In February of this year the British Council sent a rather frazzled Academic Manger to London on the Management Development Programme Level 2 (leveling up in the British Council isn’t half as fun as World of Warcraft , incidentally - but it does serve the same purpose: you get access to cool new skills, the chance to do battle with more fearsome monsters and it opens up new realms for you to explore.

Most of the content of the course is forgotten (accreditation, performance management, recruitment blah blah blah) but one day stands out as we visited international house and looked at* their moodle courses.

This was a turning point / epiphany / breakthrough for three reasons.

1)       I stayed awake AND paid attention for the whole session because the moodle platform is not dissimilar (at      least from the perspective of the admin control panel) from my IPB discussion board, so suddenly the world came into focus and made sense – I was hearing useful information.

2)       it made me wish I had applied for a job with IH instead of the BC and

3)       It gave me the desire to learn something new.

So (in a roundabout way which involved lots of course-googling and option-pondering) here I am.

I see the M.Sc in E-learning as a chance to combine what I love with what I do.  In my free time I am webprolfic: I engage in text based role play games, have my own online community (with a shiney new wiki), I blog and also appreciate the blogs of others and I spend far too much time on facebook.  I love it, it excites me.

What I do is teach English as Foreign language (actually I use this phrase as it is familiar however it is terribly unfashionable now – we prefer the term ESOL: English for Speakers of Other Languages).  Or more accurately I manage the teachers.  I currently manage a small (15 teachers) British Council outpost in Northern Thailand.  It is lovely and slow-paced and it is boring me to death.  Yet even here we have Interactive Whiteboards and a 10 computer self-access centre – the provincial Thai kids who learn with us are a thousand times more technologically savvy than the (predominantly) middle aged men who teach them.

I love my job but I sometimes feel it stagnate around me.  Not just being here but being part of a huge slow moving behemoth of an organization like the British Council.  By the time we commit to a change the change proposed has become an anachronism.  Yet it is our organizational commitment to be a world authority in teaching English.

I wonder how many organizations are like us? Aspiring to a world they don’t really understand, with a board of directors (in our case the British government) who believe that bringing their people into the 21^st century is simply a matter of teaching them a few new key-strokes.  When what is needed is a profound culture change. 

This is the crux of my concern – not only for the course but also for my (potentially) new career.  That there is too much to learn, our aims are too wild, we want too much and yet we don’t understand whether or not it will be good for us.  That we will fritter away resources on technological white elephants while there are still children (just down the road from me) who don’t have notebooks and pencils.

I want to get involved because I love the new technologies available to us, I believe in them, as agents of change socially as well as educationally – but I also want them to be used ethically and sensitively and with a deep understanding of the user behind the interface.

* When I say we went to international house and looked at their moodle courses I must confess that is all we did.  Their server was having an emotional event and so we couldn't access the course online.  So we looked at screenshots on a powerpoint.  This is an illustration of the gulf between our aspirations and our reality.  This gulf (which on a bad day is almost a dichotomy) could probably be a module in itself.

Clara: "So what sort of things are you hoping to get out of the MSc?"

There is a social networking website called 43 Things where you make an account and list goals, read the goals of others and offer encouragement (which may or may not lead to marriage and children presumably).  It is pretty cool, for at least five minutes as many things on the interweb are.

A glimpse at the world's goals 24th Sept 2008 11.30 pm shows that, collectively, we want to: 

watch Stargate SG1 / make others proud / wear skirts more often / control my anxiety / create a programming language / go  to law school / find a job / Lose 15 more pounds / create a permaculture garden / build a excellent piece of furniture out of wood  /write and publish a novel / travel / forgive / be a spy / learn to love myself / create a newsletter / Read "The Magician's Nephew" (Chronicles of Narnia, book 1) / make all A's / Be a better friend / Build a bar in my basement / pay off my student loan / Skydive

Deep stuff!

Funnily enough on 21st March this year I created an account and told the world I wanted:

• to get my tongue pierced
• to do a Masters
• to learn about Moodle, and..
• to do yoga regularly

Well it was a good start, but something good must have come on the telly then (Stargate SG1 perhaps) and I never completed the other 39 things so I will try now.  Incidentally of the above 4 I am only holding Edinburgh Uni responsible for 2 & 3, I'm not expecting piercing services or asanas in a later module.

So Clara to answer your question my goals over the next three (or four) years are:

 My (MSc E-Learning) Life List

1. get my tongue pireced  

2. apply for a Masters  

3. learn about Moodle (and other VLE's)

4. do yoga regularly  

5. meet new people  (interestingly I share this goal with 3,786 other people)

6. inspire my teachers to be enthusiastic about technology  

7. blog regularly  

8. feel proud that I have done my best  

9. make a vodcast (thanks Kevin for the new word)  

10. find the money to pay for my very expensive masters  

11. make a podcast  

12. be more inspired  

13. make the most of the wealth of diverse experience that surrounds me  

14. share learning  

15. learn new skills that will make me employable in the US  

16. pass on my learning to my organisation  

17. learn about smoodle  

18. surprise myself  

19. fall in love with being an educator again  

20. get another tattoo  

21. be excited by discoveries  

22. share my strengths with my fellow adventurers  

23. innovate  

24. learn new skills that will make me employable in a broader context than EFL  

25. feel passionate about learning and teaching  

26. see the cybercultural bigger picture  

27. get comfortable with html  

28. get married  (me and 15,757 people, phew!)

29. learn from the strengths of others  

39. make wise decisions about which courses to choose  

31. ask for help when I need it  

32. get a new job  

33. network without fear or embarrassment  

34. have as little to do with assessment as possible 

35. find out how to use second life for more than sex and shopping  

36. explore motivation and buy in  

37. ponder personas and masks  

38. make skillful (and fun) use of my digital camcorder  

39. make a positive contribution  

40. understand how to make a difference to learners' experiences without being in the same room as them  

41. think of a stormin' thesis topic  

42. unite what I love and what I do once more  

43. succeed  

Concerns... tomorrow. 

This is easy.  Money.  I can't really afford to do this as an overseas student, but I wanted to do the course so bad that accepting the overseas status only choice I had, so I take step one hoping I can pay for the second step when the time comes.

