Gee is such an absorbing read and lots of wonderfully quotable nuggets like:

"But all learning is ... learning to play 'the game'. For example, literary criticism and field biology are different 'games' played by different rules. (They are different sorts of activities requiring different values, tools, and ways of acting and thinking; they are different domains with different goals and different 'win states')" p. 7

I have only just finished chapter 2, but I was interested in his notion of "semiotic domains" which he describes as "an area or set of activities where people think, act and value in certain ways" (p. 19). These "semiotic domains" employ a range of modalities (or multimodalities in this case) which would encompass the following:

• oral or written language
• images
• equations
• symbols
• sounds
• gestures
• graphs
• artifacts, etc

These modalities are embued with specific meanings which are communicated in very distinctive ways - in some respects I see these as being very similar to the idea of transliteracy which Sue Thomas (of PART) defines as:

" ... the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks."

Transliteracy, then, becomes an umbrella term to include the likes of literacy, digital literacy, media literacy, information literacy, visual literacy and computer literacy (to name but a few). The idea of images and symbols that have become to represent real-world objects is as old as neolithic man and used by the ancient Egyptians in the form of hieroglyphics (we can include other cultures that made use of glyphics and pictograms here). It is interesting to see how symbols and imagery has come full circle with the power of the pixel and the ascension of nu-hieroglyphics like semacode and data matrix code which contain information tucked away within those barcode-like symbols and can now be captured and translated by mobile phone technology. What would the cognitive archaeologists make of these symbols in 2000 years time I wonder?

References

Gee, J.P. (2007). What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning And Literacy (Revised and Updated Edition). New York, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

I had deliberately left it quite late in the evening last night before venturing into Second Life (SL) as I wanted some time on my own to refamiliarise myself with the SL environment, the user interface and to ensure I had the latest update from from SL as I knew that there would be a Second Life Treasure Hunt game commencing next week. I also wanted to ensure that I had Team 2's SL contacts added to my SL contacts list.

I didn't get too far when I was approached by Dagma Kiranov (a.k.a. Iris Bosa) who had also popped up late into SL. After about 20 minutes typing messages between eachother - that strange typing motion that the avatar undertakes to inform the other user(s) that they are typing has been likened to "stroking the cat", Iris added her own metaphor by suggesting, given Wray's costume, that it looked like I was "playing the piano" - Iris asked "can I change my voice?". This struck me as an odd comment to make until I realised that she was talking about the speech feature within SL that was added several months ago. I plugged in my microphone headset and began to talk to Iris, like one does with Skype and presumably using the same kind of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology that Skype uses. It became clear what her question meant.

In Second Life, and indeed in other virtual worlds, the user invests a lot of time and effort to create their avatar and their "virtual" identity in a way that they want to be seen and perceived by other users within that shared world. One was able to further enhance that identity with the kinds of words and phrases that they used to talk to one another. In my mind's ear, I can "hear" Wray talking with a deep, rich, urbane voice, not too dissimilar to that of Christopher Lee's voice. But of course, the experience that the other user gets is not that of Wray sounding like Christopher Lee, they get Wray sounding very Kentish and not terribly deep, rich or urbane - you could almost hear the record scratch at that moment as reality breaks into the virtual world and these whole persona and identity that you have carefully created begins to unravel before your eyes.

Whilst there has been a lot of work in identity in terms of roles, gender, sexuality, demographic variables; I am not so sure whether any has been done on voice as an identity construct in terms of accent, dialect, pitch, etc. The inclusion of the speech feature within SL is a very interesting addition to the software's capabilities, but I wonder if it will have a detrimental effect on one's virtual presence and identity?

As part of the "Introduction to Digital Game-based Learning", this semester's cohort have been made up of 4 teams of 6 people who will work together as a team to either construct game-based tasks (for others to participate in) or take part in game-based tasks that have been given to us, as well as giving presentations to the other teams.

