I was genuinely encouraged to continue reading by a statement right at the beginning of Boellstorff’s article, whereby all virtual world users are engaged in a role play throughout all of their online time. I particularly agree with one user quoted in the text who said that people – no matter if deliberately role-playing or not – “tend to suppress certain aspects of their personality and accentuate others”. In other words, people would rather keep their flaws (e.g. of looks or character) their own secret, thus gaining more self-confidence in their contacts with each other.

The most interesting part of Boellstorff’s study of SL was his deliberation on gender, transgenderism, gender-switching and cross-dressing. There seems to be a strong link between user’s choice of his/her avatar’s gender (and clothes he/she is wearing in SL) and the user’s behaviour or attitude. Apparently, a common practice these days is to have two avatars simultaneously, each one of different gender. This means to allow us to experience, not only observe, what it feels to be the opposite gender. Among other reasons of virtual gender swaps the author mentions: ‘reflecting upon one’s gender’ or simply willingness to be left alone (usually for a woman to be left alone by men). I truly believe that still there might be other underlying reasons for such gender swaps, which could possibly form a solid base for a psychoanalytical discussion. I will gladly attempt to have one with my friend, an expert in Freud, when the nearest opportunity arises. I also find it striking how stubbornly the users may protect their actual RL [real life] gender from being revealed, treating such cases as breaches of their cherished and valued privacy.

A completely different, yet equally interesting, aspect of virtual worlds is being discussed in another article of this week’s reading list, the text on the Daedalus Project. The topic under scrutiny, among others, is the 3-D graphics available in some virtual worlds, including Second Life.

I had always thought of the 3-D graphics as an element that helps to immerse in the virtual reality, to feel that by trying to copy the world around us I will engage in the virtual world to the full extent. It seems to work perfectly well in games. Naturally, then, it should work for all other platforms, too. And yet, I had never realised that the underlying function of copying real world laws to a virtual world is to limit us and slow us down in achieving our game goals. Therefore, using it in education or business, for instance, may not be of much help after all, other than that of an extra feature (such as e.g. more light in a room).

It works well in Second Life and other MUVEs, I thought. And yet what is the point of changing clothes, observing the ‘social proxemics’, and sitting in chairs in the world where we do not get cold, can not push or touch each other or get tired of standing.

The Daedalus Project text did make me realise, however, that the 3-D may in fact be there for other reasons. It seems to form a ‘familiar metaphor for interaction,’ where simplest conversations can go by as comments on the weather, somebody’s looks or clothes, presence in a virtual place of common interest. The 3-D virtual reality is a ground for a conversation in itself, just like the real world is.

Isn't there too much focus on the form over the content in this video, then? (couldn't add as an ext. vid.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD2JseYe-Rk&feature=related

Levy in his  introduction to the 2007special issue of Ethics and Information Technology entitled ‘Information, Silence and Sanctuary’ raised a few crucial questions:

• What do we mean by silence?
• Why and to what extent do we need it?
• To what extent do we need a sanctuary in, or from, cyberspace, and how might we achieve this?

in the sanctuary

mutely cheering itself on

the self performs a striptease

and gets pregnant with ideas

In the context of learning, creating materials, writing assignments and alike, silence for me often involves an act of courage as this is the moment when I am left on my own with the blank screen or page of paper and my thoughts (and sometimes there aren’t any) and there is no escape from not-thinking. I switch on my internal ears and eyes to listen and watch attentively for SOMETHING. Sometimes the Something stirs in my mind straight away, sometimes I need to wait. But when it comes, it engages me deeply, draws me in so much that it keeps me awake, seeps into my dreams and keeps simmering at the back of my mind even when going through the motions of the day. It leaves me exhausted but empowered.

****

This blog has provided me with a number of moments like the one above (something I could add to my arguments against Dreyfus' crticism of distance learning). When I first started, I thought it would be a journey from A to B, through a fairly familiar landscape of e-learning. It turned out to be a wander, by no means an aimless wander! I have gone to familiar quarters only to discover unknown cul-de-sacs, sometimes real gems. This makes me want more so I’d like to carry on – Again my life motto proves right perambulation stimulates the imagination (William Boyd)!

I thought of writing a summary at this point of the blog, just minutes before submission, but I’ve given up on this idea. Instead I’d like to share a personal impression. While doing the course, I often struck me how I go in circles around ideas, coming closer, picking up a detail, going away and coming back to understand better. Sometimes it felt I was unknowingly jumping ahead – I migrated to the wiki to discover weeks 8 and 9 were all wiki-based (I wasn’t checking the course schedule in advance), I mentioned Community of Inquiry on my wiki and later we read the whole chapter on it from Garrison's book on e-learning. It baffled me – this penetration of ideas and thoughts, strange hunches. It felt a bit magical at times, uncanny, to use my favourite now word. Another one is rhizome and now time for my little story:

My first posting compared blogging to growing a flower. I didn’t know at that moment that it would be an orchid (which often develops rhizomatic systems and which Deleuze and Guattari refer to in their work 'A Thousand Plateaus' mentioned both in Bayne’s and Cousin’s papers). Now this is a very strange orchid because here on the blog and the wiki I was tending to its tubers and rhizomes but the pretty petals were already formed a year earlier – it’s like growing a plant backwards! Strangely enough, I put a little video together in February 2010 – embedded below – which, could it be an uncanny coincidence?, somehow subsumes my learning here?