Nothing else really worries me.  I understand there might be worries, workload; interaction; pressure; learning new skills etc. But I can manage those.  The nature of online study doesn't phase me, it is who I am in a sense. Only the financial aspect is out of my control so only this worries me.

But it will work out. These things always do.  

In February of this year the British Council sent a rather frazzled Academic Manger to London on the Management Development Programme Level 2 (leveling up in the British Council isn’t half as fun as World of Warcraft , incidentally - but it does serve the same purpose: you get access to cool new skills, the chance to do battle with more fearsome monsters and it opens up new realms for you to explore.

Most of the content of the course is forgotten (accreditation, performance management, recruitment blah blah blah) but one day stands out as we visited international house and looked at* their moodle courses.

This was a turning point / epiphany / breakthrough for three reasons.

1)       I stayed awake AND paid attention for the whole session because the moodle platform is not dissimilar (at      least from the perspective of the admin control panel) from my IPB discussion board, so suddenly the world came into focus and made sense – I was hearing useful information.

2)       it made me wish I had applied for a job with IH instead of the BC and

3)       It gave me the desire to learn something new.

So (in a roundabout way which involved lots of course-googling and option-pondering) here I am.

I see the M.Sc in E-learning as a chance to combine what I love with what I do.  In my free time I am webprolfic: I engage in text based role play games, have my own online community (with a shiney new wiki), I blog and also appreciate the blogs of others and I spend far too much time on facebook.  I love it, it excites me.

What I do is teach English as Foreign language (actually I use this phrase as it is familiar however it is terribly unfashionable now – we prefer the term ESOL: English for Speakers of Other Languages).  Or more accurately I manage the teachers.  I currently manage a small (15 teachers) British Council outpost in Northern Thailand.  It is lovely and slow-paced and it is boring me to death.  Yet even here we have Interactive Whiteboards and a 10 computer self-access centre – the provincial Thai kids who learn with us are a thousand times more technologically savvy than the (predominantly) middle aged men who teach them.

I love my job but I sometimes feel it stagnate around me.  Not just being here but being part of a huge slow moving behemoth of an organization like the British Council.  By the time we commit to a change the change proposed has become an anachronism.  Yet it is our organizational commitment to be a world authority in teaching English.

I wonder how many organizations are like us? Aspiring to a world they don’t really understand, with a board of directors (in our case the British government) who believe that bringing their people into the 21^st century is simply a matter of teaching them a few new key-strokes.  When what is needed is a profound culture change. 

This is the crux of my concern – not only for the course but also for my (potentially) new career.  That there is too much to learn, our aims are too wild, we want too much and yet we don’t understand whether or not it will be good for us.  That we will fritter away resources on technological white elephants while there are still children (just down the road from me) who don’t have notebooks and pencils.

I want to get involved because I love the new technologies available to us, I believe in them, as agents of change socially as well as educationally – but I also want them to be used ethically and sensitively and with a deep understanding of the user behind the interface.

* When I say we went to international house and looked at their moodle courses I must confess that is all we did.  Their server was having an emotional event and so we couldn't access the course online.  So we looked at screenshots on a powerpoint.  This is an illustration of the gulf between our aspirations and our reality.  This gulf (which on a bad day is almost a dichotomy) could probably be a module in itself.

I thought I would post a little pensee that anticpates next week's discussion topic.  In the Northlands, the online community I run with my partner we are both administrators.  We have the same ideals and beliefs for the community - but we go about 'facilitating' those ideal differently.

I am interventionist.  If something is wrong or someone is behaving inappropriately I deal with it, often publically.  I have deleted posts, whole discussion threads - taken away people's posting rights, and even taken away moderation and admin powers.  These actions are usually accompanied by a private message to the involved parties, explain what I did and why. 

Dom on the other hand tried to nudge people in the right direction by posting with them publically.  He behaves like a 'regular' member of the board and tries to reason, in the context of the discussion or, as if often the case, argument.  He will at the request of another member delete offensive posts.  But it is always in response to complaints, and never because his own sense of (in)justice prompts him to take action.

At work I am the academic manager and my senior teacher is a guy called Manjit.  I manage people at work in a similar way to how I manage people at The Northlands.  I deal with them directly, getting to the core of the issues that are causing inappropriate behaviour.  I talk to teacher x about his anger, and teacher y about her depression.  I tell them my concerns about how I percieve it is affecting (or may affect) their performance.  In cases of extreme underperformance I give people the chance to change and if they don't I put them on a perfomance plan, take away a post of responsibility or in extreme cases ask them to leave.

Manjit is like Dom, much more subtle.  He manages underperformance when has resulted in a complaint from a student or some other concrete outcome (i.e. a covering teacher hasn't been able to plan a lesson because the main teacher hasn't completed their admin fully).  He will grumble and worry, but he will not hand the teacher the responsibility for changing their behaviour until he has external evidence which he can take to them and ask them to explain, justify and ultimately correct. 

It is easier to reflect on the actions of others than oneself but if I were to try and analyse these different management styles I would say I see myself as a guardian of the people whereas Dom and Manjit are guardians of the process. 

It has been a bit of a frustrating week with a lot of time spent on trying to get my computer up to speed in preparation for the more challenging activites ahead.  Things are much improved but I still find the load time for the discussion board windows almost prohibitively slow.  The time it takes to open a window, read a post, open a reply, respond and post the response has meant I haven't been able to post as much as I would have liked.  I also find the transition from my own board format to this bulletin board format rather hard.  But I will reflect on that in another post.

Here I will summarise the things I have learnt from a week exploring the dark side (along with anything else I found interesting).

The choice of labelling personas let us to initially 'critique' people until we realised that we can't extrapolate an entire personality from the summary of one incident (which is probably more than we would get as tutors if we received a complaint).  If we have to make 'judgements' (or at least a judgement call) it is aways better to criticise the behaviour rather than the person.  

It is also good to bear in mind that behviour-based stereotypes are just as harmful as person-based ones.  So if a person is lurking it could mean they are lazy, or shy or it could be that they are reading posts thinking "yeah, that is exactly what I think, I can hardly repeat it though" or "damn that is exactly what I was going to say".  From my own experience with this activity if you don't want to look like an idler strike early, and strike hard!

