Learn 4 Life

Outside the Wire - accelerometer - interviews in Second Life

I have started up a companion site to interview people in Second Life about identity, self, formal and informal learning.

It’s called accelerometer. So why is it called that? Well if you go over there you’ll find out - it’s a new initiative and I’m going to be doing one interview a week on a regular basis from inside SL.

I hope to build up a picture, over time, of how people use the Second Life platform and the learning process in there. I believe that there is a new Digital Culture of learning evolving extremely fast and that Virtual Worlds of whatever flavour will be the next stage in that process. Anyway if you want to hear case studies please pop on over.

Outside the wire - why you should use Twitter - interview with the amazing Drew Buddie

Photo attribution Mr Ush AKA Ian Usher on Flickr CC

Why you should use Twitter

I have just interviewed Drew Buddie (AKA digitalmaverik on Twitter) about his escapades with Twitter over the weekend at the Isle of Wight Conference. He also talks about his involvement at the e-competent tutor meeting today.

Twitter at the Isle of Wight Conference 2008

First off I have to say that I wasn’t at either event but I did talk with Joe Dale at the Isle of Wight Conference on MFL over FlashMeeting. The buzz at the meeting was nothing I had ever experienced before - Joe had obviously put an immense amount of effort into the conference and the delegates where literally ecstactic about the event. I appreciate the hard work that obviously went into that and it was an amazing success. It was a truly collaborative event with people using digital media like Twitter, FlashMeeting, and dynamic web pages to show the world how to run a CPD event for teachers. All that effort and collaboration really showed in the feedback delegates were giving on camera at the end.

Drew gave a session on Twitter and not only that his feedback forms were put online as well! He talks of how students showed teachers a few things as well. Excellent - this is just how to run a conference. I asked Joe if any SLT were there and it seems not. Let’s hope they get enthusiastic staff beating down their doors to demand this is the way they should do things in the future. Perhaps the upcoming NCSL Teachmeet in Nottingham May 2009 will turn a few heads but somehow I suspect word will have got around by then.

He also outlines what happened at the e-competent HE tutor workshop and how Ning was used to augment the day. You can pick up the Tweets of both meetings by clicking these links iowconference08 and ect08.

We need CPD like this now everywhere and for everyone

Both these events were excellent exemplars of how to do CPD. Highly dynamic, collaborative and engaging. But I won’t write any more just listen to Drew talking - his passion for what he does shines out. This is the start of a revolution in Digital Learning and I can see this threading through the teaching community just as the use of USB sticks did when they first came out. But don’t take my word for it - just listen to the podcast.

Drew’s Interview.

Outside the Wire - the success of informal learning spaces in the community

Digital Culture is with us now

Which one is real? - Click to play

The informal use of Social Media outside schools can be a very strong driver for change in learning. I want to give concrete examples of how our culture is changing in this area. All involve the spread of what Josie Fraser called in her recent SocialTech blog - Digital Literacy.

Mirror Worlds as effective informal learning spaces

In the previous post, I covered the Virtual Worlds Conference in London last week and the emergence of ‘ad hoc’, informal ways people met up to do business.

On the night before that particular conference happened, I was invited down to the Greyhound Pub in Kensington to attend a pre-meet, virtual-to-real or real-to-virtual, event. Depending on how you look at it; it can get confusing at times, but stick with me, this is highly relevant to teaching and learning.

The Greyhound Pub - - Click to Play

Virtual to real and back again

The very first thing I encountered was a massive screen in the back of the pub, showing me the virtual Greyhound Bar and all the Avatars there. And in the virtual bar there was a screen showing a live video feed of the customers at the real bar. The Greyhound in real and virtual space is owned by Kwame Oh, (Julius Sowu).

Where a real life place is copied in virtual space this is often called a Mirror World. Buildings and features are replicated to mirror the real world.

Entertainment and leisure as powerful informal learning?

Kwame Oh - Click to Play

Kwame Oh is an ebullient character committed to mashing up Second and Real Life for entertainment, tourism, leisure and business purposes. He’s a social media entrepreneur who understands that virtual worlds need a community context (at least to begin with), but he’s also an innovator and project manager who has a deep insight into the digital landscape. What is more he’s got a sense of fun and a spirit of innovation and creativity. Surely just the qualities needed to generate new business in this new, digital world?

Whilst some academics may reflect on how best to get teachers to navigate  the steep learning curve of Second Life, and there have been good initiatives recently to do this,  Kwame seems to manage it in other adults with an ease that’s enviable. His secret? - other people.

Informal facilitation in a fun space

The pub is a perfect place for some communities to meet and have real life facilitators introduce them in an informal situation to Second Life. It’s not rocket science - it’s all about people and community. You don’t need an orientation island just a pleasant informal social setting that builds on the real life context. This would work just as well in a coffee shop or cafe kitted out in much the same way.