The video shows various pictures of orchids from Glasgow Botanic Gardens mashed up with an audio consisting of layers of narration which penetrate each other, merge and diverge, creating a strange-sounding song (uncanny blurring of boundaries, penetration of the striated and the smooth, the dynamic relationship between the techs and pedagogy, all being the landmarks of my e-learning). The narration is in Polish but basically it’s a short fragment from Wikipedia (a mother of all hyper-texts, wikis being another area I saw in a different light) about classification of orchids. And I remember moments of concentrated contemplation and creativity when working on the audio, moments of silence and sanctuary!

Thank you!

The final set of course texts (Levy 2007a, Levy 2007b and Land 2006) explicating the need for silence and sanctuary in one’s life (my first prezi summarising the key ideas) has provided a lot of food for thought and, what is interesting, that provision turned out to be very well-timed.

First, after the frenetic ten weeks of an intense course, it brought a perfect closure, tying up all the dangling loose ends and allowing one to distance oneself from the experience by encouraging to take ‘time off’ in order to reflect on the ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ of e-learning (and learning in general), digital literacies and presence. For me, the texts had a particularly soothing effect on how I perceive my participation in the course and in online spaces. As documented here on the blog, I have focused solely on my individual learning process, without trying much to engage with others, which I had very mixed feelings about, ranging from anxiety and guilt through occasional indifference to enjoyment I derived from being undistracted and independent . Although I’ve perhaps taken my solitary habits too far, the texts have helped me understand that one does not always have to be in the centre of things, that sometimes it’s good to take a step aside, that solitude is justifiable and beneficial as it might provide time for reflection, deep thinking and thus unleash creativity. I think, without sounding too pompous, I can confirm that within the limits of my mental faculties, I have experienced little epiphanies and sparks of ‘divine inspiration’ while engaging with the course content, leading to a deeper understanding of the discussed phenomena. I’m especially thankful for the fact that I could learn about threshold concepts and liminal spaces, something that Land (2006) links to in his paper about dromology. I’ve got a feeling that the elements of that massive jigsaw puzzle I faced back in January are starting to fall into places – it’s rewarding to discover their interrelatedness, a telling sign of deeper thinking (?) With all respect to my colleagues and tutors as I am sure that the discussion forums are teeming with great ideas and links to excellent resources, sometimes I think I haven’t lost much. I might have less but sometimes ‘less’ is better. Maybe by sticking to my own comfort zone, I have prevented myself from getting bogged down in making sense of frenetic buzziness of discussion forums and let myself hear my own voice speaking!

At the same time, I have noticed a slowly emerging trend on the ELT blogs – a couple of renowned practitioners wrote about the increasing dilution of high-context relationships in their professional lives  due to the profusion of cybercommunications with a number of ‘followers’ and other ‘friends’ on social networking sites and expressed a strong longing for fewer but deeper interactions. One ‘guru’ has questioned the value of personal social networks, taking it so seriously that he decided to commit twittercide and deactivated his account. Although it is generally considered a great loss among ELT community members, I can understand his reasons, even more now when I have read about the need for silence and sanctuary. Strangely enough, he is the same person I mentioned in the previous posting about the uncanny education (toward the end in the post scriptum) on the occasion of discussing two approaches in m-learning. The apps approach could be likened to the routinised ‘ratio’ thinking stipulated by (Levi 2007b). There is nothing bad about such quizzes and alike because they let language learners familiarise themselves with vocabulary and grammar chunks probably quite effectively but other approaches are needed too which will allow them to use the language creatively and expressively. And as you have aptly summarised it, Clara, we should be  speakers of thoughts, not mimics of noise!

