IDE 735#13: More reflection

So the course has ended, but I feel it's just begun for me. There's just so much to catch up on because of the course schedule and my own work schedule. I didn't get to really read and chew on what I've read. There's a lot of readings I want to delve into; I want to rewrite my final paper for a conference submission; it's just a first draft. I have so many things I want to clarify, so many concepts I still have not a firm grasp of yet: like, microworlds vs virtual worlds; are virtual worlds all microworlds? not all microworlds are virtual worlds? I don't know. How about VR? Are all virtual worlds VR? But not all VR are virtual worlds? Wish I could ask someone. I've tried to google and read some of the listed articles, but no resolution yet. Still seeking.

At the AACE conference, Second Life was on the lips of everyone. Glad I've done a paper on it, phew. Games in education continue to be big. A forum is going to be started and I'm going to join the SIG.

I feel like I haven't learned enough. The course seemed to be stunted by the short few weeks. I need more time to let it all sink it. I guess the rest is up to me to do independent informal learning. But it's definitely piqued my interest to go more indepth and read more on the topics.

IDE.735#12: SL for relaxation

With such limited time and so much to do, I often have all these thoughts I want to blog about but don't because I just don't get to a computer on time and those moments/thoughts are lost.

I posted 2 questions on Clark's blog after asking one of them during his guest speaker appearance on June 14.

I'm now trying to gather my thoughts and findings about SL to create my final paper. Started well but researching on SL is frustrating. Today I tried to attend a major event hosted by the University of Southern California Center of Public Diplomacy and was booted out several times. I reappeared at the gate so many times the greeter said, "You again Kollette, sheesh!" Hey, that was some courteous greeting! Anyway, won't write about this event here as I'm including it in my final paper. I have big dreams of submitting it for a conference, LOL.

Anyways, I also tried SL as a form of relaxation though my husband thinks I suffer from computer addiction and am wasting time, especially after what I told him about USC getting a $550,000 grant for studying about philanthropy in virtual worlds. He was like, whoa, that kind of money can be better spent in the real world. Hmmm... my husband doesn't get it that these avatars represent real people who by participating in the virtual world are using it to complement their real world philanthropy.

So anyways, here's what I did for relaxation after the stress recently of cramming for this course:

1. Swimming in a pool at Kanes Project (143, 42, 37) 6/19

No one was around, so it was a lonely dip. However, I miss swimming since I have hardly done any of it since coming over to the US.

2. Sunbathing at Kanes Project (174, 38, 39)

Here I'm all stretched out alone in the only clothes I have; no LindeX to buy any swimwear or anything.

IDE.735#11: The Fascination of SL

I'm beginning to find SL very addictive. There's just so much going on. It's a game, so it's fun and engaging, but it can also be educational. I'm also learning a whole new vocabulary. Do you know what a prim is? I didn't until I googled to check it out as Miss SL 2007 kept using it in her blog.

Personally, I think SL has great potential, setting aside all the pc crashes and motion sickness I get.

Here's a bit about what I've learned -- thanks to Natalia, Miss SL07:

1. There's really a lot of help for newbies contrary to the initial frustration we had. Once you get in, you can go to lots of places for help to customize your avatar and learn about SL.

2. Just like real life, there are places to visit, events to engage in, sports to play, relationships to form, shopping to be done, etc. What a life!

3. Educational - besides experiencing events and phenomena virtually, one can receive support for healing and engage in discussions with others too.

IDE.735#10: Miss SL 2007

This lady's blog is supercool. She has a Second Life guide, lists fascinating places to explore, produces tutorials on how to create nice avatars, and listen to this, she is.... ta-dah!!!! Miss Second Life 2007 - Natalia Zelmanov! Is this surreal or what? I have to try out the links she posted myself. Many many to explore.

IDE.735#9: Guest Speaker Clark

I visited Clark's site numerous times to read and prepare for the session on Thurs 6/14, so I was a bit disappointed not to get to ask all my questions. Still, I'll have a chance to post them.

I posed him a question about the lack of a standard lexicon or terminology in the field. Honestly, my head at this point is swimmingly full of jargon about sims. He said that his effort in creating the glossary blog was a start in the direction to standardization. Hmmm... I thought so but I wonder how this would take place.

