My opinion

My personal belief is that ownership rights of the content of PLEs and any work created during the study period should belong to the author him/herself. Such work, after all, is most frequently a result of unslept nights and hours spent in libraries/in front of a computer, desk, etc. To my astonishment, that was not the case with my former Polish alma mater, where the ownership to all my assignments, including a 20,000-word thesis belonged to the university.

Why is it so important?

That is a debatable matter. Mainly, because people are afraid that someone else is going to steal, copy or use the result of our effort, subsequently providing him/her with money, fame, recognition, success we would have gained otherwise. Petty reasons, all in all, but they can also be self-contentment with achievement or willingness to help others.

Who, if not us?

In learning environments the ownership of intellectual property may belong to the author, as well as a fellow student while collaborating, the supervisor, and research staff.

How is it determined?

A number of factors may intervene, namely: the given country’s law, the school’s policies, the external platform’s regulations, and principles of the given discipline.

Implications

The very fact that we know some external body is the rightful owner of our work may have a very adverse effect on our work. Simply out of fear of being intellectually robbed the quality of our performance may suffer greatly. We will simply not be willing to fully engage in the production process, knowing that we will not be adequately praised for our hard work. The content of the work is also likely to be less personal.

Many more details regarding this interesting topic can be found below:

• http://www.cags.ca/media/docs/cags-publication/Guide_Intellectual_Property.pdf
• http://blogs.msdn.com/b/alfredth/archive/2010/09/03/students-and-intellectual-property-rights.aspx

The main argument of the text is that cyberspace allows for a different from traditional structure. The tree-shaped organisation of traditional knowledge (from biology to linguistics) allows for one way of learning – following an ordered sequence of what elements of knowledge are to be learnt one after another. The tree stems from a root, from which we can proceed via branches to growths. This leaves a learner with a duly pre-arranged sequence of learning, with little space for individual experimenting, moving to certain parts of knowledge more interesting to the particular learner.

According to Cousin, cyberspace compares well to the structure of rhizome. With all elements connected to any other ones, all parts of a given knowledge can be accessed at any given time, adjusting the learning sequence to one’s personal interests and requirements.  Learning becomes custom-made, bespoke, personal, thus interesting and engaging. That seems to be advantageous for the learners, since the pace, difficulty level, and personal interest are factors that can greatly affect one’s learning progress.

There are certain drawbacks of such personalised online learning, however. Those mentioned by Cousin include e.g. high negotiability and reliability of learning sources and available materials. With near-endless resources the obvious problem is where to start reading. Sieving the right from the wrong creates learners who engage in the never-ending search for information, merely ‘surfing’ on the surface of knowledge, rather than reaching deep into it and acquiring it.

Moreover, the power of the internet lies in its social structure, in the WEB 2.0 participatory creation, interoperability, and cooperation. High individualism focuses excessively on taking and using rather than collaborating in creation, thus reducing the role of social networking sites, blogs, wikis, video sharing sites, hosted services, web applications, mashups and folksonomies, all such useful in the cyberspace learning.

Such ‘cherry-picking’ learning style, characteristic of the Net-Generation, may highly diminish the role of an in-depth research, too. Students may be satisfied with snaps of information that may be available quickly, with little critical thinking.

All this does not change the fact that the contemporary learning style is and will continue to change as the technology available constantly develops. I do agree with Cousin on that technologies are not instruments of our identities, they are its constitutive elements which not merely influence but change our social practises and the way new generations learn. According to Cousin, “technologies work dynamically with pedagogics, not for them. The moment a new device of communication is invented it changes our way of thinking, recreates our minds, creates new opportunities for thought.”

Undoubtedly, more large-scale research is needed to ascertain to what extent the personalisation of online learning is best to be allowed. We are facing a paradigm shift in the conception of the role of technology in pedagogy and we would better be thoroughly prepared for its arrival.

My interactions with other SL users won’t differ much from my real life interactions, where I wouldn’t try to bother strangers with conversations, or wouldn’t act foolishly, even though I am fully aware of still being completely anonymous in SL. In fact I have yet to explore the SL’s social use.

I am very glad with our group Second Life session and the first striking feature I noticed was the observance of the “social proxemics”, characterised by us walking in an organised manner to an agreed area, apologising each other when stumbling on or pushing somebody, sitting down and facing each other while talking, etc. All these came very naturally to each one of us; we submerged into our virtual identities as students quite easily. But what if the task was more difficult than just taking part in a discussion? What if new skills and new knowledge were to be gained?