What really struck me in Levy’s paper is the origin of the word ‘school’ – it derives from ‘leisure’ (2007b: 247), which itself has a very interesting etymology in Greek philosophy! I found these two facts very revealing. And since universities - but I think this applies to other educational institutions too - are regarded as our culture’s think tanks, on the one hand, and ‘descendants of Plato’s academic’, on the other hand, contemplation and reflection should be placed in the foreground (Levy, 2007b:247). Land (2006:6) argues that these could facilitate better integration and thus transformative learning, in the process of which threshold concepts can be acquired, threshold concepts being important gateways providing insights into links between and within theories. The necessary processes of analysis and synthesis often resulting in problem formulation and solution as well as fostering creativity and criticality in more general terms can be instigated and managed in slow motion of liminal spaces more effectively than in ‘concertina-like time compression’. Since life seems to have accelerated rapidly in recent years and so creativity is likely to be obstructed, Levy (2007b: 248) claims that unfortunately education often pursues these societal trends and focuses on preparing ‘efficient multi-taskers in a world of total work’ (247). This can be seen in business-like obsession with outcomes and objectives (CEFR), summative assessment being the driving force of teaching and learning (high-stakes English preparation courses I teach on) and students’ attitudes – interestingly enough two weeks ago in a class of 16 Chinese pre-masters students, to my question why they decided to do a uni course, 5 admitted it should increase their future job prospects, 4 wanted to get a degree (their hope being that a good job would follow), which shows their strategic and business-like thinking. Of course, it can be questioned whether such strategic approaches are a result or a reason for the education to often so oriented towards outcomes. Just to finish the digression on a more positive note, two of my students admitted honestly that they want to do it for the sake of life experience, which is a ray of hope! Land (2006) introduces an interesting concept of ‘virtual stacking’ in which ‘every vacant spot is filled’, debilitating our higher thinking skills of spotting intra- and interdisciplinary relations. Our knowledge becomes fragmented into bitesizes of often meaningless noise. Digesting so cooked ‘knowledge’ presents a challenge in terms of time. Suffering from its permanent shortage, we fall victim to Eriksen’s temporal principle which says that within unchanged time limits, attention span decreases as the amount of information grows. A vicious circle is thus created. Slowing down to contemplate paradoxically seems to be a solution for businesses, universities, organisations and individuals (Levi, 2007 and Loy, 2007).

What is alarming about the situation is that digital technologies often get blamed for such a state of affairs. As clarified in my prezi presentation, it’s not the Internet itself. Time compression seems to be strangely pre-programmed in the history of the human kind, particularly the contemporary one. Land (2006:7) points out how digital education often gets limited to stacking (within VLEs?) instead of being used for internal integration. This is probably due to reasons Cousin mentions in her 2005 paper, e.g. the toolbox view of technology. Instead, as Garrison and Anderson (2003:122) suggest, e-learning represents a new ‘learning ecology’, which for has a strong flavour of wetlands from the prezi. These and other smooth spaces might help us reconceptualise teaching and learning by establishing integrative practices (e.g. Landow’s hypertext, Ulmer’s electracy) and contemplative practices whereby individuals might focus ‘within and beyond the human’ (Braman, 2007; see also your comment on the uncanny).

Back to Goffman’s dramaturgical approach – I came across it again in Steve Wheeler’s blog post which refers to Goffman while trying to discuss the issues of personal space and place in the context of online learning/teaching experience.  According to Wheeler, there is a relationship between the self-presentation and how we perceive space and place. In order to perform well in the theatre of life/work and take the stage by storm, we need a well-defined role that suits us, our personality and skills, a script and an array of props. If any of these is missing, we might lose the sense of space which, in turn, might negatively affect our performance. For example, when I go and teach (face-to-face), I am aware of my role (and strangely enough confidence takes over my normal shyness), I’ve got my lesson plan and a stack of worksheets, sometimes an audio or a video, an internet-enabled computer and so on. Sometimes I divert from the prescribed course of action, especially if I see affordances for exploring other topics or if technology doesn’t work but with years of experience such emergencies become part of the role, sudden prop-lessness or script-lessness become part and parcel of the role and if they shake up my sense of space, it is only for a split second. Wheeler stresses the importance of continuity as a prerequisite for the sense of space and place and he claims that even nomads recreate this continuity be means of travelling with familiar objects that help them tame any new place they decide to settle down in. This resonates with me a lot – having been on the go for the last 6 years, I’ve managed to re-establish my sense of space across countries and cities with a handful of faithful objects: my fav music tunes, books, laptop and a camera.

However, how does this translate into learning online? In my previous real-time online sessions (video chat or text chat via Skype, Elluminate or WiZiQ) I was aware of the role (a teacher learning how to use technology), the props (familiar software) and the script (agenda was always provided). The same referred to the discussion forums: all the weekly tasks were clearly spelt out with questions to consider although we were always welcome to raise any other issues too. So, clearly something familiar-looking (in terms of a syllabus and objectives for the whole course and each of the weeks), safe and secure (closed moodle environment), cosy (8 people and a tutor), structured, focused on process but actually outcome oriented – a journey from A to B, from knowing little about using technology in language teaching to facilitating a fully-fledged online class on story-telling or a longer-term project on collaborative report writing. I enjoyed those course and when creating my first online course and the second I replicated those patterns as it is how things are in education, aren’t they? and everybody expects them to be like this, right? (I’m making assertions on purpose)

Now I come to do this course and most things seem to be subverted or somehow stirred or unsettled:

• what is my role? yes, I am a student but fascinating as the content is, I’m often unsure how I am going to use it my professional context; come on, is this all applicable, replicable?
• what are my props? WebCT looks similar to the familiar Moodle but not the same, I find it quite clunky. The blog got deserted and swapped for the wiki at some point for similar reasons.
• what is my script? Apart from the list of readings and some guidance on what to focus on, the students are given pretty much a free hand in raising questions on the forums ... and there are so many people and so many tutors that ... I’m losing my sense of space and place and I escape. There is little structure to lean on and let’s face it I love structures and patterns and getting from A to B – my previous MA dissertation was on generative-transformational grammar and I loved drawing tree structures for sentences and tracing down movements in deep structure! And my doodling is always in form of lines forming multiple squares and rectangles ....