Netiquette guidelines are essential, especially for people unused to an online learning environment, however you can't advise for every situation so the guidelines should serve to make people comfortable enough to survive the initial onslaught whereby they will gain enough familiarity to make their own choices on how to respond.

Overuse of jargon and acronyms is annoying and exclusive even if you know what they mean. 

The purpose of the online discussion is presumably to build community and so the social aspect is just as important as the academic. Therefore every VLE (virtual learning environment) should have a VCE (virtual chilling environment) just as every university campus has a bar.  People just need to be told (and reminded) what kind of chat is appropriate in each location.

There is nothing wrong with talking about cats.

Not all university campuses actually have bars.  Those in Saudi don't... which reminds me: remind your learners that online learning implies the possibility of richer cultural diversity.  Different cultures have different communicative norms and one man's perky challenge might be another's aggressive flame.

To feel loved and included you need to have your posts replied to promptly.  By your tutor if necessary, though this is a bit like getting a valentine's card from your mum - heartwarming but not really the point.   People should be encouraged to reply to each other just as much as they are encouraged to make thoughtful independant posts.

People are different, they post in different ways... some people are actually annoying - we should embrace that, especially if they have paid for the privilege of being annoying. They may still have something they can teach us.

It took me about a year of regular reading and sporadic posting to get really comfortable with discussing issues online.

Some tutors will naturally be more interventionist and others will be laissez faire.  Ideally there should be a balance.  If, as institutions, we can't afford to screen out students for the right virtual fit, we can't afford NOT to screen our staff.

We shouldn't behave differently online as we do f2f.  We can't afford to give up on humour just because it is hard to translate.  If someone is being cheeky, we can't let it slide just because we can't communicate our unease with body language. But we do have to make sure our emotions and subtle thoughtfulness is transcribed into text.  Learning how to do this takes time, and even when we know, we sometimes forget - especially if we are rushing.

Anyway, today one of my cats went missing.  We tore the house apart looking for her for an hour before my boyfriend found her nonchalently sucking spiders under the stairs.  She looked at us as if to say, what IS all the noise about? And was coaxed out by the offer of dog biscuits (which she prefers to the cat variety).  Cats eh?

Anyway, just wanted to comment on this:

"we do have to make sure our emotions and subtle thoughtfulness is transcribed into text."

Because you said very eloquently what I was thinking, and this appears have happened a few times now...

 I think that getting yourself, your personality and your opinions across in written form is more natural to some people than others (or maybe just seems that way) and this is definitely a skill: one that can be learned, of course.

 

I have taught writing for both business and academic purposes and in each case the focus is on effective and economical transmission of meaning, usually information but occasionally well-reasoned and rational opinion is permitted.

Is this genre of formal writing the ‘ideal’ we base our idea of online discussion on? Yes and no.  I think there are many purists who uphold a prescriptive aesthetic standard but for the rest of us our influences are less explicit.  They are no less there in the back of our minds, a distrust of the emotional, a distaste for the wordy and overblown.

Yet how can such restraint assist in the new role played by both synchronous and asynchronous online discussion?  We need it to enable human growth and development, build communities and social networks, forge and sustain friendships and support high level learning.  Such rigid austerity was appropriate when our written words accessorized who we were, but if they are to stand in for our physical presence can we afford ‘admit impediments’?

I think not and I playfully propose that we take our inspiration from another source than the business letter or academic essay.  I suggest the love letter of old is a far superior role model.  Let Elisabeth Barrett Browning, Napoleon Bonaparte, Balzac and Van Gogh be our guides.  We must insist on our right to be florid and impassioned for there is ‘not world enough and time’ for well-reasoned rationality, after all we are not asking the world for a refund, or hoping to exchange faulty goods; we are in our virtual spaces asking the world to fall to see our true self, not the mask we wear in the real world, we are asking the world to fall in love with us, our ideas, our version of reality.

 21st Century Rodin

The upper right-hand
corner of my desk blotter;
a fresh, stark canvas
this morning, now a sepia
montage of concentric
accomplishments.
I sip,
I Think.
I sip,
I think.
I sip…
I think.
Sip.
Think.
Sip.
Think.
Sip
Big sip
sip sip sip
sip sip sippppp.
Ahhhhhhh.
Final sip, cup down.
A caffeine-laced
still life of a Slinky.
Boy-oh-boy-oh-boy-oh-man
was-I-ever productive
today!

-Mark L. Lucker

Hi Tracy

As promised, I want to give you some mid-way feedback on how I think the blog is shaping up in terms of the final assessment. Basically, things are going well. The criteria for assessment are:

*Reflection - You are demonstrating sustained reflection on the course content and its application to your professional (and personal) practice.

*Regularity - You are posting reasonably regularly, and your postings are all substantial.

*Knowledge and understanding – You’re demonstrating a good understanding of the technologies and ideas introduced. You could engage more critically with the course readings. How do they impact on the way you understand the technologies, experiences and ideas you’ve come across in the course?

*Writing style – is excellent, making for an engaging read. Your use of the blog format (inclusion of pics, formatting etc) is above and beyond!

So, well done and keep up the good work. If you can continue like this you'll be looking at a good mark for this element of the assessment. Kudos!

Please let me know whether this is any use to you – I’m more than happy to chat through the blog process. Also, since this is my first time commenting on IDEL blogs, I would appreciate your mid-blog feedback too! Are my comments useful? What could I do to be supporting your blogging more?

Cheers

C.

From: e-portfolio vs blog

The blog is quite linear isn't it? I mean you post... you post... you post... and they sit there frozen in time. You don't really go back and delete things or revise them. Whereas a portfolio is not only added to but removed from in a sense. It is where you 'hone' and 'polish' who you are and where you are. I like them - we have just started electronic (but not e) portfolios for our teachers in the British Council network. They are something that we imagine teachers will carry with them from post to post. The best of their achievements, their high points (and low ones if they were learning points). If you look at long term blogs online there is so much in them that seems dead or dated. Whereas (I imagine) an e-portfolio is capable of more organic growth as it embraces the necessary pruning back of out of date material.

From: Sketches and Masterpieces

Kevin: they can even allow for fraudulent or fictitious representations of content managers

What do you mean by this? That people will misrepresent their skills? I do believe that process is more important than content. As a teacher or recruiter (am think of portfolios as a career development tool also) I would be swayed by someone who had consistently kept an up-to-date portfolio over a period of time (and could show evidence of that growth and development). I would look at the ability to maintain such focused reflective development as an asset in itself. One far more valuable than a particular "teachable" skill.