I am part of "Team 2" who consist of:

• Bill Babouris
• Myself
• Chris Hambley
• Eleisha John
• Marie Leadbetter
• Nicholas Palmer

I am very excited about the potential of group-based activities where the participants are at a distance and working remotely using a range of technologies like discussion boards, Skype and Second Life. It would be good to try a develop some kind of "good practice" guide that can be passed on to others who are also planning on this "virtual" approach to group work.

As a results of the "introduction to digital environments for learning" (IDEL) module and the research that I have been doing around the topic of digital literacy; I have crossed Marc Prensky's path many times over; he should also add agent provocateur to his list of roles. It started with my IDEL essay called "Bridging the Generation Gap: A Pathfinder's Tale" and this has led to presenting a talk called "The Generation Game: Exploding the myth behind the Net and Google Generations" to a number of organisations.

It's quite clear that I have issues with Prensky and the whole digital dichotomy of "natives" and "immigrants". These terms, according to Prensky, were coined by John Perry Barlow (1996, para. 12) in his "declaration of the independence of cyberspace". Prensky (2001a) and others have popularised (and added more to) these stereotypes to that they are now firmly cemented into the public domain like some kind of meme. Like Bayne and Ross (2007), I share the following sentiments which I explored in an earlier blog post:

"In the current political climate, talk of immigrants and natives inevitably evokes complexities and anxieties around migration, integration, and racial and cultural differences in Western society."

Indeed, Palfrey and Gasser (2008) want to reclaim the term "digital native" to mean something else entirely and suggests that:

“...rather than calling Digital Natives a generation – an overstatement, especially in light of the fact that only 1 billion of the 6 billion people in the world even have access to digital technologies – we prefer to think of them as a population … The vast majority of young people born in the world today are not growing up as Digital Natives.”

Prensky is rather keen on using a quote attributed to Dr Bruce D. Perry (now of Child Trauma Academy) which goes like "different kinds of experiences lead to different brain structures". In earlier copies of his now infamous papers, Dr Perry went under the name of "Dr Bruce D. Berry" and it's taken 8 years and a lot of flack before Prensky finally corrects it. At the heart of Prensky's work seems to lie a lot of scaremongering rhetoric that's not backed up with any references for the reader to check his claims against, it's quite an odd thing to do considering Prensky has 3 Master level degrees behind him. It's little wonder that Bennett, Maton & Kervin (2008) chastise Prensky and others after him by suggesting that:

“...proponents arguing that education must change dramatically to cater for the needs of these digital natives have sparked an academic form of ‘moral panic’ using extreme arguments that have lacked empirical evidence.”

This was echoed earlier by McKenzie (2007), using a little more sensationalist language, who accuses Prensky of being "guilty of 'arcade scholarship'". 

However, Baroness Susan Greenfield, the eminent neuroscientist and current Director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, comes to Prensky's aid by suggesting that further research would be needed to see if there might be a link with the three-fold increase of the drug Ritalin over the last 10 years and the increased exposure of young children to unsupervised and lengthy hours in front of a [computer] screen which, in turn, means their young brains would get use to rapid responses (Settle, 2008).

I do agree with Prensky on one thing and that is the need for learning professionals to be able to "speak" using both "legacy" and "future" languages through the lens of "digital literacy" so that students are better prepared and better equiped to deal with the changing nature of their digital worlds.

References

Barlow, J.P. (1996). A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace. [online]. Available at: http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html [Accessed 26 January 2009] 

Bayne, S. and Ross, J. (2007). The "Digital Native" and "Digital Immigrant": A Dangerous Opposition. Annual Conference of the Society for Research into Higher Education. December 2007.

Bennett, S., Maton, K., & Kervin, L. (2008). The ‘digital natives’ debate: A critical review of the evidence. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39(5), pp. 775-786. [online]. Available at: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/bjet/2008/00000039/00000005/art00002 [Accessed 26 January 2009]

McKenzie, J., (2007). Digital Nativism, Digital Delusions and Digital Deprivation. From Now On, 17(2). [online]. Available at: http://fno.org/nov07/nativism.html [Accessed 26 January 2008]  

Palfrey, J. & Gasser, U. (2008). Born Digital: Understand the First Generation of Digital Natives. New York: Basic Books. 