People learn better when they are having fun

No amount of tech fiddling about with avatars is going to get teachers into a virtual world. What might, it seems, is other people, and in informal community learning spaces with real-to-virtual and virtual-to-real initiatives. It’s a trick other educators seem to have missed but seems, to me, to be a simple but vital component to success.

We all learn better when we are having fun…the informal takes off the pressure and creates an environment where everyone can collaborate without fear of failure.

Kwame co-opted Nik Hewitt, who built the Daily Mail building next to the Greyhound pub in Second Life. In the brief, informal, interview below he describes what he does.

Kwame convinced Nik to replicate the virtual space. Now Nik mashes up extremely interesting things, like running Open Sim from his iPhone for instance, so he was the perfect choice for a business partnership.

Nikk Huet AKA Nik Hewitt - Click to play

A new mindset and projection of self for new learning and business

Nina Allam AKA Brie Janick; Rachel Smith AKA Cleopatra Charleville

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Two of Kwame’s facilitators are Nina Allam and Rachel Smith - both are also known as Brie Janick and Cleopatra Charleville respectively. Brie is estate director for the London Sims and Rachel is the Marketing Director.

Their roles are changing and their jobs evolving with the takeup of the popularity of the space. Listen to their interview and see the mindset they have towards learning new skills and going out and getting new business. Did anyone “train” them for this. Well I doubt it, as virtual worlds haven’t been around that long…

This is what I mean about Digital Literacy and a Digital Culture. You have to have the mindset for a change of culture to be able to deconstruct and rebuild age old institutions. This is just one example.

This is how it happens - people take the initiative for change and run with it. Instead of being institutionalised and locked down to outmoded ways of working they refresh what they do in new and innovative ways. We need to allow our schools, management and teaching force to go down some of this route to effect change and drive the economy.

In the next post I will be highlighting how things are changing in education at grass roots level and the possibilities of co-opting these new ways of working into our lives. We cannot afford not to.

Outside the Wire - Virtual Worlds London - doing things differently

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Virtual Worlds London

I was at the Virtual Worlds Conference in London. Unlike at the time of the last post, I was at this conference physically, in real life, not attending the talks, but interviewing the exibitors about the Virtual Worlds and services they were providing.

I was there to do two things - the first was to report on the state-of-play about the use of Virtual Worlds in education and the second to network and try out a proof-of-concept experiment binding several technologies together that could be used in schools and colleges.

Photo attribution to epredator CC some rights reserved licence

Towards a Digital Culture

The conference was filled with lots of business people, developers, owners of startups, tecchies, people pitching for funding and Virtual World gurus from all over the world. Some had paid a lot of money to be there and to pitch their ideas. It opened my eyes to how big the market actually is and at least one teacher, Dai Barnes, gave me feedback on Seesmic about my video coverage, to say how it made him rethink the use of virtual worlds, which was wonderful.

Backchannels again

Guess what - there was a conference backchannel on Twitter, #vwlondon, where all the smart people hung out. What is more, people were using it to network with others face to face in the breaks in mini unconferences, just as I had seen teachers doing the week before.

Some exhibitors were clueless but the smart ones were on the fastrack. But were they in competiton with each other? Of course they were but they were also collaborating - letting their products and passion shine out.

As this conference progressed I monitored and joined or left groups and followed and unfollowed people on Twitter. Twitter doesn’t have to be for life - if you make a connection with someone over time it usually does result in a real life meetup at some point in the future.

These were exactly the same ways of going about business that the teachers and academics were doing at the Handheld Learning Conference a week earlier. It bound some people together faster and more efficiently than anyone working a room to network could have, no matter how good their face to face skills. What is more, it segmented groups according to interest.

Sure some people already knew each other but others were co-opted and introduced because of this process and it was intriguing to watch in action.

The two groups were entirely different, i.e. teachers and tecchie business people but they were doing the same things - looks like a cultural phenomenon to me.

Conference 2.0 ?

As I am writing this blog I get a Twitter notification that, David Burden, a great interviewee, is having a rant at how the way conferences are “done” and suggests a new way, Conference 2.0 - every conference organiser should take note.

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David’s interview is quite interesting because he has considered virtual worlds very carefully. Because he works in the University sector and business, he sees a wide variety of uses by his clients and he obviously knows his stuff. He talks about different exemplars here and if you are in education at whatever level this may well make you think again about their use.

These are the kinds of people who are dynamically changing the landscape of how we do things. Going into the Virtual World business is a big risk. It takes vision and hard work - but it’s an increasingly competitive field.

It was very interesting to see how the closer I got to the heads of those businesses, and the further away from their PR people, the more information I got. In fact the flatter the business was, the more info I could get, and the better the video interview became. It helped to be able to contextualise the interview with discussions before and after as well to get a greater insight.

