Carolyn's facilitation session in Second Life

Amazing, nerve wracking and a stunning example of facilitation. Congrats Carolyn you did a great job getting so many people together in one place. How many were there - nearly 20 people with about 9 from the UK ? And no-one lost. Looking forward to your notes on your blog on how you think it all went. The voice chat worked pretty well - echoes and a small bit of heavy breathing was a bit disconcerting and could've been fixed with a bit of telling people to adjust their microphone and speaker settings.

Your presentation worked very well - we are so impressed! And there was some great discussion. And to top it off they are all keen to come back for more. Way to go midwives!

Preparing a paper on the first running of this course

Sarah Stewart - a participant in this course first time round, has suggested that we submit a paper to a conference being held at the Otago University.

Hello everyone, Leigh and I are looking to put a paper together for
the Dunedin conference in June based on our experiences during this
course.

http://sarah-stewart.blogspot.com/2008/01/computer-mediated-social-networking.html

http://sarah-stewart.blogspot.com/2008/01/further-thoughts-on-computer-mediated.html

http://learnonline.wordpress.com/2008/01/08/computer-mediated-social-networking-dunedin-conference-2008/

We're having a face-to-face meeting about it at 1pm on Tuesday 29th
Jan. at Leigh's office if anyone would like to join us in this
collaboration.

cheers Sarah

We recorded the meeting that Sarah and I had, where we discussed what approach to take and suggestions from Bronwyn.

We will continue to develop the paper on the wiki just as soon as we feel solid on the approach.

To do:

• Sarah to continue to attempt to make contact with the conferecne organisers to find out if our user perspective is of interest to them
• Bronwyn to respond to the points raised in the audio recording
• Leigh to prepare the wiki for the user perspectives.

Mark and Debbie's meetings

Here is the link to Mark's Elluminate meeting about the online game Travian.

Mark presented to anyone in the class who was interested (and several were) about an online game called Travian. Mark gave us an overview of why he got interested in gaming for his students. “Their attention spans are not short for games.” Romans, Teutons and Gauls are the three armies. Mark started using a web tour but we could not see anything apart from the login. So mark then used application share which worked a treat even on dial-up.

There were several villages eg Macdonalds, General Electric etc. It is a game of resources which accumulate as it is played in real time. Each village has to be built up and they get the idea that “nothing is for free”. Mark showed us something of the game and explained how it worked, and then stopped to let people ask a question. He gave us plenty of time to think of a question. The silence did not seem to perturb him.

One of the philosophies of the game is it is a collaboration and group exercise. Game and how does it relate back to learning. Aspects have relationships back to real life eg. Communication skills. It is also a game of strategy. After Mark's presentation there followed some good discussion about games and learning. Mark is intending to use more technologies and games next year. For example, games which relate to real life – Theme Park – physics of rollercoasters. I can see the potential for a game like this to build communities - doing in action and actual community building in every grain of the game.

After the presentation, I also dipped into Second Life for Debbie's event where we visited some locations used for language teaching eg Kamimo and we got to meet some of the owners or members of the communities. We also got to meet some of the language students who were working on assignments in SL. It was a surreal experience which went on quite late and people were reluctant to part. Our last experience was to fly into a waterfall and we all met in a sauna-like room with log fires and places to relax - very cool! I certainly felt like I was part of a community during this event.

Branwen Trevellion behind a waterfall in Second Life chilling out.

I have to admit to not really knowing what was going on a lot of the time. The time lag we were experiencing meant I got a bit lost and separated from the group at times. Debbie was an excellent host and it was amazing to really explore the educational potential of SL and see it in action. Some of the buttons for things such as screens for presentations did not work for us but their potential was obvious.

I really miss not having sound in SL, but apparently there are problems with time delays for audio.

Course evaluation

• The course evaluation is now open on Blackboard - these are the questions we would appreciate feedback on and this will help us make improvements for next year. These are standardised by MIT. If you do not have access to Blackboard, please email Lisa (see group email).
  
  
• What were the most enjoyable aspects of this course?
• What were the most challenging aspects of this course?
• Did the course meet your expectations? How or how not?
• What improvements would you suggest?
• Any other comments?
  Bron
  

Facilitation events tonight

Don't forget there are two Facilitation events happening tonight at 730 pm to which you are invited - it is ok to jump in and out eg go to Mark's for the first presentation part and then trot off to SL or you can choose one to attend. I hope as many people as possible can support Mark and/or Debbie so we can go out with a blast - this is the last (official) week of the course. Remember to check the Group email if you have any difficulties accessing either session. my cellphone is 021735438.

• Mark will be presenting about his experiences with the game Travian and facilitating a discussion about gaming in education on Elluminate. (Bron assisting.)
• Debbie is facilitating an exploration in Second Life. Her SL name is Debzee Miklos and leigh's is Leroy Goalpost if you need assistance look for him and they will meet first of all at Koru. (Leigh assisting.) Leave plenty of time to load SL on your computer if you are not already set up.
  

"The plan is to find three or four locations in SL that I think could have potential for language teaching, and take members of the group (who would be interested) there, and arrange Q&A session with the owners or members of the respective communities, or
show them around a location.

and the others' names are:
Veronique -Tulip Debruyere
David's - Pertheus Ran
Yvonne's - Cushlie Blackadder
Mark's - Marcoski Gophellar
Bron's - Branwen Trevellion
Carolyn's - Dacary Dumpling
Sarah's - Petal Stransky

See you all there.
Bron

Recording of Online communities Linda's meeting

The meeting last Monday night on Elluminate was very interesting, thank you Linda and everyone who joined the meeting. Here is the link to: Online communities Linda's meeting

It was a brief account and discussion about a "distance learning opportunity that was developed for Canadian and New Zealand Occupational Therapy students. The Blackboard site was called the Kiwi-Canuck connection." Linda writes in some depth on her blog about her experience in facilitating this community earlier this year.

We also had some very lively discussion around creative ways to stimulate online discussions and how to assist professionals to write reflectively. Have a listen to the recording and find out about some of the ideas we came up with.
Bron

Linda talks Canadian NZ tonight

Tonight Linda is going to share her online discussion experiences with us at 730 pm tonight 19 November. She facilitated an online discussion forum earlier this year with Canadian and New Zealand participants. If you go to Elluminate all will be revealed.
http://elluminate.tekotago.ac.nz:80/join_meeting.html?meetingId=1195442241302

Bron