I think we have to step back and look at e-portfolios as more than a knowledge / skill showcasing tool - something that can be thrown together in the short term, for a specific purpose.

Are they an organizing instrument? A really cool Filofax? An autobiographical platform? An art gallery, or a digital museum for our personal and professional artefacts?

Oh and I love Picasso's "I can not make use of a common method simply in order to have the satisfaction of being understood". It is like a universal "get out of jail free" card isn't it? ~ noli me tangere, I'm an artist ~

From: Musings on Metaphors

I have a story.

I went to a pebbly beach as a kid and picked up a pebble and put it in my pocket. It was a big one, lovely and smooth and cool against my palm. I took it back to the hotel we were staying at, and kept it by my bed for the holiday. I loved it and wanted it more than anything but I was also sad that I had taken it away from its fellow pebbles. As we were leaving on the last day I got into dad's car and burst into tears. I showed mum and dad the pebble and explained it couldn't come home with me because it wasn't a Lincolnshire pebble. So dad rather sweetly drove us to the beach so I could put the pebble back before we headed home.

I still find myself fighting the urge to kidnap pebbles, and I think my crystal collection comes from the same urge. These beautiful cool objects that demand to picked up, collected, arranged, held. I like the idea of a portfolio of treasures - to be arranged, and rearranged. To be appreciated personally, and by others.

From: A Personal Coach

Jennifer: Could you be both the photographer and the subject?

Portfolio as self-portrait. Brings to mind the self portraits of Van Gogh and Rembrandt - how they almost obsessively captured and recaptured themselves, at significant periods through the lifetimes.

Of course the photographic metaphor allows a more disposable snapshot. Less of an archive - except for those images we are especially proud of. Easily created and discarded. Especially in our digital, darkroom free days - where the self-image is instantly available and doesn't emerge slowly. Digital photography has also done away with the need for an outsider (the developer)... and therefore can be more intimate and private. ^^

I feel both excited and overwhelmed the the profusion of web 2.0 technologies.  It may not surprise you to know that I have already sampled some of them.  I have blogs with Blogger and Wordpress, I micro-blog through Twitter and Tumblr.  I have social networking accounts at Facebook, High5, Vox and LiveSpaces (and a few others, Including Myspace which I have either forgotten / deleted). I am a member of Technorati, Digg and Delicious.  I attempt to organise my online world through both Netvibes and Pageflakes.

But as exciting and empowering as this interactive / integrative technology is, what use is power if you don't know how to wield it?   There is too much out there.  Maybe the point I am missing is you are meant to embrace some of it rather than all of it. But what to embrace?  I need a digital equivalent of a financial adviser.  Extrapolating into education... need analysis has never been so important.  How can we as educators help our students to make appropriate educational choices about which of these tools with enable their growth and development if we aren't able to make those choices ourselves.

I should add that I can stand in the supermarket aisle for 10 minutes trying to decide which  breakfast cereal to buy.  Me and choices don't sit well together.

The whole class seems excited and energised by web2.0.  It’s a little like Christmas!  J

But as exciting and empowering as this interactive / integrative technology is, what use is power if you don't know how to wield it?

This is a really good point.  Though I am a little uncertain about calling it “power” – what do you mean by that?  To me it seems more like “tools”.  Then again, I guess you could argue that the tool encapsulates particular potentials and possibilities, and it is those that are the “power” of the tool [in the Latin origin sense of ‘potency’].  Thus knowing what tool to select, how to use it and for what purposes becomes vitally important.  So what are the implication for teaching and learning?  How do we equip learners to choose and use an appropriate tool for their needs?

Yes, I think the power comes from the use of tools.  In the case of our studies it can lie in what you have called "high stakes"reflection, effective communication with tutors, and the networking we do with our peers. Power also resides in the tools we choose for personal organisation, research and transmission of ideas.  I call it power because I am focussing on the product or outcome rather than the process.  We only need to watch the video talk given by Michael Wesch to see that the process of uploading video to you tube, is the tool - but my interpretation is the power is the result, a worldwide audience, new relationships, career making fame or career breaking infamy - if only for 15 minutes.

How can we as educators help our students to make appropriate educational choices about which of these tools with enable their growth and development if we aren't able to make those choices ourselves.

Another good question.  For me, the answer will always come back to purpose – what am I trying to achieve and what best enables me to achieve it?  Perhaps in one learning context social bookmarking is more useful, in another a wiki.  Of course, I am always up for the path we’ve taken in IDEL - let the students loose in the sweetshop and see what they choose for themselves.  :)

Yes as I said needs analysis has never been so important.  I have always used needs analysis in my teaching to discover more about my students: their motivation level, reasons for learning English, preferred learning style, previous experience and exposure. When using technology in the classroom I imagine it would be useful to have a parallel learning technology needs analysis to discover their preferences, current knowledge base, research interests, organisational ability, and even basics like computer access at home, internet speed and keyboard skills.

Me and choices don't sit well together.

And how well do you and no choices sit together?  :)

Valid point.  :D

The pic you’ve included is fascinating – are you suggesting the web2.0 services are broken scraps and leftovers that only work when they come together?

The image is (I am sure you know) M.C. Escher's 'Order and Chaos' I chose it to illustrate how for me, the two are still side by side, the order being far more beautiful, but yet there is humanity in the chaos.  Interestingly Escher chose as chaos human detritus; the jetsam of everyday life, as opposed to natural flotsam twigs, bones, leaves etc.  And the order is represented by a crystal.  It is a more natural symbol, but still faceted and therefore imposed or 'tooled'.  But imposed by whom? It could be human - but I see a more supernatural quality in it.  It is no man-made diamond, but an uncanny supernatural thing (a star in a sphere).  Escher spoke the language of geometry and mathematics so I suppose his order comes from the laws of maths and physics.  I am hoping for divine intervention - deus ex machina? Or more probably synergy of connectedness.  I hope by participating in web2.0 technolgies the world and I will come to some agreement on a portfolio of tools which will survive the intitial flurry of early adoption and avoid the crash and burn of fad-death. Yes this portfolio will be in constant flux, but by careful selection I would like to think I can choose (for myself and with my students) tools that will be relied on to have value now AND in the future.

