"There is so much I want to teach you."

"There is so much I want to teach you."

This statement reflects my excitement at the start of a new term, as I think of how I will update and enrich my course content for incoming students. It reflects the frustration I sometimes feel when a class or online module ends and we have to move on. It reflects the pressure I feel as the term ends and we haven't covered or the students haven't grasped as much as I had anticipated.

This seemingly benevolent sentiment is the bane of my teaching/learning existence.

This statement is a setup for me as teacher and you as learner and vice versa. It suggests knowledge transfer instead of knowledge construction. It leads me to keep the class late, keep the modules open, lecture, direct, talk really fast. And yet I know that learning is not a process of receiving information from a teacher.

"There is so much I want my students to learn."

This slight change in wording leads me to think in a totally different way. By focusing on learning rather than teaching I am reminded that I believe learning is a matter of constructing meaning, not of receiving information. It reminds me to think creatively about what people, ideas, activities, questions, images, conversations students might engage with in order that they may grow their understanding.

Body Language vs. Attentive Use of Voice and Text Tools

Photo by: Mariis Mills 2011, used with permission

Yesterday I attended Jeffrey Ventrella's presentation about his new book "Virtual Body Language" at the Arvel meeting in SL. Jeffrey is a graphics and animations programmer. He has explored technological solutions to improve virtual body language in the virtual world There, where he was a co-founder. While working at Linden Lab he developed flexi prims. His book Vitual Body Language: The History and Future of Avatars: How Nonverbal Expression is Evolving on the Internet, proposes the direction and influence that evolving nonverbal expression might take.

Virtual body language has much potential in virtual worlds to promote engagement, connection between avatars, immersion and presence. And Ventrella has both the technical skills and creative mind to make simulated body language a reality.

However the event raised some issues for me: the first having to do with body language and the second having to do with the communication channels, voice and text.

Virtual body language. First of all I believe that with further research we will find that body language is highly overrated. These are questions I have regarding body language:

1. Isn't one of the benefits of virtual embodiment the opportunity to mask our pajamas, AND the many unconscious messages our bodies send that are either misunderstood or unintentionally socially destructive?
2. Do we prefer artificial body language that serves as a social lubricant but sends a message that we don't mean (think AOs that make us more animated but suggest sexual intentions)?
3. Subjects of research are often people not experienced in virtual worlds and so cannot imagine suspending disbelieve to the point of immersion. Isn't it natural that the uninitiated might show a preference for (perhaps superficial) resemblance to real life?
   

I'm not saying that improvements to virtual body language lack merit. I definitely want my avatar to be able to automatically shift focus to the person who is currently typing or voicing. Control over pointing will also be a great advance adding to the benefits of being in virtual space. I'm only arguing that the importance of duplicating real life in general, and on this dimension in particular, has not yet been proven.

Communication channels. Some virtual worlds - Second Life among them - offer better-than-real-life affordances. Multiple simultaneous communication channels is one of these. It takes some practice but it is possible to listen to a presenter who is voicing while holding a rich text discussion with the participants, as well as send out brief IMs to particular participants. Likewise a presenter skilled in these multiple channels (Tom "Boellstorff" Bukowski is a master) Can speak and simultaneously follow either the discussion or at least note questions. Real experts (read Tom) can even send IMs in response to particular comments.

Ventrella showed little understanding of the power of these tools. Second Life is probably not his platform of choice - so I don't blame him for that. However this became a problem during the Q and A, as a few voices filled the airways and the many avatars with text questions did not get "heard." Ventrella might have concluded, in the absence of body language to the contrary, that most of his audience was AFK. And a frustrated audience member (read me) or two might have felt a disconnect with the presenter.

Presence and engagement are multidimensional experiences. While we work to improve Virtual World experience as educators and designers, we may focus on only one dimension - that which we can effect. But it is important to acknowledge and use the others or we shall fail. (also posted on the ArvelNing.

PLEs: Using VUE as my Dashboard

VUE is a powerful concept mapping tool offered by Tufts University. It is both free and open source. I have been using it for years as a concept map builder. But thanks to my colleague Andrea Hodson's suggestion, I have started to experiment with how it can serve me as a personal learning environment, giving me quick access to important content, tools and resources.

Each node in the map can be a simple textual concept, as in most mapping tools.
Or each Nodes can contain hyperlinks to files on my computer, images on Flickr, blogs I frequent...
Clicking a node that contains a hyperlink (vue, web, jpg in the example above) will open the file/page.

While it doesn't pull together all the content and tools I use for learning, it is a step in the right direction. It has some important advantages over dashboard tools such as PageFlakes and iGoogle. It is completely under my control - which means to me that a) I can set and change the layout according to my way of understanding over time. b) The next time I open it, it will look as it did when I left it; design changes made by the company will not affect the appearance or cause me to relearn how to use my dashboard. c) It will not disappear if the company goes out of business. I also like the feature that I can link to files on my computer, giving me access to the things I am currently working on.

Cloud based dashboards have the advantage of being accessible from any computer. Because VUE is computer based software I am limited to using my dashboard on my own computers or those where VUE is installed. To do this I store my dashboard in my Dropbox folder, which is synced to each of my devices. When I open my VUE dashboard on any of my computers (work, home, laptop) it is up-to-date with my latest content.