Comments on Robins and Group Work

My responses are based upon the video hosted here

Robins Benefits of using SL as a teaching apparatus:

1) Collaboration - you chat and are social
2) Creativity - lots of expression in creating your avatars identity as well as creating objects
3) Authenticity - everything is user created
4) Community - everyone is tight knit, they can develop their own lingo
5) Engagement - participate in events such as music streaming

Another aspect Robins mentions is content management, where students learn to be organized is SL with the use of their inventory.

What is Robins new face for education?

It is the 4 elements of web 2.0 (prosumer, remote applications, social, application program interface) added into a muve (Multi user virtual environment, like Second Life), add participatory content, add networks and you get a new face for education centered around a student centered pedagogy that puts the power and responsibility in their hands and teachers as a travel guide that lets them learn. This results in students that are life long learnings; they can learn themselves.

My Response

I think Robins is ahead of the curve and that most professors ignore her pedagogy or way of teaching. She is right in saying this is the new face for education, that sometimes students can teach the teachers. The teacher only acts as a coach rather than a lecturer, they guide the students to find their own answers. Second Life is definitely a great environment where all of this learning can take place, but its not only limited to a virtual setting. I think this kind of teaching one day (if the university/school marking scheme/setup could change) could take precedence over the scribal environment were used to now, such as writing essays and taking exams. I think today as a student in this system, we could learn much more from a setting that allows us to be just be a consumer, but rather a producer as well.

Strengths and Weaknesses of her Argument

Robins kind of adds into the end of her presentation that the way she teaches makes for life long learners. I think no matter what people will be life long learners, but her approach is a more realistic environment for teaching today. 3 out of the 5 classes I am enrolled in this semester take her approach to learning, one is this class, and the other are run by Barry Joe, who on many occasions has stressed that this is the way classes should be run. Instead of writing a paper that has to this many pages, this size text, this size margins, this many resources; you do projects that allow you to learn the most, whether that be a blog, website, video, etc, as long as the student is learning and not just regurgitating what another author has said. For these reasons I find her argument to be very strong, maybe just because I am in agree with her, but I think more professors need to implement this style of pedagogy.

Group Work Experience

The group experience definitely worked for myself, getting ourselves together to do it was the only tricky part. I think Second Life itself demands the social aspects that group work presents, whenever other people from the class or people I met are online we always meet up and wander around the world. This group work just allowed for us to do what at least I normally do whenever I am on SL anyways.