Answers to this question are provided quite extensively by Gee. According to him if children cannot make associations between their real-world identities (who they are, what values they represent) and their virtual identities (who they can become), the learning process will fail. In fact, according to Gee, helping to form such associations is what teacher’s role should be about. With the right assistance from the teacher, students will make the right associations between the available identities, thus moving from the real identity (as represented by “That’s what I think), to virtual identity (as represented by “That’s what I would think if I was a…”). The final step being the student’s realisation of their projective identity could be represented by “That’s what I’ll think right here and now, being this type of person”.

Possibly a good and simple explanation of Gee’s ideas is mentioning passive versus active -or critical- learning. Learning things without being able to refer them to one’s own goals or to own context, has much smaller chances of being remembered and mastered by a student than learning critically, knowing what the particular knowledge and skill will help one with. Gee’s video game example, accompanied by succinctly explained learning principles is a must read for any ambitious educator.

The most interesting part of Boellstorff’s study of SL was his deliberation on gender, transgenderism, gender-switching and cross-dressing. There seems to be a strong link between user’s choice of his/her avatar’s gender (and clothes he/she is wearing in SL) and the user’s behaviour or attitude. Apparently, a common practice these days is to have two avatars simultaneously, each one of different gender. This means to allow us to experience, not only observe, what it feels to be the opposite gender. Among other reasons of virtual gender swaps the author mentions: ‘reflecting upon one’s gender’ or simply willingness to be left alone (usually for a woman to be left alone by men). I truly believe that still there might be other underlying reasons for such gender swaps, which could possibly form a solid base for a psychoanalytical discussion. I will gladly attempt to have one with my friend, an expert in Freud, when the nearest opportunity arises. I also find it striking how stubbornly the users may protect their actual RL [real life] gender from being revealed, treating such cases as breaches of their cherished and valued privacy.

A completely different, yet equally interesting, aspect of virtual worlds is being discussed in another article of this week’s reading list, the text on the Daedalus Project. The topic under scrutiny, among others, is the 3-D graphics available in some virtual worlds, including Second Life.

I had always thought of the 3-D graphics as an element that helps to immerse in the virtual reality, to feel that by trying to copy the world around us I will engage in the virtual world to the full extent. It seems to work perfectly well in games. Naturally, then, it should work for all other platforms, too. And yet, I had never realised that the underlying function of copying real world laws to a virtual world is to limit us and slow us down in achieving our game goals. Therefore, using it in education or business, for instance, may not be of much help after all, other than that of an extra feature (such as e.g. more light in a room).

It works well in Second Life and other MUVEs, I thought. And yet what is the point of changing clothes, observing the ‘social proxemics’, and sitting in chairs in the world where we do not get cold, can not push or touch each other or get tired of standing.

The Daedalus Project text did make me realise, however, that the 3-D may in fact be there for other reasons. It seems to form a ‘familiar metaphor for interaction,’ where simplest conversations can go by as comments on the weather, somebody’s looks or clothes, presence in a virtual place of common interest. The 3-D virtual reality is a ground for a conversation in itself, just like the real world is.

Isn't there too much focus on the form over the content in this video, then? (couldn't add as an ext. vid.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD2JseYe-Rk&feature=related

There are certain domains in which virtual experience seems of little comparison to an in-world one (consider on-line confessions or learning how to skydive). And yet, some of our learned contemporaries never cease to prove us wrong.

Having heard of schools of languages offering classes in Second Life (such as the Lingualand school in Krakow, Poland), I decided to explore a less obvious example of SL use. Inspired by an idea in the Warburton’s text (the briefly mentioned PREVIEW project) and a number of other articles discussing e-learning in nursing and medicine (for a fuller list of my findings please check below) I decided to locate the Second Life PREVIEW project facility. And indeed, I had no problem finding it and was allowed to run a quick trial.

Please note that simultaneously a number of related projects are already available, including Second Life Medical and Consumer Health Libraries (Healthinfo Island—funded by a grant from the US National Library of Medicine) and VNEC (Virtual Neurological Education Centre—developed at the University of Plymouth, UK), as well as HABITAT, MOOSE and PLaNET projects.

About the project

The PREVIEW Project, provided by the Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences (a partnership between St George's, University of London and Kingston University) aims at training future paramedics in contextualised environments. The island is located here, and the project’s website with a more exhaustive description can be found here.

Provided with a nice welcome pack (including the ER outfit) the student is free to roam the training area between a number of locations (a street, an underground station, etc.) in which a variety of possible health-/life- threatening situations have occurred.