Seesmic

Here are some video highlights from the conference - if you click on the first pic at the beginning of the blog you’ll see my intro. I set the equipment up in 5 minutes and broadcast it straight from the spot out through a 3G wireless modem to Seesmic

The 15 or so videos needed no post production, they went straight up to a web page in seconds being encoded on the fly. In fact I think I recruited a fair number of business people onto the Seesmic mindset that day. It was proof of concept for me and saved me loads of time in post production. Go and see Seesmic - you might be surprised at the number of people in your Twitter stream on there - here and in the States.

I used a Mac laptop, a DV camera and tripod and a wireless sim modem. It was outside broadcasting in a box. This system could easily be used by teachers and pupils (subject to proper safeguards and AUPs) outside of the school. There’s no tecchie holdups - it’s instant and therefore perfect for all sorts of media and other activities.

I noticed quickly that being a good interviewee is an art. Nearly every one I talked with had good communication skills and, as usual, the pre and post interview talk was far more interesting. Next time I’ll try to take a mobile phone for those informal discussions, because that seems to be a protocol that is evolving as less intimidating.

In nearly every case, these business people are talking the same language as the teachers and academics I observed the previous week. The mindset is the same and they agree there should be wholesale change in the way we are doing things in schools.

Entrepreneurial Spirit and willingness to try new things

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Pierre-Olivier Carles of Stonfield InWorld noticed I was monitoring the Twitter feeds between filming quite intensively and we got talking.

After telling me about his e-learning business and other ventures, he gave me a tip for teaching a lesson using a mobile phone which he had seen. Listen carefully to what he says at the end about the fact that there will be jobs we can’t train for in the future.

Having the Vision

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Mal Burns produces a phenomenal amount of media about Second Life. He has a Digital TV channel and numerous blogs about the whole phenomenon. I don’t know where he gets the time to do all this but he does! Just listen to him speak on the subject for a few minutes and you’ll begin to get some idea of the rich kind of new virtual spaces people are beginning to inhabit. They are immersive and engaging and wonderful places to reconfigure the learning landscape.

Mirror Worlds

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John Mahon owns Virtual Dublin. This is a Mirror World in Second Life. Mirror Worlds are close representations of real world places in virtual space.

John, despite having a very impressive website showcasing his virtual worlds, is not a tecchie. As he told me - he flies aeroplanes for a living! But listen to him talk about the process of how people interact in his mirror world and you might begin to understand why his particular patch of Second Life is so popular. Not only does he mirror the buildings but also the cultural events. It could give a few pointers to educationalists about community and engagement in learning.

Open Sim

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Mark Duffy of Second Places is working with Open Sim. If you don’t know what Open Sim is then take a look at the video - he explains it much better than I do. Basically it is a virtual world based on Open Source versions of the code that built Second Life.

The Future

Click to Play

Probably the most fascinating conversation I had all day was with Matt Furman. He spoke eloquently about the mechanics and contexts of getting certain types of e-learning. He branched out into other areas of discussion about the future and types of Avatar which were fascinating.

We talked afterwards too about haptic 3D interfaces and translatation software linked to facial expression. It seems that things are going to get more and more realistic in Virtual Spaces…

And after that, again, through Twitter I discovered by a comment from Rich White, that he thought Matt could almost be describing a free OSS application he had developed called Edusim. Within minutes of uploading this video to Seesmic it was on the web being linked to and that led me to Matt again and Edusim. Edusim is an implementation of the Open Source Cobalt/Croquet OS.

It’s entirely free and allows you to build a very limited, small virtual world on your server and communicate and interact with users on other machines. This looks like an excellent starting place for Primary Schools if you are technically minded. It can even be used with a whiteboard and the initial results look impressive. I downloaded it and built a few objects - it looks like it could be quite interesting if it develops further. There is an Edusim Ning Group as well.

Open Source software will feature highly in the future - be sure of it. Becta has just launched a new initiative on OSS called Open Source Schools - it looks as if the site is powered by Drupal which is an excellent choice very fit for purpose in this case.

Some of the consultants and teachers working on the focus group; Josie Fraser, Ian Usher, Doug Belshaw and Miles Berry have an amazing amount of expertise and respect from the teaching community and so this should be an exciting and contextually interesting launch. Let’s hope people engage and seed it with exemplars and good ideas.

I hope this blog post has given you a bit more insight into Virtual Worlds; if you have time please do look at the videos on Seesmic.

In the next post I will be looking at communities Outside the Wire who are using virtual spaces and informal, collaborative learning in even more non-traditional ways.

The next blog post will be about the different uses of Virtual Spaces within Virtual Worlds - formal and Informal for learning and leisure.