Is there a national or international society of simulation experts? Like IBSTPI? Or PMI or ...?

Oh, I should record the glitch we had due to human error. The interesting thing is that technology did not fail us during the session, but the server controller forgot about the session and had to be reminded via an emergency call. Thankfully, I was able to call 2 other persons who finally got her number.

IDE.735#8: Roaming SL again

Well, today I explored SL again to see if I can find anything educational or informative. I teleported to this Angel Island Isle and met 2 persons who actually interacted and chatted with me. Whoa!

This lady, Sunshine Sparrow, is from a Florida state community college. She actually told me what this island was about - for Angel LMS to orientate potential clients to their software. Cool! So other competitors might be in SL too for this reason - like Blackboard, D2L, etc. She told me where I could go for information but the kiosks were all full. So I couldn't attend any classes and there wasn't much to do around there so I flew around and then quit.

IDE.735#7: Clark's Classification of Simulation Genres

This is the first one I played: a McDonald's game that is an example of interactive spreadsheets. I can't figure out why the word spreadsheets is used but according to Clark, it's because some form of statistical feedback is given through numbers, charts or graphs.

Here's a mini-game I played - Howard Dean's Recruitment Campaign. Quite fun and addictive.


Another mini game. Was quite difficult to play though. I kept not being able to serve the right beer to the customer.

This one is a branching story sim. I wasn't too patient with this one because there were long narrations and a lot of text. Wait time was too long for me and on first impressions, it wasn't fun. I probably have the hypertext mind that Prensky talks about.

IDE.735#6: An emerging mindmap

My brain synapses are not connecting very well; isolated ideas roam helter-skelter looking for a node to connect. All the readings I've done - not enough I'd venture to say - have been so random, not in order. Instead of moving from core to optional, I've been desperately trying to put out bush fires to cope with the numerous discussion forums (fora?). I realize I'm just bombarding my poor brain with all sorts of ideas about games, simulations and all the new vocabulary and nothing is getting ordered in any schemata. I have little islands of expertise looking to form a large continent of expertise.

I've read some chapters of Shaffer, flipped through Prensky & Alessi; read Dorner, Sterman, some Gredler, some on modeling - Seel, etc... explored some gaming, modeling and simulation platforms, been to SecondLife numerous times (finally getting to the point where I can teleport to some places), and now I'm frantically trying to understand Clark Aldrich's ideas about simulations.

I want to badly be able to consolidate and synthesize these disparate ideas.

I enjoy Shaffer and realize his idea of epistemic games is very broad: games that are about learning to think in innovative ways (p. 10). And then he mentions how every game has at its core a simulation (p. 69). Later, on reading and listening to Clark Aldrich's podcasts, I'm beginning to link Aldrich's teaching of cyclical content to Shaffer's epistemic games. Systems and cyclical content must be present in simulations to create epistemic games. And Shaffer mentions Dewey's idea of the kind of learning that harnesses the power of authentic activities. So the kind of learning that takes place as students develop the Digital Zoo helps them develop knowledge that is contextualized in a particular professional setting. And Shafffer claims this kind of learning of professional knowledge, the ability to use specialized language is the biggest predictor of success in school. As in performance in tests and exams?

This really had me thinking. To what extent is this true? I am thinking of how far this is true in this course. There are so many new words, new jargon relating to games, modeling and simulations. The more I understand them, the more concepts I clarify and link together in my neural map, it appears the more sensemaking is created.

When I first entered Clark Aldrich's blog, I was overwhelmed by all the terms there. What was it all about? How can I respond to a list of terms. Then slowly as I read them and began to connect the professional knowledge, the more I felt I had a grip on the subject. Phew!

IDE.735#5: 2ndLife pt 2

So I tried to explore 2ndLife further after my nauseous spells. And these are the dudes I've met in 2ndLife who are just as lost as I am.

I'm actually making some progress as I've gotten out of the Flight Training Institute and have flown out to explore other islands. I'm just having some difficulty with locating my group in Sloan-C, a professional organization that focuses on online learning. I just can't find it yet.