.... but at the same time I like organic forms too, wandering aimlessly, free improvised jazz and impressionist pictures and the dusk when the day is almost finished but not yet, sort of liminal, transitional ...

What I am trying to say is that there is dualism in me. Part of me loves the course for the challenge it presents – the readings raise interesting questions about education, learning and teaching, undermine my own perceptions and beliefs and introduce other ways of seeing, reconfiguring me as a learner and an educator – Cousin (2005:119) says after Davis (1998) and McLuhan (1964) that with technological inventions ‘we partially reconstruct the self and its world, creating new opportunities (and new traps) for thought, perception and social experience.’

Part of me dislikes it, because I feel deprived of my props and scripts and struggle to find my place and space. I also think and am puzzled as to how to implement what I am learning in my context, how to introduce activities that would encourage smooth learning when I have fixed course objectives and assessment (very much all about ticking the boxes and discrete items). The issue of assessment which is inherent in HE also poses some questions. It seems it is not only students that are led to explore the troublesome but also the tutors might experience the same – if liminal spaces are associated with intellectual uncertainty beyond the black and white of right and wrong – the foundations of the assessment have to be reconfigured too and encompass the spectrum of greys between and betwixt (something you Clara referred to in your recent presentation).

Speed, silence and sanctuary, is the topic of discussion for the final week of study in Introduction to Digital Environments in Learning. We began the course by talking about the ever increasing workload that teachers are facing in the work place. I wrote this blog: IDEL Redefining Personal Boundaries in Education where I reflect:

“In environments where technology and e-learning has not "Yet" been adopted, teachers and lecturers are used to a structured workplace where the teacher is in almost complete control of where and when they and their students can interact. Some may feel that with all the benefits that come with e-learning there will also be sacrifices and that they will have to give up more of the control that they once had.”

 So this seems to be a fitting place to finish of this module. Not only because of this, but also because it is a relief to see that education establishments are taking the lead in awareness of the issues surrounding the problems and challenges of the fast paced workplace.

So what can a university like Edinburgh do to help its students prepare before joining the workforce? What are the solutions? 

It is important as Levy states, first to reach an agreement on the nature and extent of the problem:

“This could mean raising the issue as a topic of discussion and debate on individual university campuses, as well as within umbrella organizations.”

This is something that we have been doing for example in the last week of debate during this module.  Also, it is important to conduct research and studies to examine the extent of the problem, and perceptions of the problem.

Mind over matter:

I mentioned in my last blog that I’ve found necessary with my increasing work load to find techniques that help me relax and focus, techniques such as listening to music or taking walks.

In this spirit, Levy suggests bringing contemplative practices explicitly into university curricula to help students, faculty, and staff, “strengthen their attentional faculties in the face of the erosion effected by multitasking and acceleration.”

Contemplative practices quiet the mind in order to cultivate a personal capacity for deep concentration and insight. Examples of contemplative practice include not only sitting in silence but also many forms of single-minded concentration including meditation, contemplative prayer, mindful walking, focused experiences in nature, yoga and other contemporary physical or artistic practices. We also consider various kinds of ritual and ceremony designed to create sacred space and increase insight and awareness to be forms of contemplative practice.  http://www.contemplativemind.org/practices/

Ultimately whether such practices that prepare students for their speedy careers ahead of them are incorporated or not, humans do what humans do best, they adapt. However, some guidance along the way, and creating awareness and debate on such issues are at the core of what education is all about.

References:

http://www.contemplativemind.org/practices/

Levy, D. (2007). No time to think: Reflections on information technology and contemplative scholarship. Ethics and Information Technology, 9(4): 233–236.

I stood by the Clyde today looking at its gently rippling surface:

tiny pools of murky greyness

merging with splashes of sunny reflections

to separate an instant later

in a constant pulsating movement

Water, as Bayne (2004: 303) clarifies in her description of Deleuze and Guattari’s smooth and striated cultural spaces, represents smoothness per excellence, here, in my context, of course simultaneously striated by the river man-made embankments.

What I like about Bayne’s argumentation is the way she emphasises how the two spaces penetrate each other and emerge from each other (2004: 305) in a process of sometimes peaceful, sometimes conflictual co-existence and co-operation, echoed by Cousin (2005:123) who describes technology and pedagogy as ‘overlapping, complementary, conflictual, dynamic’ in their relationship . Neither of the domains is given primacy, neither of them is better – it’s ‘and ... and ... and’, which leaves room for the surprising and the unexpected (Cousin, 2005:124), rather than ‘either ... or’. Bayne (2004) and Cousin (2005) suggest parity and equity epitomised in collaboration instead of subordination within hierarchical structures. That is the first step towards blurring the boundaries in the papers about the uncanny discussed in earlier posts as well as Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto.

