Learning Communities Assignment Part Two 2009
The following will be an analysis of my experiences as a learner/participant in the online community Jokaydia. I have been involved in this learning community for the past year will examine my experiences of this learning community from a not so ” Newbie ” perspective
In this report I will be divided into five sections :
Firstly a concise description of the community – including the technological environment and the participants.
Secondly a description of the learning events/activities occurring in the community
Thirdly a description and analysis of your role as a learner/participant in the learning activities
Fourthly An analysis of the community as a vehicle for learning. What aspects of the community’s structure or function support or hinder learning?
Finally my interpretation of my experiences in relation to your research and readings on learning communities.
A concise description of the community – including the technological environment and the participants.
Since April 2008 I have participated in the learning community/community of practice Joykaydia. This community is located in the MUVE (Multi User Virtual Environment) Second Life.
Jokaydia is owned and operated by Educational Technologist Jo Kay aka Jokay Wollongong (her avatar’s name) and is self funded. Jokaydia’s primary focus is to provide educators with a flexible and dynamic space to explore the various alternative educational opportunities that virtual worlds have to offer. http://jokaydia.com/about-jokaydia/
This is achieved through providing educators with informal and formal meeting spaces, interactive tools such as instruments that are located in the newbie gardens and the sandbox as well as hosting a a variety of different events and activities that provide educators a space to network, collaborate on each others projects and share idea’s.
The newbie gardens where new avatars or participants engage in simple interactive play (playing with instruments or getting coffee from the coffee vendor) http://slurl.com/secondlife/jokaydia/138/121/23
The sand box where avatars can create various objects http://slurl.com/secondlife/jokaydia/28/74/22,
April unconference http://jokaydia.com/2009/04/13/jokaydia-april-unconference-recordings-available/
The residence of Jokaydia come from a wide range of countries these include USA, Canada, Columbia, New Zealand and Australia. http://jokaydia.com/current-residents/
However the main users of the islands are Australian Educators. Jokaydia is a Australian based Sim the majority of organised activities are scheduled AEST this therefore excludes many Northern Hemisphere participants. An example of this is the May un-conference it was scheduled on a Sunday at 2pm AEST which is great for Australia educators. However an educator I know that is based in Scotland who regularly attends Jokaydian events could not attend because of the time difference. The population of Jokaydia is approxmately half vistors and half residences.
As well as supplying individual educators spaces to work and collaborate Jokaydia also provides a space to a wide variety of educational institutions and artists as part of the rental community in Jokaydia. Some of the groups include TAFE NSW Library – Information Literacy Project, Pulsar project, Macquarie University and Kangan Batman TAFE. http://jokaydia.com/about-jokaydia/ http://purplegrrl.edublogs.org/learning-communities-assignment-1-finding-a-community/
Macquarie University http://slurl.com/secondlife/jokaydia%20III/125/169/2
The technological platform which Jokaydia is situated is Second Life a Multi User Virtual Enviroment (MUVE)
Second Life is not the only MUVE in existence online however it is one of the most advance and has diverse range of educational/learning communities operating in the environment which Joykadia is one of them.
I think at this point it is important to define what exactly is the nature of a MUVE as it will assist in understanding how Jokaydia operates and the learning opportunities it offers.
In their article Multi – User Virtual Environments for teaching and Learning Dieterle and Clarke define a MUVE as follows:
” All MUVE’s enable multiple simultaneous participants to (a) Access virtual contexts (b) interact with digital artifacts (c) represent themselves through avatars (d) communicate with other participants (e) take part in experiences incorporating modeling and mentoring about problems similar to real world contexts.”
http://muve.gse.harvard.edu/rivercityproject/documents/MUVE-for-TandL-Dieterle-Clarke.pdf
In other words a MUVE allow participants the opportunity to fully immerse themselves in a virtual environment creating a new identity, manipulating objects, collaborating with other users/ residents and take part in experiences “in world” that may happen in RL (real life).
Jokaydia uses these characteristics of MUVE/Second Life to create a vibrate and active learning community.
A description of the learning events/activities occuring in the community
As Jokaydia is such an active community in Second Life there are a great number of both informal and formal learning opportunties for both residence and vistors to engage in.