Prensky, M. (2001b). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants II: Do They Really Think Differently?. On the Horizon, 9(6), NCB University Press.

Prensky, M. (2001a). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5), NCB University Press.

Settle, M. (2008). Is computer use changing children? BBC News, 15.08.2008. [online]. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7564152.stm [Accessed 26 January 2009]

Prior to the "Understanding Learning in the Online Environment" module that I undertook last semester, I had used Delicious and Connotea as my principle web services for collecting, storing and sharing bookmarks, news articles and journal articles with my colleagues and interested parties.

On the module, Hamish Macleod suggested that we might like to create a Diigo account to share any bookmarks and resources around how learning could be facilitated through an online environment. The tool is very easy to use and allows you to create lists and groups. I had created a list for the learning challenge that I was undertaking at the time. I am now using Diigo to collect, store, compile and share on anything pertaining with gaming and, in particular, game-based learning - this collection can be found at the following address: http://www.diigo.com/list/heywayne/gaming

This is the first week of the "Introduction to Digital Game-based Learning" module. Over the next 12 weeks, we will be exploring the world of digital games in terms of ideas, concepts, issues and controversies and in particular how games can aid with the learning process - what lessons can be learnt if any? I do believe that exploration and play are the building blocks of learning.

But before we begin our adventure into the realm of gaming and the gamer-learner, we must start with that time old tradition of storytelling - the back story or rather my back story which will provide some historical context to my relationship and engagements with games.

I was never fond of traditional sports like football or rugby and as such a lot of my peers felt that I must be a misfit or something. But I did enjoy games that were created from my own imagination involving LEGO, Meccano and toy figures. This extended to the traditional board games like "Cludeo" (a personal favourite), chess, draughts, "monopoly", "snakes and ladders" (another favourite) which I played with friends and family - so the socialisation of game playing became an important aspect for me. I was very keen (and still am) on "Top Trumps" and other card games like poker, 21 and cribbage.

By the time I reached my teens, this would be the 1980s with the advent of the arcade games, like "Pac Man" (another favourite), "Asteroids" and "Breakout" and some of the earlier computer games. I owned a Binatone TV Master that played a number of rudimentary games like "Pong" and "Tennis", this was later superceded with an Acorn Electron which ran a version of BBC BASIC and allowed me to play such games as "Repton" and the near legendary "Elite" which made use of wireframe technology and was one of the first games to make use of the "back story" in the form of a mini novel. At college, I had become hooked on the game version of Douglas Adams' "The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy", which was a text-based role playing game (it has since been updated by a friend of mine who went to the same college and was a collaborator of Douglas Adams).

However, these early games soon lost their appeal on me as that all important socialisation factor was missing - while some people could be engaged with the competitive nature of trying to beat the computer it lacked the camaraderie. I became aware of the role playing game genre or RPG that involved creating characters and becoming them to be able to perform a range a series of tasks or activites usually within fantastical settings that required creativity, imagination and team work. The RPG that I enjoyed the most was based upon H.P. Lovecraft's stories and was called "Call of Cthulhu". What struck me the most about this game was the narratory skills of "The Keeper" which, if played well, was atmospheric and damn-right scary - here you were completely immersed with the story and the character which you are playing. Whilst there were a load of game-based resources for this game, I had preferred to create my own "Call of Cthulhu" scenarios inspired by the works of Lovecraft, Poe, Conan Doyle, Christie and such like - if only the Internet was available at the time.

In the mid 1990s which saw the rise of the Internet within the Higher Education sector, I had developed a SF / murder mystery game called "Murder on the Aurora" which was developed using HTML and Javascript and was created to help new users to the World Wide Web get to grips with this new, emergent technology.

Whilst I don't own a Wii, X-box or any of the PlayStation variants, I have become interested in the alternate reality game or ARG phenomena which have been made popular by TV shows like "Lost", "Spooks", "Heroes" and "Torchwood - again, this plays heavily on story telling and having the gamer to "live out" the role.

That's my "back story", so let the adventure begin...

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:

A (True) Story

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 bodyguards 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.

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:

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.

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.