However, the methodologies used in HE seem to be mostly based on the latter paradigms, i.e. ‘centralising practices of teaching, assessment and supervision’ (Cousin, 2005:121), which could explain why the web (that part that is surfed not cruised – Bayne 2004: 304) gets subjected to striation, e.g. illustrated by the use of virtual learning environments (Bayne, 2004:312-313 and Cousin, 2005:120-123). Apart from the problems related to the institutions themselves, smoothness cannot be idealised or romanticised as the panacea for the weaknesses of the current educational system: Cousin (2005) warns us against losing oneself in the promiscuous web and going ultra fanciful post-modern. Bayne also stresses that smooth spaces should not be perceived as a saviour bringing liberation from the constraints of the hierarchy (2004: 304). Nevertheless, she suggests that smoothness is explored more deeply and attempts are made to unleash its potential in HE so that the imbalance between the modernist (hierarchical, structured) and postmodern approaches is redressed.

It is paradoxical how smoothness/rhizome oriented strategies might often end up supporting the structure and hierarchy (an example of blurring the boundaries?) - while discussing the education in cyberspace, the human need or more probably academic practice gains the foreground in which things have to be named, categorised neatly into genealogies and as a result both academics introduce binary dichotomies: Cousin introduces ‘arboreal’ and ‘rhizome’ while Bayne discusses ‘smooth’ and striated’, followed by lists of opposing characteristics. Instead of the table illustrating these oppositions, I have opted for a wordle that successfully blurs them

In her paper, Bayne makes use of different metaphors as after Nunes she believes they ‘function as performative speech acts’ (2004: 304). Inspired by this I would like to point out another thing that could perhaps help advance the necessary blurring is a slight adjustment in the terminology – I’m proposing this very tentatively though, aware of my lack of expertise. When reading the papers about use of digital technologies in higher education what strikes me is the constant use of the word ‘pedagogy’ although university students, especially on post-grad courses, are adults. Of course, the term is most probably used in a broad sense of the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching and besides the term ‘andragogy’ has been critiqued extensively; however, the root of the word pedagogy ‘pais’ meaning ‘child’ has made me think that it could implicitly exacerbate the situation within HE and inhibit the shift that the papers are calling for.

When you think of the child, the situational context that springs to mind is that of a family and the relationship with the parent which, taking the physical, emotional and intellectual aspects, can be traced along the vertical, traditionally expressing a degree of control and dependency, in other words hierarchy which is also typical of the university and the students, as well as the teacher and the student (at least in the modernist understanding). No wonder that when on the educational arena another player turns up, that is digital technologies, it’s straightaway fitted (subordinated) into that structure too! - Cousin describes that in much more detail and with greater eloquence. That could be why virtual learning environments are willingly adopted as they lend themselves to the vertical structure very well – unidirectionality, the hierarchy of users and their privileges (course designer/admin, teacher, student), closedness (you can get in only via special secure gateways), tracking and monitoring facilities, sometimes even the interface itself (for example in moodle, the way the weekly modules can be made visible and how they unfold top-down on the page) – a little digression here which I can’t resist – some time ago I attended two webinars on m-learning and it seems to me that the apps approach could be likened to VLEs as it could be subsumed as dishing out knowledge in form of digestible and discrete packages of knowledge – flashcards, quizzes, etc

I thought, on a very superficial level, that swapping ‘ped’ with ‘andro’ (or using an altogether different term) could affect how education is perceived. The relationship between two adults is more of a partnership so mapping it out would proceed on a horizontal plain. In education terms it could translate into peer-to-peer or even expert-to-expert relationship between the teacher and the – to my delight I have discovered Prof Mayes talking about horizontal learning in his paper Groundhog Day again? And I think as a learner I could say that I have experienced this type of learning here on the course!

Lastly, such a viewpoint could perhaps facilitate understanding that digital technologies are not merely enhancement tools, separated, inert and thus a medium that serves educational purposes but they are a serious and equally important player on the educational arena.

An assortment of notes with what others said and what I said, albeit in my mind, during the video chat. The topic was information, silence and sanctuary.

It would have been so nice if I had managed to break my silence habit in that chat but I didn't. Should I look at that in terms of failure? Should I look for excuses like potentially malfunctioning microphone (I wasn't sure if it was working properly - there seemed to be a lot of background noise) - I could have asked for assistance, I could have used the text chat. It's tiring to think of what I could have done and equally tiring to promise myself what I will do next time. I felt much calmer though as I could smile and show I was listening, something I wasn't able to convey in the previous real-time sessions. Nevertheless I could not relate to what people were saying about contributing to the discussion boards, connecting with others on a more personal level, or the possibility to lurk in audio chats but not a video chat (ha! I managed that!). I think the issue has somehow exhausted itself. I've probably overanalysed it and not much has come out of it, at least not in practical terms. 

