I had already mentioned that I did not find the core readings for this week very helpful. The Warburton article too technical and only in passing mentioning some uses of SL for learning. The Boellstorff chapter not even mentioning the word learning (and not even learn, for that matter).

So, I was hoping for something better when I started reading the Dickey article. One thing that struck me was that the article is from 2003 and not about Second Life. But then again, the way Active Worlds is described shows very much similarity with SL.

The distinction being made between discourse tools, experiential tools and resource tools seems useful to me.

The analysis of the affordances and constraints of Active Worlds is something that for 90 percent also carries over to SL. It makes you wonder just how little progress there has been in this area in the last 10 or 11 years, Dickey somewhere (ah yeah, p. 109) mentions that her data are from 1998 / 1999.

So, where does this leave us all?

1. I am still not over the feeling of being lost. I know how to move around in SL, how to get to the meetings in time, how to chat there and, hey, even to save a chat in a notecard and drop it on Pancha. Where I am lost is that I don't see how this week fits into the overall idea of the IDEL course.

2. I had intended to do a search for some more recent literature on the educational uses of SL, but haven't found the time. It's hard enough already to catch up after the lost week and in the final weeks of my employment of Jacobs. I also would have liked to explore some SL educational sites. Frank had a reference somewhere in the discussion boards, but again, not found the time to get around that.

I'll be having a day off on Wednesday so I can do the week 5 reading, and be on track again.