The PREVIEW experience

When a student approaches the emergency site a short text appears providing details of the circumstances (e.g. the cause of the accident, if the casualty is breathing or if there is any visible bleeding, etc.). What follows is a series of possible actions to be taken by a paramedic, the choice of which is briefly followed by another set of changing circumstances or new options to choose from. The accident site is often accompanied by a media-tutorial screen. Fret not, dear disciple, for there is no time limit to take appropriate action nor patients’ screams to be heard. What there is, however, is a fantastic opportunity to visualise the emergency situations in life-like contexts and practise various life-saving strategies individually or in a group.

More in PREVIEW

Apart from the Second Life interface, the project is supported by the blog, a dedicated Youtube channel, student experience surveys, related academic journals and links to useful/related websites.

Advantages

My short list of advantages of learning a medical profession in SL will inevitably map those of Warburton’s, with visualisation and contextualisation in the lead. With a number of various pre-loaded actions that a paramedic may take, experimenting and making errors poses no real threat. I can imagine that the SL training may greatly help in automating responses in at least the most common of circumstances. Through immersion and multiple repetitions a paramedic novice may practise ad nauseam, with the feeling of actually performing treatment.

Disadvantages

To the catalogue of potential drawbacks listed, unerringly, by Warburton (e.g. the Identity problem), I would like to add some specific dangers I perceive in learning paramedics online. Namely, the already mentioned comfort of no time limit to perform an action, or the potentially misleading selection of choices, while in real life these may be strictly limited by the very individual circumstances. I dread to think what possible harm could be done by sticking to the routine and ignoring other pieces of information that had previously been ignored by the virtual world builders.

Related resources

• Kamel Boulos, M. N. et al. (2007). Second Life: an overview of the potential of 3-D virtual worlds in medical and health education. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 24, 233–245. (also available from Google Scholar)

• Skiba, D. J. (2007). Nursing Education 2.0: Second Life. Nursing Education Perspectives, 28, 3, 156-157. (also available from Google Scholar)

• McCallum, J., et al. (2010). Exploring nursing students' decision-making skills whilst in a Second Life clinical simulation laboratory. Nurse Education Today, doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2010.03.010 (also available from ScienceDirect.com)

• Honey, M., et al. (2011). Teaching With Second Life: Hemorrhage Management as an Example of a Process for Developing Simulations for Multiuser Virtual Environments. Clinical Simulation in Nursing, Vol(X), 000-000. doi: 10.1016/j.ecsn. (also available from ScienceDirect.com)

Defining ideas that are subject to constant change is even more difficult. That is precisely the case with virtual worlds. Should we maintain a basic and most generalised (ageless?) definition or should we amend and expand it on a regular basis?

Warburton (2009) rightly (or so I believe) opts for the former, repeating Schroeder’s (1996) definition of virtual world as one which: 1- is computer generated, 2- gives sense of being somewhere else than we really are, and 3- allows users to interact with each other or the environment. This definition is very straightforward.

I will refrain from analysing/polemicising with Warburton’s ideas of applying Second Life (SL) as means of learning/teaching as I have no sufficient knowledge or research history in this field. I do, however, have a few observations and comments after reading his article.

Warburton concludes that there are three major components that make up the Second Life experience. As we read we find out that each of the three components has certain limitations. The difficulties with the SL’s technical infrastructure – the first of the three components – are posed among others by the 3D visuals. These are running on the Lynden Lab servers, thus posing a substantial stress in the user’s bandwidth. In fact the big upside is that the downloadable interface (initially 24MB) is in fact minute in comparison to, for instance, most game installations. The stress placed on the user’s bandwidth should, in my opinion, be one of the determiners of SL’s minimum requirements. The simple fact of the matter is that SL cannot be used, understood and fully appreciated with slow internet connections and long lags caused thereby. Tightening the minimum internet speed would surely not diminish the number of SL users any more than a failed first impression could.

           I do not understand the author’s mention of “educators’ limited resources” as a barrier to SL use, since both the engine, use (to a large extent), and update downloads are all free of charge. The supposed ‘burden’ of installing new client releases has been a part of the software industry ever since and is more and more often overcome by automatic (often without user’s awareness) updates (e.g. such services are provided by Google’s Chrome).