Informal activities/events include exploring different parts of the island (by air or by foot) communicating and collaborating with other avatars on projects and interacting with objects that are located on the islands such as the drumming circle, newbie gardens and building objects in the sandbox. http://purplegrrl.edublogs.org/learning-communities-assignment-part-two/
Formal/planned learning activites are run regularly by Jokay Wollongong and other residence of Jokaydia. The following are some of the events I have attended over the last year in Jokaydia.
- Newbie tours- These workshops provide new residents with basic skills to successfully navigate through Second Life. These include basic camera skills , using objects in Second life, creating and editing your avatar, landmarks and communication tools. I found these workshops very useful when I first joined Second life. http://jokaydia.com/
- Unconferences these are a monthly event throughout 2009 (less formal collaborative space) to encourage open and broad discussions about ideas issues and projects relating to virtual worlds in education. http://jokaydia.wikispaces.com/unconf
- Jokaydia roadtrips Guided tour around interesting educational and arts Sims in Second life. Have been on a number of these road trips and it opened up a whole new persective on how virtual worlds could be used to educate. http://jokaydia.wikispaces.com/roadtrip
These learning activities described are just a small portion of the Social and Formal learning activities available on Jokaydia and more information can be found on Jokaydia’s Web site http://jokaydia.com/ and Wiki http://jokaydia.wikispaces.com/
A description and analysis of your role as a learner/participant in the learning activties
There are role I inhabit as a learner in Jokaydia/Second Life they are the active participant and the observer. The reason why I define my participation as active is as follows:
Firstly from the moment you log into Second life you are learning. You have to learn a new vocabulary, create a new identity learn the social etiquette of the different islands and how relate to different people in different settings. This type of social learning I believe akin to when you arrive in a foreign country and may not know the cultural rules of the place you are visiting.
Secondly the nature of the technology that operates Second Life requires you be an active participant not only engaged with sights and sounds of the island you may be visiting but also the technology
In Jokaydia there are a number of places where you can practice these skills my favourite on this site is the drumming circle in the Newbie gardens. You and your avatar friends can make music together using the instruments on the island. This exercise is useful as it teachers the participant how to use their right mouse click controls which is vital to negotiate Second Life.
Finally as my skills and confidence has increased using the medium I have become more active in the learning community as a whole. This was reflecting my inclusion on a panel at the Virtual Worlds best practices in education conference. I discussed my journey from being a Newbie in Virtual worlds to using them in educational practice.
An analysis of the community as a vehicle for learning. What aspects of the community’s structure or function support or hinder learning?
The design and structure of Jokaydia supports and facilities networked/social learning. examples of these include:
Firstly and most importantly the supportive and collaborative environment which is evident on Jokaydia supports learning. I have personally have learnt more from my interactions with the various highly skilled educational technologists that inhabit Jokaydia than I have attending different seminars and workshops in other educational Sims. I have found that if I needed assistance with lets say a build if one of the Jokaydians were on line they were most happy to assist me with my question/issue.
Secondly the formal and informal meeting places which are located in Jokaydia provide groups of learners a space to get together and collaborate on various projects and share idea’s in a three dimensional other world environment. Conducting training, have a discussion group in this space gives the participants an experience that would resemble a face to face meeting. This platform/medium is particularly useful for groups who have participants located in a different hemisphere and cannot meet in RL.
The interactive tools and activities which exist in Jokaydia provide the learner/participants with various experiences that will assist them in not only navigating Jokaydia but also Second Life as a whole. These include such things as the sandbox (where avatars can build structures even though they do not own the land) and playing instruments in the drumming circle.
All these experience require the learner to use the various functionalities which are contained in the Second Life interface i.e. to build a structure the learner must master the build function/ menu bar the learner must also learn the etiquette of the island. You cannot build structures on land that you do not own except if you have permission from the owner.
