Individual learning style

My previous post ignited an interesting discussion. One of the follow-ups by Mike Leyden is about design of e-learning environments and individual learning styles. I think it may be interesting for you, LIN3-guys :) Please, don't hesitate to join the discussion or reflect on it in your own blogs (or on Moodle forum).

"saving money, carbon emissions and time"

For some time I had had in my mailbox an unread message about "reaching dispersed audienced with Second Life". Well, the message was sent by a consulting agency specializing in social media, so I didn't expect much from it. However, some bits of interest were still sparkling and I didn't kill the message straight away. So when I realized that there's no hope for me to join a ConnectPro meeting room, I decided to check the stuff.

Well... Among the usual buzz about how "increasingly sophisticated and varied technology helps us to keep in touch with friends, family and colleagues far and wide" *grin*, there was a link to posts on how Australian accountants organized a conference on Second Life. One of them is here.

A reader, i.e. me, is supposed to be fascinated by "how detailed it is, how big the island is, how immersive that even this video is? Amazing stuff". Mmmmm...... Well, it may be (in terms of Second Life stuff) BUT what amazed me the most was irritating music. That's it.

Another thing that struck me was the venue. It was indeed nice looking and I thought that it could have been really nice to BE there, to have a bodily experience of sitting in the stylish chairs and looking at such huge screens, BUT it was only a virtual projection of some ideal space by a small group of conference organizers. So there is NO way to escape snowing and cold by attending such a conference. There is NO way to show nice clothes. There is NO chance to taste exotic food. What I should be excited about is sitting at home alone on a couch wearing old jeans and a t-shirt and sipping from a cup of instant coffee. Thanks a lot. I'm SOOOOOO excited by the Second Life conference island.

This type of applications are supposed to "save money, carbon emission and time". Well.... Whose money actually? The immediate answer would be of the participants, say Department of Production (in case it comes to the conclusion that the only thing researchers do at real conferences is partying). But what about the University at large? It should provide the proper soft and hardware to attend this type of virtual conference (and my experience with it this morning is that one can never trust either soft or hardware. It can fail any moment). I guess it would cost quite a lot if one wants technology to work. Then what about those who create virtual islands? I suppose they won't work for free. What about avatars? As far as I know, avatars' developers earn good money on selling "virtual identities". Ah, and don't forget about people at ATK providing support and maintenance for ever-failing software.... So does it make any sense of talking about saving money? Maybe it's better to talk about redirecting money?

Carbon emission... Well, I'm not environmentally conscious. This point doesn't touch me at all. After all, to a great degree it's just a part of contemporary discourse and pretence to do ethical business.

Time... Yes, I agree, virtual conferencing saves time: no need to book tickets, pack clothes, travel long hours, etc.... Another question is: it saves time FOR WHAT? For more work???? More tasks? More pressure?

Thanks a lot. I'm not amazed by this amazing virtuality at all.

*This post is largely inspired by my futile attempts to attend a mentor meeting today.

Moodle

Today I had the 2nd mentor meeting during which Sanna showed me Moodle. It's quite an interesting platform! The first thing I did when I came to the office was I created "Useful links" and "RSS feeds" sections on my course page. These are two sections I find the most interesting at the moment :)

1st mentor meeting

Today I had the first mentor meeting with Sanna. It's good that she and Maria prepared a study plan and a list of topics to think about. It made the discussion well structured. I could identify the gaps in my knowledge quite quickly (the plan helped to articulate them) and focus on what to do next.

What was new for me is that Moodle as a tool has a capability for developing collaborative environment for students. I thought it was only for storing teaching and students material relevant for a course.

Another interesting thing is that some teachers at the University use Moodle' wikis and discussion forums (social tools I'm interested in). As a teacher I'd like to have access to these examples to see how it works (in terms of reaching course objectives). However I can't do that because usually course spaces on Moodle are protected by passwords.
This is understandable given that teachers would like to protect their "intellectual property" (or afraid of negative assessment from peers). At the same time, it makes hardly possible the exhange of good ideas and experience.
As for me, I didn't protect my course material by a password last year. One reason was that I was interested in the feedback on the course structure ("feedback" reason). Another reason was that even if somebody would like to copy the course that person would anyway need to read all sources I mentioned. So the course can't be copied and taught stright away (and, frankly speaking, I think it needs some improvement). So I was not afraid that the course would be stolen ("proprietary" reason).
I know that this approach is not common. I don't have any illusions either on that the situation may change in very near future. But, anyway, I find it quite strange, especially, given the contemporary mantra of "the importance of knowledge sharing" :)

Hi! This is a "learning diary" blog for Learning in Networks 3.

I must admit I'm not a great fan of writing lengthy posts about minor issues. But I'll try to do my best to discuss here what I think is important in terms of LIN3.

One more thing. I'm sorry I can't read your blogs (that is acutally not quite true. I can but with a dictionary and it takes lots of time. So I prefer to say that I can't :)) )
But you are welcome to read and comment mine :)