           Speaking of current trends and developments in MUVEs (Multi User Virtual Environments) I admit to be particularly optimistic about the work on open standards and portability of identities. I would risk a claim that moving between various platforms/virtual worlds with only one avatar/virtual profile would allow these platforms to become more specialised and focused in their domains. Users as such would be able to experiment with different experiences without wasting their time on creating new profiles or learning how to move around in the new worlds. This could even lead to a fantastic surge in course taking by those who have already done it once (starting with an on-line Spanish course a student may want to try to learn some Hungarian next spring, or a 5-week course in cooking, followed by an improver's photography course, etc.).

Unlike chat, unlike the discussion forum even, this most asynchronous of all means of communication (well, I’m exaggerating, perhapsJ) is difficult for a partaker not only because it is so stretched in time, but also because it is linear in the way that each new post appears after a previous one (so unlike in a discussion forum where related posts can be grouped together), because a substantial number of various threads/topics may appear all in one discussion, and finally because each and every entry is subject to a character limit, making utterances abbreviated or cut into parts.

Contrary to what I had thought, Twitter threads proved to be very personal (words often spoken directly to someone specific rather than the whole group) and what fascinated me even more was an article by Jutko et.al. where a number of additional advantages of using Twitter were revealed (including but not limited to: high students’ engagement in the study process, extending classroom conversations, expressing personal feelings, revealing one’s shortcomings, mentioning extra-curricular content to find common interest, etc.).

I admit that to fully engage in a 3-day long discussion, a regular check of a few times a day would be necessary, probably.

Yes, I do believe Twitter has its place in the e-education process and I wish to continue my exploration of it starting from reading the bibliography positions from the two Twitter-related articles.

This, I truly believe, is the case with Hubert Lederer Dreyfus, professor of philosophy, particularly renowned for his insight into phenomenology, existentialism, Martin Heidegger’s understanding of “Being” as well as the philosophical implications of artificial intelligence (http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~hdreyfus/). And it’s this last bit that can make some believe incontrovertibly in prof. Dreyfus’s expertise in whatever subject connected with computers. The bigger, then, was my relief to read an academic article by Burbules, Professor of Educational Policy Studies, supporting my few concerns and adding many more of his own. From overgeneralizations, through ignorance of certain benefits of on-line interaction, through demonization of the internet as such, Dreyfus builds a very grim future for e-learning. What is perhaps the most striking to me as a teacher is prof. Dreyfus’s readiness to criticise matters of education while it is clear his views are based on elaborated comparisons and philosophical assumptions rather than classroom experience and knowledge of pedagogy. It is no wonder, than, that Dreyfus is reputed as a Luddite (http://www.beingintheworldmovie.com/ph-dreyfus.html), trying to oppose not only the inevitable but also the beneficial.

It is true that as a representative of a 1983 generation and a student of this course I am to a large extent biased by my conviction of the importance of omnipresent technology. And I acknowledge the fact that critique of the new is as needed as producing experts in the field. Still, I find more restrained commentaries such as Ray Land’s much more acceptable.

To finish my short disquisition I wish to reveal a comparison that comes to my mind when thinking of Dreyfus. Namely, I picture him as an experienced and mature sports journalist and a commentator. No matter how great his authority and expertise in the sport is, however, he still has very little chance of becoming a famous footballer or even a football team manager.

I appreciate Dreyfus’s book nonetheless, mainly for reassuring me why I want to be involved in e-learning at all.

I have tried to put some sense into understanding where the discussion of ‘digital natives’ vs. ‘digital immigrants’ stems from. And I don’t mean the basic definition that the former – in the most simplistic terms – are those growing up surrounded by technology and the internet.

What I mean is more concerned with why the notion was coined in the first place. I seem to have found part of the answer in Dworschak’s article.

“The example of the dot shows how normal the Internet has become, and debunks the idea that it is a special world in which special things happen. Media are used by the masses if they have some relevance to everyday life, (…) and they are used for aims that people already had anyway.”

This could suggest that before advanced information and communication technology permanently present in our lives became the omnipresent reality, such notion was revered and dreamt of by the biggest brains on the planet. It was the time when possible uses of the internet and likely improvements to every man’s life where almost limitless. It would seem that all too often, however, people tend to treat the internet simply as a different (more convenient, perhaps) way of performing the tasks they would do otherwise offline.

All in all, the term ‘digital natives’ seems valid and worthy of in-depth research during the current transition period. The transition being from no or little technology present in our lives to the stage where technology permeates our lives to the extent when it is hard to imagine living without it, or when lives start to depend on it.

(I wonder what term in the future the then-ubiquitous digital natives will give to the technologically impaired oldies’ minorities…)

The digital natives of the future such as the 20-month old Clementine:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdjjhf_when-a-baby-discovers-the-ipad_tech