In Jokaydia non land owners can only build in the sandbox, if you build it anywhere else on the land you will get a notice from one of the administrators explaining the rules and stating that your structure has been removed. (have had this experience in my early days of using second life) http://jokaydia.com/jokaydia-resources/venues-and-resources-on-the-islands-of-jokaydia/#conference
There are also a variety of spaces in Jokaydia which are rented by the residences. These spaces can be access by guests though using the right mouse click function pressing touch and teleporting to that group’s space. These spaces include the Second Life library, Spaceport alpha-the international space flight museum and Campus Second Life to name a few. http://slurl.com/secondlife\/jokaydia/148/88/24
There are various Web/online tools which are available to participants can utilise these include Jokaydia – Facebook group http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/group.php?gid=6569906581&ref=ts
Jokaydia’s Web site http://jokaydia.com/ and Wiki http://jokaydia.wikispaces.com/
The aspects of this learning community that would hinder learning include:
The learner needs to have a computer with the technical capability to run Second Life. Have tried to contact training courses or meetings in Second Life and more often and not one of the participants has trouble getting in and operating their avatar in the space because their computer did not have an adequate graphics card to run the program or enough memory
Regardless of what kind of computer or the amount of memory the user may possess there is the problem of lag across the board in second life. This hinders interactions between avatars. It is particularly evident when you use the audio functionality in Second life and there is a slight echo.
The necessity for users who want to engage in voice chat to wear a headset can be problematic and possibly price prohibitive for some students/user. This therefore excludes a group of people fully engaging in the medium.
The need for the user to have access to a broadband service. Second life cannot run on dial up as it would be too slow so this may exclude people who do not have the resources to afford broadband.
Your interpretation of your experiences in relation to your research and readings on learning communities.
As I have stated previously in this essay the learning which participants/avatar undertake in Second Life indeed in Jokaydia is primarily social. An interesting perspective on the nature of social learning is expressed in Etienne Wenger –Communities of practice learning, meaning and identity summarises twelve different characteristics of social learning. For the purpose of this essay I am going to focus on three of the twelve as I think they are most relevant to my experiences in Second Life.
Learning is first and foremost the ability to negotiate meanings
In Second life the learner is continually challenging and negotiating meanings. These include such things as notions of self and self construction, general operational meanings such as the names of currency, language and etiquette of the environment, notions of learning and how we learn. As I stated previously being a newbie in Second Life is like getting off a plane in a foreign country
Learning is fundamentally experiential and fundamentally social
For me my experiences as a learner in Jokaydia have been fundamentally social and experiential. Though using the various interactive tools and transporting to the various communities I have learnt a great deal about elearning and online learning.
Wenger states: “Learning can be defined as a realignment of experience and competence” (227)
This has been my experience in Second life joined as a Newbie not knowing what to do where to go and who to talk to now I am teaching other how to navigate the landscape
Learning transforms our identity
“It transforms our ability to participate in a world by changing all at once who we are our practice, and our community.
I feel like this has happening to me in Second Life and indeed in Jokaydia I now have a presence in that space and it has given me tools that I can use to teach others and has change my elearning practices.
http://purplegrrl.edublogs.org/learning-communities-assignment-part-two/
In conclusion my experiences in Jokaydia over the past year not only increase my skills as a user in Second Life but has shown me the what educational possibilities can be gleamed from this medium.
Bibliography
Wenger Etienne (1999) Communities of practice -Learning, meaning and identity Cambridge University press
Deiterle E , Clarke J Multi – User Virtual Environments for teaching and Learning http://muve.gse.harvard.edu/rivercityproject/documents/MUVE-for-TandL-Dieterle-Clarke.pdf
Accessed May 2, 3, 7 2009
Facebook group http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=656990658 Accessed May 7 2009
Jokaydia blog http://jokaydia.com/ accessed April 27, May 7 2009
Jokaydia Wiki http://jokaydia.wikispaces.com/ accessed April 27 May 7 2009
Purplegrrls Second Life Blog page Learning Communities Assignment part two 2008 http://purplegrrl.edublogs.org/learning-communities-assignment-part-two/ Accessed April and May 2009
Purplegrrls Second Life Blog Part one finding a learning community part one 2009 http://purplegrrl.edublogs.org/learning-communities-assignment-1-finding-a-community/ Accessed April May 2009
