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.

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

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.

Wasn't it exciting though eh? I don't think I have ever been so happy at an election result.  Many of the Americans who post on The Northlands (my discussion forum) are running round predicting the end of the world - now that a 'Muslim fundamentalist' has been elected they are counting the days till the beginning of Sharia Law & a police state. 

I don't care, I think he is fab.

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.

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. ^^

 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.

This is now Week 4 of the Learning Challenge (LC) and I've been a little naughty in that I have allowed the "Learner Analysis" assignment to interfere with the LC. The "Learner Analysis" assignment is due to be submitted on Sunday 26th October and I have probably spent more than is actually necessary on it.

I am back on the "I Will Knot" website to refamiliarise myself with the knots that I was practicing before the assignment got in the way. It's amazing how much you quickly forget because you haven't been practicing to the point where it "sticks" or "clicks" into place. At the moment, I am practicing once with the knot with the aid of the step-by-step video and then a further three times without the aid of the video - the trick is to try and repeat this tomorrow without the aid of the video at all!

On the subject of the "I Will Knot" website, I mentioned to a colleague of mine who teaches Chemistry at my University and has just been appointed a Learning and Teaching Co-ordinator for my Faculty that I was doing this learning challenge as part of my MSc and showed her the website I was using. She was most impressed by it - NOT because it showed you how to tie knots in easy step-by-step videos BUT how the idea behind the easy step-by-step videos could be used to show a particular Science experiment / practical to a group of students.

This visual aspect to learning is indeed a powerful motivator, and if done properly it could instruct students better than just reading it out of a textbook.

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.

I am employed by a training provider located in South Wales, at present it is seen by the Welsh Assembly as one of the top providers delivery quality training to the post 16 sector specifically the vocational routes.  We are all encouraged to ensure that we maximise on a learners expectations, however it is nearly impossible to realise everyone's expectation however hard you try.  As this is a core value and is embedded into the work ethic it becomes increasingly impossible and demanding to ensure this happens.  One of the major problems is the additional factor of the delivery of similar qualifications to adult learners too.  As we are all aware of the differences between adult expectations and youth expectations, how then can these two opposing dychtomoies be resolved without letting one side down?

First impressions, a very strong visual selling point that none of us can ignore.  Whether the first impression is of a training environment or the content of a qualification or the initial delivery on the first lesson.  Each and everyone of us will remember a specific element and this element then becomes the driving force behind the learners perceptions of his/her environment or learning.  I say very powerful because first impressions can be the carrot or the stick when it comes to learning! Why am I asking these questions, simply because in the world of Online education, the one factor that can remedy or exacerbate a learners perception is missing - a face-to-face tutor! This omission which is the stalwart of traditional teaching and consequently teaching strategies lends itself to two further questions - Does this releasing of ties to traditional methods encourage diversity and motivate practitioners to reach out and encompass cutting edge principles ? or does it simply mean that without the ever presence of the teacher and to a greater extent fellow learners increase the possibility of taught session imploding on themselves due to stagnation and apathy leading to drop out and closure?

I have asked these questions because they are the questions that online tutors must reflect on.  As a prospective learner on this Masters I have first impressions and expectations.  Luckily they are all positive, but one element that has been playing on my mind is the myrriad of platforms used to deliver content to the learners and for learners to use.  For example, Facebook, Second Life, Myed, Blackboard, Blogs ect.  That is a great amount of technology that needs to be learnt in the first instant before a learner can comfortably know which platform is used for what and for when!  Granted this is a Masters level and is aimed at technologists but is the greater use of technology the better the result, the best paradigm to use ?  Overkill comes to mind or is it just too much too soon ?