Would I qualify to be described as one of the stories from the dark side of e-learning discussed in the first week of the module (some of them commented here - what lofty and idealised opinions I had then!)?

Anyway, it was nice seeing people - both tutors and other students and hear their voices. First, I thought that this sort of contact was introduced too late. Perhaps it would have been easier to relate to people seeing them face-to-face instead of being freaked out by the little pencils writing away at a maddening pace in the first skype chat. However, I can see why it has been structured this way. The gradual introduction of identity (from words only via graphics and audio to video: text > text plus visual avie > audio plus visual avie > audio, video, real person) makes perfect sense to me, especially when you think of how the content was introduced in a sort of reverse order from more hectic hectic, group oriented activities like virtual worlds and wikis to calming down, reflecting on the need to pace yourself, the importance of silence, withdrawal. Nice closure!

It was interesting how you averted your eyes and doodled to concentrate better on what was being said, how Rory was gesticulating, shifting in the chair, moving away from the screen and then closer to it, Jacki sitting so straight, Chantelle looking to sides to glance at the papers, or maybe gather her thoughts. I found it interesting how I was switching from one looking mode (looking at me, especially when I was scratching my nose;), looking at another person (which could have looked like I am looking away - but that was a kind of eye contact I was trying to maintain) and looking at the camera so that others could see my eyes - I think Dreyfus is trying to explain this paradox that it's never possible to replicate the eye contact you have face-to-face.

This is a private rant of a helpless and confused person and also a follow-up on your mention, Clara, of Goffman’s dramaturgical theory of performance and self-presentation when talking about the significant change I would have to undergo to transcend the barriers erected by my getting stuck in my little and cosy sanctuary (discussed in the adobe video chat). In order to explain social interaction, Goffman uses a metaphor of a theatre where the performance is being put up on the front stage. This is where we act. It’s an interactive play though because the audience is being watched by the actor in exactly the same way as he or she is scrutinised by the viewers. In order for the act to be coherent, conventions have to be agreed on and complied with by both the watchers and the actor and in case of a blunder mutual assistance is given to save the face. The willingness to assist, I imagine, is in proportion to the level of intimacy between the performer and the audience. That possibly grows with the degree of success in meeting each other’s needs. The actor sometimes steps back, from the front stage to the more familiar back stage (where other members of the troupe are waiting for their turn) where he or she can take off their mask as they are now within their group. There might be a degree of playing at being here but less than on the front stage. It’s the offstage when the actor is being truly him/herself as this is probably their sanctuary.

Goffman claims that the person’s identity cannot be clearly mapped out and is quite arbitrary in nature; neither is it stable or independent , rather it is constantly moulded and reshaped in the process of interaction. It looks like a change can only be propelled when performing on the front stage, possibly also backstage, that is social spaces. Perhaps but I would say that the time offstage is equally important and this is where the change could be initiated or consolidated. Otherwise there is danger that, as actors, we might fall guilty of being unfaithful to ourselves as we lose ourselves in the pursuit to satisfy others’ needs. Performing all the time might delude us into believing we are acting well when in fact our acting has been squeezed into the ruts of generalisability and standardisation.

So, the big question for me is whether I really need a community to undergo a change and how loose or close the relationship would have to be? You see I’m quite ok on my own, having conversations with myself in the sanctuary of my blog (perhaps having one or two confidantes would do sufficiently, three makes a community, doesn’t it?). But there is so much talk about collaboration and social constructivism, so much buzz and so much ‘wow’-ing, especially now when Web 2.0 has opened up new social spaces, and I am aware of that, have experienced some of that in the past but do I really need others, and so many of them, to reconfigure myself? Increasingly nowadays I want to switch off, step out of that stream of collective consciousness and just be on my own (more about the importance of time off in another post) but ...

So, I’m sitting on that threshold like on the fence and cannot decide because the online theatre is even worse than the real one. And it’s not only because it has intensified the ‘buzziness’ and ‘busyness’ but also because the boundaries between the front stage, back stage and strangely also offstage in an uncanny fashion get blurred and so do our identities. Our self/selfs can get involved in the interaction with the audience (other self/selves), even in parts of the offstage, which would mean almost constantly one of our online selfs preparing a role and mastering a set of given conventions.

Jumping onto the front stage, into the community means drowning in a constant flow of information and deafening twitter – yes, I know, I am being unfair but this is on purpose – on top of that there are pre-agreed conventions, I’ll have to conform to, act according to and also meet others’ needs , prep to do so, all this being prerequisites for the coherence of the group (Goffman), also partake in others’ angsts ... Are communities, all the twitters and facebooks and alike the only way to go? They open up but they stifle too by demanding that you act as they play. Isn’t it better to leap to the other side, and be free to fly or wander and discover ... Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail (Ralph Waldo)? But if I leap to the other side, will I get transformed? Is there enough drive in me to accomplish the change? Do I trust myself enough as a learner and human to go off and break a trail? Or will I just wander aimlessly without direction?