One final thought, in Escher's image chaos finds itself reflected in order - maybe that is all we need order for, chaos is infinitely more creative and inspiring, but sometimes we need order to act as a mirror, a reflective devise to organise the chaos into something we can use.

I find it hard to explain how touched I was by Michael Wesch's An anthrolopological introduction to You Tube.  It had me in tears three times:  the first was right at the beginning with the wonderful Gary "Numa, Numa" Brolsma, whose video according to Gary Walker "single handedly justifies the existance of webcams".  He is the first ambassador of "a new cultural order". I actually was part of that first wave of sharing that celebratory video.  I remember - startled by its joyous power - sending it to many friends, including one guy who had just quit his job and was suffering one of those life "why am I here?" moments of existential angst.  I told him "watch this video, it will change your life" and he replied "I have watched it over for about an hour, I love him.  Thank you - suddenly everything seems ok, I have even started to learn the dance".

The second moment of teary joy was over Juan Mann's Free Hugs camapaign. Here I recognised myself as an educator.  The first time I got a group of students to create a community blog it's name was Towards World Peace etc.  I had a group of bright but fractured Thai Teens and the blog brought them together and created a creative energy that transcended by far the original English language learning dynamic and became an essential connection for living life.  Wesch mentions, in relation to Mann's video, the sense of "people trying to reconnect with humanity in some profound way"and this spirit is what both myself and my partner are about as educators (and personally as an educational manager).  The lesson content is almost incidental, the empowerment and relationships (student/student, student/teacher and ultimately student/world) is what drives me.

Final tearful moment was with bnessel1973 who said, "Some people have said that the videos we have made on You Tube should be created in hopes to change the world. I've made mine to help me live in it".  Once more that is a powerful message for me as an educator - almost a mission statement.  If I can use the tools of web2.0 to help people live in the world, I will be happy.

A final whimsical connection: As I watched the Wesch's video and experienced that surge of emotion I was reminded of a very early memory. Watching the TV advertisement for Coca Cola from the early 70's (hey I was 3 or 4 years old, I was allowed to be cheesey).  Unburdened by distrust of marketing and a dislike of multinationals (cynicism came later) I used to watch it and want so bad to stand on that hill and sing with them.  I think (judgement on the tooth rotting product aside) there is a spirit in that clip that lives on in the best of our web2.0 connections.  We will always yearn to connect and embrace the learning and growth comes through those connections.  The technologies we have at hand which (quoting Welsch talking about the Numa Numa meme) evokes "new forms of expression, new forms of community, new forms of identity" allow us connect more widely than ever before and in doing so maybe we will understand ourselves better.

Come on Clara, sing along - you know you want to!

I'd like to build the world a home
And furnish it with love
Grow apple trees and honey bees and snow-white turtle doves

I'd like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony
I'd like to hold it in my arms and keep it company

I'd like to see the world for once
All standing hand in hand
And hear them echo through the hills "Ah, peace throughout the land"

(That's the song I hear)
I'd like to teach the world to sing (that the world sings today)
In perfect harmony

Bitch, Meredith Brooks

Thinking about identity and ego in Second Life I was reminded of Meredith Brooks' song Bitch and the line "I'm a little bit of everything all rolled into one".  I reflected that our avatar, although they may deviate from our actual physical reality can be used to reflect some of our inner complexity - and therefore rather than being deceptive or illusory actually help us to give a truer picture of who we really are than we can through the limitations of our physical 'meatselves'. 

These led me to experiment with a few images inspired by the song lyrics (plus a few more that appealed to me).  This is post is a photo journey of that experiment, and some thoughts that arose from it.

When I first got got interested in Second Life I had an avatar that resembled me more closely than the one I have used throughout our tutorials. Like me this avatar is a freckly redhead:

I enjoyed this look as I like to imagine it is how I would look if I layed off the chocolate and went to the gym.

I experimented with making her fatter too, in the interests of truth.  But I couldn't get the dimensions right, and none of my clothes would fit properly (just like real life).  I have since found you can buy chubby shapes, but I wasn't so interested in the pursuit of veracity that I was willing to pay money for flab that I would pay money to lose in reality.  So I learnt to love the slim me and have faith that in a world of beautiful people having a beautiful you isn't a lie, simply a fantasy.

However there was still something not quite right about my self image, and the feelings I had when I saw myself in SL.  I realised that it was in a sense because I had used the name Hirondelle.  Hirondelle was the first screen name I ever had online and has become my favourite online name.  In the early days she was a character I  created in 2004 for a text based role-play, and although I have stopped role-playing this character (except for a few brief cameos when her public demand it) she has (just like Gee's Bead Bead) evolved an indentity and personality quite distinct from mine.  She is a cruel and demanding Goddess of an underworld realm.  Physically tall and slim racially between European and Asian - her human self had hailed from a medieval kingdom which is now modern Uzbekistan.  One day I decided to try and replicate how I had imagined her and came up with the look I used in the tutorials (albiet in modern clothes). So on to the song:

I'm a Bitch

Oddly I felt far more comfortable in this skin than I did in the freckly red-head one.  I wasn't treading a fine line between me and fantasy any more; I had plunged headlong into the pool of make believe, and it was a relief.  I felt far more honest.

In this picture Hiro is curled up next to a dragon, symbolising her mythical inheritance.  Her clothes - buckle strewn pvc - recall her warrior past and express a kinky streak that we share.

I'm a Saint

Inspired by Klara, she tried on wings - going for angel rather than fairy:

I'm a Sinner

And the opposite of angel is:

I'm a Goddess on my knees

Sticking with the Brooks song I played with the line "I'm a goddess on my knees" and rather than going for a deific goddess, I opted for a Hollywood interpretation with a nice little Marilyn Monroe frock.  I was trying for 'coyly sexy' but when she knelt her stocking clad legs poked through the prims - which kind of put paid to a pretense of demure.  My boyfriend loved it by the way.

I'm a child

This just made me a wee bit too uncomfortable, which tells me that fantasy can only give us a limited license to deviate away from our real life moral compass.       

