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.

“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.

When choosing to play as a Zerg or Protoss, I would play much more aggressively without having much concern for the troops I was sending into battle. As Terran on the other hand I was much more careful with the army, and tried not to lose any units. Even though it is just a computer game, I was empathising with the human characters as though they were real! As I got immersed in each game, I had some kind of personal connection with the human soldiers I was controlling on the battle field.

This is a feeling that many beginners have when playing games such as Starcraft. Statistically most beginners choose to learn to play with the Terran race first when they are first introduced to this game:

“There is a path most novice players take when selecting their race. They start with Terran, simply because the Terrans are us, humans.”

http://starcraftlictor.com/terran-protoss-or-zerg-which-race-to-choose/

Not only this, but when playing with beginners that prefer the Terran race, I notice how reluctant they are to send their troops into battle, preferring very defensive postures, and crawling forward very slowly as if loosing too many troops would result in Vietnam or Iraq like outrage back home ! (This is a recipe for disaster by the way because the winners in games such as these are almost always aggressive attack minded players).   

So what makes a computer game like Starcraft so immersing? Why did I and others reach a level where we would have empathy with the digital human characters?

There are many appealing factors in games like these, such as problem solving (balancing the size of the economy with the size of the army, choosing the right army units in response to what the enemy is doing, choosing the correct battle strategies, etc.), team play (It is a collaborative multiplayer game ), speed and multitasking (Also known as APM=Actions Per Minute, the ability to manage an economy, scout the enemy, and lead an army simultaneously as quickly as possible using a mouse and a keyboard).

All these factors lead to a game where the player is fully immersed in the game. My vision is wholly fixated by the fast paced action on screen, my hearing is consumed by the sounds coming through my headphones, and my brain is fully engaged working hard to synchronise with allies, and to reach the ultimate objective; beating the other team. My nervous system is essentially swamped, and the real outside world is blocked out. My body is still physically located at my desk at home, but my mind’s presence is now elsewhere, it is in the game.

Presence, Black and White?

Lombard, M. and Ditton, T. (1997) defined presence as “the perceptual illusion of nonmediation”. They go on to say that presence “does not occur in degrees but either does or does not occur at any instant during media use; The subjective feeling that a medium or media-use experience produces a greater or lesser sense of presence is attributable to there being a greater or lesser number of instants during the experience in which the illusion of nonmediation occurs”

I’m no authority on the question of presence but I’m not sure I agree with this statement. Because I do believe that presence can occur in degrees. I feel that the degree to which my mind is present somewhere depends on how swamped my nervous system is by that location. If I switch of the volume in Starcraft and listen to some music while playing a game, doesn’t that mean that I am present in the game to a lesser degree than I would be if I had the volume switched on?

I used to feel anxious during military computer games because I wanted to avoid the conflict and violence involved. But I’ve learnt to differentiate between reality and computer games. Therefore can’t I argue that the degree to which I am present in these games has changed? It is very similar in a way to how some people hate watching horror films. Some are easily fooled by their senses, and others are better at maintaining a perspective on what is real and what is not (This is assuming of course that people who like horror movies aren’t at heart aggressive people who in a lawless society would likely be evil criminals, but that is an entirely different subject …)

Therefore my presence within this game and others has fluctuated as my experience has changed. I no longer concentrate so hard so that I don’t make mistakes, and can easily talk to someone in the room as I play a game. When I first passed my driving test for fear of causing an accident, I preferred not to speak when driving, I was fully immersed in the driving experience, my mind was totally present on the road, but as my experience increased, much of my actions have moved to the reflexive parts of the brain, and I can now listen to music and talk while driving without any difficulty.

As I became more experienced in Starcraft, and after analysing my own play, I gradually learnt to lose the empathy I had for my virtual human troops. If anything I’ve become more aggressive with the Terrans than the other races because the graphics are so good, and blood splattered everywhere looks so cool ….. I’m joking; I lower the graphics so I don’t have to see any gory details.

So interestingly, perhaps, as we grow accustomed to different online and offline environments, and the more experienced we become with their workings, the less present we need to be there. The work load on the brain is at its greatest at the beginning when the brain is learning about the new experience, but as the brain gradually becomes used to the new environment, it learns to function sufficiently within the environment without the need to be fully transported to it or immersed in it.  

An example of a starcraft game:

References:  

Lombard, M. and Ditton, T. (1997). At the Heart of It All: The Concept of Presence. JCMC 3 (2).