So how will such simulations help me? I'm hoping to be able to find the group and see how the interactions will impact me.

IDE.735#4: second life

I'm still on Orientation Island in 2ndLife. And I'm constantly nauseous when I'm in it because of the simulation. I get motion sickness. Much too realistic huh?

Here's a pic of me in Flight Institute.

Gotta go lie down 'cos I'm feeling really sick.

IDE 735#3: Gaming in Education

I was desperately squeezing time in today during work to prepare my presentation for tonight. I could only do one anyway. There's no time to do anything when one has a full schedule at work. This course really ought to be more spread out. There is hardly time to read and reflect on all the good stuff. Are they thinking only fulltime students should take this course? Better planning next time please, IDDE.

My boss saw me struggling to prepare my presentation. Thankfully he was understanding and showed me how SimCity Classic is played. Phew! He brought his tablet and even showed me how Civilizations looked on it. It looks cool.

After researching SimCity, I think I'm curious to go get either The Sims or Sims 2 about virtual people. I want to test how this might allow me to simulate some learning conditions: like how people might struggle with learning new technologies, the decisions they have to make, the complex conditions, and variables involved.

IDE 735 #2: Learning Contract (LC)

It's my first attempt at drafting a learning contract though I've heard and read about it before. I had wanted to sign up for the Adult Learning class with Romi and Roger Hiemstra but didn't after buying the text book. I kept the text and browsed through it. It came in handy for this course while I was creating my LC.

Surprisingly, I found myself appreciating and liking the fact that I could plan and manage my cognitive strategy for learning from this course. Constructing the LC made me think about what I wanted to learn and how I was going to learn from this course, the deliverables, and the confirmation that I have learned.

I definitely appreciated this exercise and feel this is a good instructional strategy for adult learners who like to manage their own learning.

IDE 735 #1: Reflection on Major Concepts

I began the course with the need to clarify the major concepts of the study; questions about modeling, simulations, and games. So this post is me thinking aloud and clarifying my thoughts.

I skimmed through various texts and readings and this is what I'm getting:

1. Modeling and simulations are NOT synonymous. A model can be a real or modeled environment, cause-effect or time-space systems or expert behavior. These models are assumed to consist of 2 parts- a set of abstractions of time-space or cause-effect sequence, and a media representation of the abstractions. (Gibbons 2001 pp.511-515)

Gibbons 2001 (pp 511-512): "The central premise of model-centered instruction is that the most effective and efficient instruction take place through experiencing realia or models in the presence of a variety of instructional augmentations designed to facilitate learning from the experience." The emphasis for this type of instruction is on experience and problem-solving.

OK. Some examples/illustrations might clarify this.

Norbert Seel (2003) mentions 2 types: Reproduction and symbolic models. He mentions how modeling involves interactions between 3 types of systems:

1. internal conceptual systems of a model building person

2. representational systems that function both as externalizations of the internal conceptual system and as internalizations of external systems

3. external systems that are experienced in nature or that are artifacts that were constructed by humans.

OK, this is getting me just a tad closer to understanding the concept. Again, I need to come across some more examples other than static models like artifacts (globe, display exhibits in museums). I'm thinking information kiosks would also be examples of expert systems...

*To be continued after dinner.*

*Back.*

2. I think I'm more secure about the concept of simulations. I flipped through Alessi & Trollip and they have a chapter on that. I discovered that I have actually created 'How to do' simulations for my job! - procedural simulations on how to use Blackboard, PowerPoint, SU pilot blog and how to install SPSS14. It would be interesting to have a go at creating other types of simulations.

3. The concept of games. Tension arises as my brain struggles to come to terms with the new association with the concept. Shaffer (2006) mentions how fun is NOT the defining characteristic of a game (p.21) - I'd always thought of games as being fun. But Prensky emphasizes how games are fun and not boring throughout his book (p.106, 128). From Shaffer, I learned that the significance of digital games is its power to produce deep and authentic learning - it is "a bridge from learning in the world that matters to learning in games that matter" (p. 29).

That is for me probably the most important lesson this week.

More about microworlds, VR later...