I'm a mother

Now my reaction to this pregnant Hirondelle was interesting, and shows again how no matter how far we move from our physical reality we are still to be found lurking under the skin.  In real life I have been trying, unsuccessfully to get pregnant for a couple of years.  The sight of Hiro in a form that (sometimes painfully) eludes me was even more uncomfortable than the sailor suit.  I felt sick, and wore the look for the amount of time it took to get a picture and then tore ot off (metaphorically speaking) with a huge sigh of relief.  

I'm a Lover

I have lived in South East Asia (Singapore & Thailand) for most of my adult life and I am a real lover of all things Asian.  So i chose to play with a few Asian Hirondelle's rather than a more conventional romantic look (maybe this is because I get enough chance to play the romantic lover in real life that I don't feel the need to represent it in a virtual sense).  Having been surrounded by slender Asian women and feeling like a pale, freckly sack of potatoes in comparison I found these versions oddly theraputic.  Yes I would love to be able to carry off a Kimono or a Sompot Suit in real life, but I can't and I am old enough, and suffiently at peace with my limitations to be satisfied with admiring this particular style of grace in others. But these three images were lots of fun to create and the Vietnamese Ao Dai is now may favourite SL outfit, I may even wear it to the next tutorial.

Japanese Hiro, stomping in someone's beautiful Zen gravel.

Thai Hiro. If you are wondering about the startled look she is thinking "I can't believe you made me turn my back on the Buddha".

Vietnamese Hiro, and her lovely Ao Dai.

And aside from off the wall therapy for eductators what use is this reflection for an educational context?  In 'Learning and identity' Gee explores how a projective identity as experienced in virtual world game playing can, when taken into the classroom can help make students more successful ('leaner as scientist').  I think exploring who we are as people is essential to success at everything yet so many people lack the skills to be sufficiently reflective.  They are too close to their subject, so immersed in their issues.  Having an avatar self forces you to face questions of ego.  A friend was a poor test taker, the nerves and stress of an exam made him panic and throw up a block which impeded his academic success throughout his school career.  As an adult facing yet another test situation he realised that he had fallen into the trap of regression back to his school self, and in so doing had made a choice to continue to be a bad test taker.  This realisation helped him overcome his fear, and take his first successful test in his life.  I think a virtual self can make this process more efficient.  The personal risk is shifted to one side enough to allow experimentation.  The learner is then able to decide how much their virtual and real selves align and share the lessons learned.

My brief foray into alternate selves I didn't even try and experiment with non-human selves, but even in these limited shape and style changes I learnt a lot about myself.  Yet I don't think I have at any point been deceitful, all of my Hirondelle's (even the sailor-suited Lolita) are an aspect of me.  I am in all honesty 'a little bit of everything, all rolled into one' as are we all.

Six years ago I registered on an online discussion board for fans of Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series.  I had just started reading it and was waiting for the next book, which was to be published in a few months.  I thought joining a fan site would be like a methadone programme... tiding me over until I got my next fix.

In addition to the forums dissecting plot and analysing character there were some text based role-play areas too.  After I had got used to posting (and being ignored as often as not) I stumbled into this area and got involved with an informal roleplay.  I loved it, my D&D character creating self was reborn, and within a couple of months I was a dark and deadly ruler of a an underworldly kingdom of the undead called... er... The Underworld, lol.  I was very circumspect about revealling much about my real-life self.  I preferred to stay in character and keep myself and Hirondelle separate.  It was escape, pure and simple.  

One day a wolf walked into my realm and he introduced himself as Timberwolf guardian of The Woods. He was fun but not at that time a huge role-player; he stayed in character, but didn't really immerse in plot. He would just drop by and say "hi how are you?" and wander back to his woods.  We started messaging and after a long and casual interlude we started to get more intense about our relationship.  We talked more about real life, we were both married, he with kids. Both a bit 'blah' about the state of our RL relationships. 

Falling in love was a slow process, and had little to do with the characters we created, and more to do with discovering the people behind the characters.I saw in him an ideal of what I wanted in a partner.  This scared me initially because I felt I was creating him rather than seeing who he really was.  I also realised that it was possible he was creating himself for me.  We spent a lot of time talking about who we were, and whether or not we were talking to real people of figments of each other's imagination.  It was actually at moments of crisis that we got closer.  When he did or said something that went against my ideal.  When I saw flaws and imperfections I started to believe in him more.  If I had created him (or simply superimposed an imagine on a basic framework) he wouldn't have been such an asshole. The fact that he could be an asshole made him real, and separate from me.  He had more veracity. Which meant I loved him more.

In 2004 Dom's wife asked him for a divorce and we talked for the first time about the possibility of being together.  It took another year or so for me to leave my husband. In September 2005 I moved out of my husband's apartment and in October Dom flew from the US to Thailand to live with me.  Not to visit, but to live. By this time we had talked on the phone for hundreds of hours and IM'd with webcams.  I had gone through phases when I thought I was making a huge mistake / decided he was a serial killer / worried he was just after my money (not that I had much but hey) / gone through every kind of fear imaginable plus worried about the really scary stuff I couldn't even imagine.

You know they say you should tell someone if you are meeting an online friend? And meet in a public place?  I had told no one he even existed.  I was ashamed of leaving my husband, and also afraid I had made a mistake.  By the time he was due to arrive I was almost more ready for my close friends to find my cooling mutilated corpse than to admit that I had met someone online and was willing to start a life with them.  In a world with him and me I had no doubts we were doing the right thing, it was only when I imagined presenting this to other people did I get antsy.

Anyway, we met for the first time in Bangkok Airport on October 9th and I took him back to our new home to start being forever together (whether that was 50 minutes or 50 years I didn't know, but I had a strong suspicion it was going to be the latter). 

It was a wonderful unusual experience knowing someone so well (we had talked about everything, he knew more about me than anyone I had ever met... because the "distance" of online communication, can make you feel safe and more able to be honest than face to face conversations) and yet not knowing them at all.  Honesty and openness is the cornerstone of our relationship.  I think that is thanks to the nature of the early days of our affair.  We see friends who have all these secrets (small and large) from their partners and we marvel at how that can be acceptable to them.  But obviously that is how we were too in our previous relationships.

