world backgrounds in the museum and library fields, along with their extensive experience in a variety of experimental collaborative educational, cultural and recreational environments created on the SL platform, to discuss the relative success of traditional "classroom" approaches in various builds, and the surprisingly vibrant informal learning dynamic that has developed alongside--or as an alternative to--the attempts at structured, hierarchical didacticism.

The panelists also will seek to explore how what has transpired in-world is analogous to the real world living history/reenacting "hobby" movement of the 1970s-1990s and other recreational self-directed learning opportunities, and consider issues of how institutions and organizations might utilize the potential of online creative platforms in the future to more effectively foster and encourage self-directed learning, and to integrate it into their programming in ways that it could compliment and enhance more traditional approaches to engaging and educating diverse audiences.

Whew! With a synopsis like that, who needs a report? However, what an amazing session! JJ and Aldo, dressed in full Caledon regalia, explained that to them, as former museum people, the virtual immersion worlds of SL were the virtual answer to living history centers. However, because of the rez function of SL, it was possible to literally pull an entire recreation out of your pocket. Imagine being a lit professor, teaching a course on Austen, and bringing your students to a ball at Pemberly. Or maybe you are a bio professor and you recreate Darwin's walking path as a meeting space for students. The possibilities are endless!

JJ and Aldo did indicate that many of the spaces designed for educational immersion didn't end up working as planned. In fact, many were planned more like current LH models - with anachronistic visitors, and interpreters in the space, as well as more didactic exhibits. But what happened was more akin to the reenactor model, or a Renn Faire. What happened was informal self-directed learning. (Why, because its FUN!)

Messages:

• Learning is inspired by and is happening in places originally intended to be recreational (see Star Wars Galaxies, Deadwood). (Because play=learning)
• Participatory play inspires more learning than a pure visitor role (see RL example at Tropenjunior)

There was then a lot of fantastic discussion about SL as a kind of salon learning environment - self directed, on the spot. Perhaps SL will inspire the next wave of bohemia? :)

Finally, as its late, I leave with this note - JJ said that he once heard that the abbreviation for Second Life, SL, actually stood for Sleep Less. I concur.