To end this blog here is an interview with Clare Rees, European Marketing Director of Second Life talking about their policy for education.

Click to Play

If you have an Avatar and a Second Life account please drop into our Island and see out learning spaces. Click here for the SLURL and teleport, or read about it here.

Outside the Wire - passing notes in class - how interconnectedness is speeding things up

Photo attribution TKCS on Flickr CC some rights reserved licence.

As an example of what I mean by mindset and informal learning in the previous post, I’m going to give a few examples in a series of articles on how people are joining up to create new and exciting practice and spaces in and outside education like never before.

Informal/ Formal Real Life and Virtual Connections

Practitioners are now connected by several informal networks that enable them to share resources at a blistering speed and to distill and innovate what they do in highly interactive ways; and the ways they are joining up these Personal Learning Networks to do all the heavy lifting in 21st Century education is quite breathtaking. The teachers, researchers and consultants involved are plumbed into a system of Web 2.0 apps often by mobile phone, laptops and handheld devices, but forget the tech, think communication and transformation.

Their mindset is exactly the same mindset of developers and business startups in the “real world” - but get this, the spaces they all inhabit are highly ad hoc, often virtual-to-real learning spaces and vice versa, and they are joining up at a faster and faster rate.

People who populate these spaces, are engaged in immersive interactive learning, whether they be in business, academia or teaching, and they seem to share much of the same vision - they speak the same language and they are doing quite amazing things. A new Digital Culture is evolving.

None of them have had any training - they simply share, use and do and then remix again and it is in a completely flat digital landscape where hierarchies get you nowhere but your individual value to the group does. Try not engaging or sharing and you’ll soon find yourself Billy no mates. The environment is collaborative - sure people lurk and suck in info without giving out but they are missing out on all the fun!

Last week I attended the Handheld Learning Conference 08 but I never went there in person. I was following the backchannel on Twitter and if you don’t know what Twitter is then read and listen to Martin Weller’s wonderful slideshare presentation. I made a few predictions back in May of last year and some of them are certainly coming true.

Attribution palk:i on Flikr CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence

Backchannels

Backchannel? Backchannels and talkback channels have been in the recording, radio and TV studios for decades but only now is that concept coming into sharp relief in education mostly because of the size and connectivity of devices. Some of the delegates were writing and sending electronic text based comments back and forth on the conference presentation and on their day there - they were sitting facing the speaker in real time in real life but they were backchatting on digital devices and others were joining the conversation remotely.  Not only that, but one attendee was blogging the whole thing live using Coveritlive, and discussing (through text on the browser) the proceedings with people writing on the Twitter back channel, #HHL08, about the presentations as they were happening - people logged in from all over the world to contribute.

Think of it as passing notes and photos under the table in class but in this instance people were passing them over timezones and continents as well - all highly engaged in the proceedings. Some people were following it on mobile phones from their classrooms, others, like me on a laptop at home, and others still between workbreaks or in all sorts of socially distributed situations - some may even have been following on text notice boards in Second Life through RSS feeds for all I know but I doubt it.

Photo attribution Mark Kramer

Recording Informal Ad Hoc Interaction around Formal Proceedings

The keynote speech given there by danah boyd has been generously uploaded to the web by Grahame Brown-Martin but the scoop of the day was Mark Kramer’s informal interview with her before she talked - which had all sorts of insightful and touching elements. It underpinned and augmented what she had to say later formally.

Informal Social Learning

And even later still - some people who were monitoring the proceeding met up in real life in pubs and restaurants face to face and a lot of informal social learning went on. This was posted out in real time to sites like Qik.com.

At the end of the conference I joined people face to face and people presented informal ’show and tell’ discussions to each other about a number of different topics.

So my experience was:

• some remote learning (looking at conference videos and monitoring Twitter feeds)
• some informal networked learning (as above)
• and some face to face social learning (going down the pub or restaurant and show and tell)

Teacher exemplars of using Personal Learning Networks

Now, earlier in the day, as I was reading and participating in that discussion, an even more amazing event happened at the same time. Two teachers in different classrooms in different parts of London (I’m presuming here by the context) started up another conversation.

The first teacher asked for help with making a contents page in M$ Word.

Literally, within minutes, the second teacher also in class (I’m also presuming here as the narration was personalised) put up a link to a screencast presentation on the basics of how to do it.

The message had gone out and someone from that teacher’s Personal Learning Network cared enough to make and prepare that resource on the fly and post a link back. That is what I mean about mindset and a can-do attitude.

We need a teaching workforce like this. Not one that is constrained by current outmoded ways of doing things. Teachers are joining up in peer to peer learning networks to advance their craft but all too often they are restricted by instiutional policies and guidelines on what they can and cannot do outside the wire in informal virtual space.

This needs to change.