I am not saying online relationships are better, but I do think there are lessons to be learned from that form of communication.  In order to be intimate and to have faith in the truth of your interlocuter (or lover) you need to make everything explicit. You cannot assume.  You cannot use body language or facial experession as a litmus test for honesty. Every fear I had, I discussed with him until it was gone.  I never second guessed what he was thinking.  I asked.  I clarified his meaning far more than I would have face to face. I asked (and answered) very deeply personal questions that I would never have had the courage to ask (or answer) if he were sitting in front of me.

In the course of our relationship I came to dislike to the distinction between real and online because what I had found online was far more real than anything I had experienced in my everyday existence.  I began to think in terms of authentic and inauthentic experiences... a value that I felt transcended the mode or medium of communication. 

The authenticity that Dom and I found in our online romance we have worked hard to maintain in our offline, real-life, flesh and blood love affair.  And I think we are happier and wiser for it.

Prensky's terminology has been much discussed on the board so I will only allude to it here, of more interest to me is his underlying theme of using games for learning.  This seems to be his ultimate raison d'etre allthough google Prensky's name and the 'immigrant' v 'native' debate is what is thrown up, more from a fortuitous choice of vocabulary - that were to become buzz words for an assumed divide - rather than from an original theory based on research.  Anyway, Prensky on games:

A frequent objection I hear from Digital Immigrant educators is “this approach is great for facts, but it wouldn't work for "my subject.” Nonsense. This is just rationalization and lack of imagination. In my talks I now include “thought experiments” where I invite professors and teachers to suggest a subject or topic, and I attempt– on the spot – to invent a game or other Digital Native method for learning it. Classical philosophy? Create a game in which the philosophers debate and the learners have to pick out what each would say. The Holocaust? Create a simulation where students role-play the meeting at Wannsee, or one where they can experience the true horror of the camps, as opposed to the films like Schindler’s List.

The holocaust reference jumped out at me as a really tacky way to make a point, so I googled it - and you know what?

Eternity's Child Creator Attempts to Tackle the Holocaust

Yes, somebody did, and for educational purposes too:

Luc Bernard, the mind behind the upcoming Wii-Ware title Eternity's Child is already hard at work on a new and what is sure to be a very controversial game or the DS. Imagination Is The Only Escape is the story of a young Jewish boy living in France during the occupation by the Nazis in World War II. In order to escape the horrors around him, he imagines a fantasy land that becomes the basis of the game's world. The adventure platformer will attempt to educate players on the atrocities experienced by many children during the time of the Holocaust.

Here is a screen shot of the game:

Not that this validates Prensky's argument, or makes his parlour trick, I'm sorry, 'thought experiment' more impressive.  It just surprised me that the concept of a holocaust game, which struck me as a (rarely) inappropriate use of a game in education was actually on the market for that very purpose.  Maybe Bernard read Presnky.

Who did Prensky read?  John Perry Barlow's A Declaration of Independance of Cyberspace (1996) maybe?

You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants [my italics]. Because you fear them, you entrust your bureaucracies with the parental responsibilities you are too cowardly to confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat.

How long has this face-off between impotent un-plugged adults (parents, teachers) and potent wired kids been going on? Since the 60's? Or did it all begin with Oedipus Rex?

Anyway, I am not going to accept the label of immigrant (and I am certainly too old to be a native) because almost all of my experience with technology in learning and teaching has shown me that you cannot measure technological skill against a demographic like age, social class or even economic background, it is too complex.  Rodger's (now rather dated) Innovation / Adoption curve is more meaningful in explaining those who embrace and those who are repelled by web technologies in an educational context, and explains why many 'immigrant' aged educator / innovators embrace what 'native' aged student / laggards avoid.

Turning 'it' (learning) into a game has been the bread and butter of EFL teachers for at least 20 years.   But often the aim has been no more ambitious than to motivate students to remain engaged through for the duration of a single lesson, rather than the kind of Weschean 'pervasive' engagement we touched upon in our Second Life chat, edited extracts below:

Hirondelle Sciarri: I suppose the interactive aspect of web 2.0 is key to engagement

Dagma Kiranov: 'the narrative must become pervasive in the learning environment' Welsch

Klara Otsuka: Again i think we need to think about we use a word like "enagement" - we're not just saying activity, we're saying really committing (as Dagma said very much earlier) to something

Hirondelle Sciarri: yes, engaging.... meaning contributing, buying in, negotiating content

Klara Otsuka: also - that kind of engaging usually has a social element - which I think we can draw even from our own course is quite key at times to learning!

Marieiram Dubrovna: i really liked the concept of the students then taking over with their learning, even covering topics outside his knowledge

Marieiram Dubrovna: and him being in a wondefully awkward place

Klara Otsuka: So - if we had appropriate support, and engaging, meaningful, technologically appropriate materials - would it matter if our students were "native" or "digital"?

Allowing ourselves as educators to divide our intention to inspire into 60 minute game filled chunks is just as much of a crime as digital (illegal?) immigrancy - and, from my frequent observations of the EFL classroom, far more commonplace. What is the purpose of the games, role-plays and simulations that Prensky proposes? Are they to enable our students to discover or create content for themselves? Or tools to glam up rote learning and memorisation of facts? Even with simulation and role play allowing for some student creativity games, unless supported by a holistic and fully realised (by the teacher and student) learning purpose, are often merely useful accessories. 

In my centre just gave our students a questionnaire to gather feedback on a variety of areas, from classroom management to use of technology.  Feedback has been, on the whole, positive - however our students score us consistently poorly on two points:  'The lessons on the course link together well', and 'I am making progress on the course'.  This I feel is because we approach our teaching from a discrete lesson to discrete lesson perspective.  I would guess that it is our focus on materials and activities that is behind this.  We create fun and motivating lessons as opposed to enabling fun and motivating learning.

Back to Prensky:

It's just dumb (and lazy) of educators – not to mention ineffective – to presume that (despite their traditions) the Digital Immigrant way is the only way to teach, and that the Digital Native's “language” is not as capable as their own of encompassing any and every idea.