The question remains unanswered* and the show must go on ...

*As noted in the video chat, it’s a bit of everything, a balance of both individual and social learning - a very easy answer but a difficult thing to do if somebody has strong leanings to one side! And in any case you have to jump ...

PS I googled quotes about balance and this is what Uncle Google spat out:

When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn't a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking (James A. Baldwin).

Quite interesting ...

If online presence involves fragmentation of the body into multiple e-presences (as suggested in the previous post), the relationships get forged between the real life me and my online representations and possibly some of my online personae also link to each other. Such a complex construct starts interacting with other net users/residents who have formed similar identities. I can imagine that the real selves and online selves relate to each other on different levels and in different configurations, the links being of different strength. I would love to be able to present it in 3D but at the moment my drawings Pic 1 and Pic 2 will have to suffice.

This is just two people getting connected online but considering the number of ‘friends’ and ‘acquaintances’ we make online, the network might grow unbelievably huge and  multi-layered. I imagine this as a live construct, dynamic in its movement and change which I am unable to represent visually. However, I could use an example - recently I have seen a fascinating talk given by Deb Roy about the birth of a word. In this talk he shows how through the use of technology and advanced analysis of data researchers have managed to capture how a child learns a language. This is an amazing piece of research in itself but what also captured my attention is the interactive 3D visualisation Roy uses to present the data (8:32 minute). The wordscape  that is built by the dynamic traces left by the child and his caregivers, a knotted bundle of ink trails, social and solo hot spots, in my view, could demonstrate our activity online, the knots being points of exchange between us/our online selves and others/their online selves as we/our online selves wander across the netscape. Roy moves on to describe how the analysis could be applied in the study of media (around 11 minute of the vid) and the interplay between the social and content graphs, another mind-blowing representation of what the networks look like and work. What  this powerful images add to my own very simplistic attempt to pin down the nature of relationships and interactions is the content contribution as it is not only people and their avs we relate to, but the artefacts scattered online!

“An environment with choice and a diversity of perspectives, will encourage critical and creative inquiry. Such a community of inquiry is a requisite for higher-order learning” Garrison, D and Anderson, T (2003).

Aside from my PhD, most learning that I have been “subjected to” ( ß I choose my words carefully! ) in the past at school, college, and university, has followed very authoritarian teacher lead methods. On the other hand, this e-learning course has been a fun collaborative learning community in which there has been clear evidence of interactive cognitive presence, social presence, and teacher presence.   

But anyway, I’m about to be assessed soon, so it’s only fair that I pre-emptively return the favor, and assess my assessors and this course against the community of enquiry model detailed by Garrison, D and Anderson, T (2003).

Cognitive presence:

What is it?

We see cognitive presence ‘as the extent to which learners are able to construct and confirm meaning through sustained reflection and discourse in a critical community of inquiry’ Garrison, D and Anderson, T (2003).

Confirmed at: http://communitiesofinquiry.com/cognitive_presence :

“Cognitive presence is the extent to which the participants in any particular configuration of a community of inquiry are able to construct meaning through sustained communication”

Therefore clearly an important component of cognitive presence in a community of enquiry is debate, which necessitates:

a.    The availability of enthusiastic fellow learners and educators to debate with, a requirement which has been met throughout the course by constant interactive dialogue over a range of topics with fellow students, and with teachers and tutors who have actively encouraged and participated in the discourse.

b.    The availability of mediums of communication that enable sustained rich reflective communication between the participants. The course organizers and tutors have made a fantastic effort providing us with, and encouraging us to use a number of mediums of communication, from the slow paced WebCT discussion boards, to Twitter, and the faster paced Skype Chat, Second Life, and Adobe Video Conferencing.    

Another important component of cognitive presence is the ability to construct meaning through sustained communication and reflection.

We have discussed many related topics throughout this course, and have gained meaning by reflecting on everyone’s input including that of our tutors in our weekly session using different mediums of communication. We have also been encouraged to gain meaning and reflect individually on our reading and debates through our blogs, like I am doing now!  

Categories and indicators supplied by Garrison, D and Anderson, T (2003) to assess the presence of cognitive presence:

Triggering events (Indicator could be: Sense of puzzlement): Yes for example when Clara showed up looking like a dragon, which triggered allot of puzzlement J, and a long debate on how identity in a medium such as Second Life compares to our real life identity. Other triggering events for example were our scheduled meetings in Second life, Skype, Twitter, etc. This triggered a sense of anticipation, and made me organize and collect my thoughts prior to the meetings.

Exploration (Indicator for example Information exchange): This category seems to be the same as the earlier discussion on debate. Exploring ideas, and exchanging knowledge and perspectives is essentially what debate is all about. 

Integration (Indicators: Connecting Ideas): This happened throughout the course guided by our tutors through discussions, email exchanges, and blog comments, and also by us using the discussion boards, and during the 2 weeks when we collaborated to enrich David Silver‘s, and our individual wiki’s using hypertext and other web 2.0 technologies.

Social Presence:

What is it?

“We define social presence as ‘the ability of participants in a community of inquiry to project themselves socially and emotionally, as ‘real’ people (i.e., their full personality), through the medium of communication being used’” Garrison, D and Anderson, T (2003)

I’m not too comfortable with this definition. Two questions spring to mind, What is real? And What constitutes my full personality?

I love Einstein, because his work crosses so many boundaries. Everything can be relative, not just the movement of objects relative to each other and the speed of light through space.

If someone spends allot of time in an environment such as Second life, and interacts with a community in Second life, then for this community, their virtual characters can be just as real to each other as people are to each other in the “real world”.

Second is the issue of what constitutes a full personality. Do we always project our (full) personalities socially and emotionally during serious discussion and discourse?  Do we really need to? What about the projected personality of my avatar in SL, how do I project this personality in a video conference that has nothing to do with SL? As I argue in a previous blog, I believe that presence can occur at varying degrees. We don’t have to be fully present with our entire bodies to have useful discourse. Sometimes my full physical participation maybe required, sometimes just my voice or even just my thoughts through text chat can be enough to have effective social presence. Sometimes a text conversation maybe the most effective form of presence when other attributes such as voice or physical form could be a distraction.

Maybe I’m being very picky, but let’s try and make the definition more realistic (I’m in a critical mood):

“We define social presence as ‘the ability of participants in a community of inquiry to project themselves socially and emotionally, to a level at which they are comfortably able to communicate, and exchange their thoughts and emotions through the medium of communication being used’”

The question of social presence seems to link to that of embodiment, and identity. Garrison, D and Anderson, argue that:

Immediacy is important to a supportive and secure learning environment because it reduces personal risk and increases acceptance, particularly during critical discourse with its sometimes aggressive questioning and challenging.

I agree but I also feel that immediacy becomes less important when discourse can happen over a long period of time (This e-learning course). So for example I recognize a social presence in our email exchanges, in the blog, and on the discussion boards even though the sense of immediacy is not pronounced.

But also our tutors have encouraged us to use mediums of interaction where there has been a clear sense of immediacy, for example our camp fire voice and text conversations in Second Life, Twitter discussions, our video conference, and our skype chat.  The tools available to us on this e-learning course are more than capable of facilitating the projection of our social presence.

Teaching Presence:

“Teaching presence is defined as ‘the design, facilitation and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes’” Garrison, D and Anderson, T (2003)

Our tutors have been present throughout this course, guiding our focus and conversations, and have participated in and directed discourse so that defined learning goals are achieved. (Go back and read everything in purple!).

Overlapping Cognitive, Social, and Teaching Presence:

A community of learning is most effective when these 3 presences are present and operating effectively together. Garrison and Anderson provide two overlapping areas of presence:

Social Presence and Cognitive Presence overlap to create an environment which supports discourse. This was in evidence in IDEL through our discussions on the various mediums of communication made available to us. Our dialog was focused on the topics of discussion required to achieve the objectives of this module because of our collective desire and motivation to enhance our understanding of the topics of discussion. Therefore I believe that motivation is key for relevant discourse to occur.

Teaching Presence and Social Presence overlap so that a climate is created where discourse is structured and guided. This again has been evident throughout the course where tutors have arranged and encouraged interaction between us using the mediums provided, have guided our discussions, and have participated in the discussions.    

Clara in the discussion board also suggests an overlaping teaching presence and cognitive presence:

Teaching Presence and Cognitive Presence overlap so that our dialog and reflections aren’t distracted by irrelevant topics of discussion such as our pets. Where I highlighted motivation as important in the overlap between social presence and cognitive presence to keep discourse on track, teaching presence can provide a helping hand to maintain and guide this motivation.

“Cognitive apprenticeship is a theory of the process where a master of a skill teaches that skill to an apprentice.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_apprenticeship

Assessment Outcome: 

Having analysed the criteria, and reviewed the evidence. I can certify that this e-learning course has so far proved itself to be a prime model of what a community of enquiry should be.

If I was to provide a grade then I would also have to take into consideration some minor technical issues that interfered slightly with my program of study (Services weren’t available once or twice over the duration of the course during weekends). But the positives overwhelm any minor blips, and the objectives of the course have on the whole been realized, therefore my final grade for IDEL2011 is:  95% Leaving a few percentage points to encourage discourse for improvement in this community of enquiry.  Please feel free to use this grade as a guide for any grading activities which may occur in the following weeks … cough …ehem …

References:

Garrison, D and Anderson, T (2003) Community of inquiry, chapter 3 of E-learning in the 21st century (London: RoutledgeFalmer) pp.22-31.