Other than suggesting web2.0 inspired activities, games and speaking 'their' language and the "just do it" language of mass marketing (Nike? Please, that's immigrant footwear I am sure) Prensky highlights a divide and yet seems at a loss as to which methodology will breach it.  The point Prensky misses is that passion for the "subject" combined with a willingness to experiment and take risks (with web2.0 technologies or whatever) with our students is what makes inspirational educators like Michael Wesch so successful.  Wesch's world simulation doesn't work because it is a game, or because Wesch has learnt the lingo (and the gizmos) of his 'native' students. It works because he is passionate; he has worked to understand his learners' holistic needs and developed a personal "anti-teaching" methodology accordingly.  He experiments and learns with them - in a world of digital pirates he is the pirate king.  Web2.0 technologies, the supposed tools of the digital native (though developed by immigrants), with their focus on interaction and collaboration, user generated content and continual revision, process over product are a means of bridging the gap between teacher and learner - such a combination render the boundaries (temporal and spacial) in the native / immigrant divide meaningless.

Ok there is some quirky thing going on here.  I type my post in the form, start editing it and in the process of formatting hit some hot key that means "back" and the page goes back... and I lose my post.  I know I should save it.  I have a slow learning curve on this one - but what makes it so frustrating is it happens when I have finished... and all I am doing it bolding / italicising / adding images.  *weeps*

In the words of Commander Riker:

I thought I would make my final blog post a reflection on the blog itself, using as a starting point the following mid-course feedback:

*Reflection - You are demonstrating sustained reflection on the course content and its application to your professional (and personal) practice.

*Regularity - You are posting reasonably regularly, and your postings are all substantial.

*Knowledge and understanding – You’re demonstrating a good understanding of the technologies and ideas introduced. You could engage more critically with the course readings. How do they impact on the way you understand the technologies, experiences and ideas you’ve come across in the course?

*Writing style – is excellent, making for an engaging read. Your use of the blog format (inclusion of pics, formatting etc) is above and beyond!

My update

Reflection: I initially had the rather simplistic sense that the purpose blog was to demonstrate the reflective learning that was going on in my head (look teacher I’ve been good, gold star please). I think this is because that is the kind of learner I was in a traditional classroom setting (waaay back), a quick to learn / eager to please type, and I fell into the same groove.  However the process of blogging caught up and took over and I found that the nature of the reflection sparked deeper reflection, which in turn led me deeper still.  I reread my posts and see them evolve – it is very satisfying.  Each post draws me in further.  I get a comment, I respond to the comment – either in the comment form, in a subsequent post, in a discussion board exploration or simply mentally.  It is a rather lovely process that is far more complex than it seems at first glance. I am still worried that I am not “academic enough” but I can see I am growing and have more confidence in my potential.  I am looking forward to the journey - which is good, cos at one course per semester it’s going to be a long one.

Regularity:  The regularity of the posts has been mainly down to prioritization / time management.  If I have had time I have posted.  The course as a whole lost me for a couple of weeks when I had to do my local tutor duties (ironically I am the F2F component of someone else’s online learning experience) and this took my attention and energy for a while.  It was a two week hiatus because I had a week of tasks and it took me another week to get back “in” to IDEL.  I read in the handbook that it was a good idea to check in daily and I can’t agree enough how essential that is.  It seems excessive but it is key to maintaining emotional contact as well as keeping up to date with discussion board posts etc. 

Another thing that I think affected my regularity was my struggle with style.  I felt I had to post fully “formed” thoughts, rather than fragments:

And I realised in that discussion that part of the reason I hadn’t posted as regularly as I had intended was the sense that I had to have a fully rounded thought before I could voice it. I wasn’t satisfied with posting fragments on my blog. I think this is because of my experience with blogging & reading blogs generally is of completed ideas being presented. Basically I am trying to use my blog as a canvas as opposed to a sketch pad. I think I will try and change that to see how it feels.

Well I tried, but I wasn’t satisfied.  I like to explore my ideas to some form of conclusion.  There is nothing final about them, a comment can reopen the topic (as I discussed above) and lead to new avenues.  But I couldn’t post fragments, and each post I made felt like a full piece of work.  It did mean I wasn’t able to post as frequently, but that (combined with time diverted into reading, discussion board posting, playing with the various web2.0 gizmos) was a compromise I felt more than happy to make.

Knowledge and understanding:  Your feedback here was very useful. I made an effort to “engage more critically with the course readings” and I felt the quality of my reflection go up a notch.  I was reading in the first part of the course, but I wasn’t doing the hard work of dissecting or digesting the readings.  It was more a case of reading and ticking it off my ‘to do’ list.  I think this was a symptom of simply being rusty with the process, but once I made a start on breaking down my reading (and simple things like highlighting key points / interest, adding comments to think about) the change in the level of my engagement was very satisfying.

Writing style: This is something that has amused me privately and I intend to touch on in it my final assignment.  For some reason, even though I knew this blog was an intimate tête-à-tête with my tutor the very nature of the medium caused me to post as if I was talking to the world (I’m bloggin’ to cyberspace innit?).  Therefore I tried to make every post not only useful to me (as a record of my learning process) and to you (to show you where I am in my learning process) but also interesting and entertaining.  Maybe I was trying to keep you coming back, to woo you.  It just happened, and I enjoyed it, so I went with it.  I have a story that illustrates a little of the compulsion:

Friends of mine went on holiday to Southern Thailand.  They picked a bad week and it was raining and miserable (it’s not always blue skies and palm trees).  As they were trudging down a road sharing an umbrella they saw a stretch limo parked outside a 5-star hotel, so they paused wondering who had access to such ostentatious luxury.  At that moment the lobby doors flew open and a slew of body guards trotted out followed by…

*dramatic pause*

Bill Clinton!

They stood there with their mouths respectfully open as he jogged down the stairs to the waiting limo and as he was about to get in he looked up at them. They did the only thing that it is reasonable to do in that situation which is grin like a pair of fools and wave madly at him.  He beamed and waved back, but as he raised his hand must have been seized by his presidential alter ego because he gave them the full works, turned slightly to the left, then to the right waving and smiling as if confronted with a substantial and appreciative crowd.  My friends were a little embarrassed for Bill because they were in fact the only people in the street, but they puffed up a bit in order to try and give him the sense of ‘public’ that he so obviously needed.

So Clara (and world) thanks for being so many things, IDEL tutor, support, friend and audience of millions.  I have enjoyed it thoroughly and learned far more than I expected.  

Let’s do it again sometime.