Learning to Fly

It was a nice change to actually be able to access the application having switched from my Mac to my PC. I was able to may things after a quick tour from a friend. What concerned me was how others and students could have the same problems. I quietly consider myself to be more than a newbie around computers but will be the first to admit I have a lot to learn.

Hopping from world to world was very cool and when we had our virtual meet up it was quite impressive to see everyone and a big surprise to see fancy dance moves, back flips and muscle poses. I had been to shop and enjoyed adding to my inventory especially the prices were unbeatable $0.00. Then the trip to Marlboro Island was very nice. It was disappointing that it did not res during our meetup.

I did work through the challenges and at this time need to go back and change the face of my portfolio as directed. I was able to upload an image from my computer but not able to add it a face. I think some of the techniques we are being asked to do may come more natural to a digital native than to this digital dinosaur.

I am happy to report I was able to access Marlboro Island and it did RES. You can see the snapshot here.

I was able to modify my appearance and having the ability to chat with voice was very nice as my typing can bit wonky.

I now have a bit of an inventory of stuff for a home and think that may be a good project to get some land.

I also liked looking at the lesson on the virtual boards for math class. I could see ways to integrate this into my web classes. I was also surprised to see how accessible the code was for scripts which made me think there are a lot of opportunities to learn and teach programming.

I think this week has made some very good progress in class. Yesterday we had a meeting at work with the management team for Games for Change http://www.gamesforchange.org/ along with graduate students and instructors from Lehigh University, Marlboro Graduate School, and colleagues from the United Nations to include an ambassador and we launched a project to build a game to teach about Sustainable Development Goals. Thing are moving along quite nicely and my virtual world new experiences are very helpful.

Oh let's not forget learning to fly - this is just plane fun to soar above and circle the lands like an eagle in the sky. For no reason it can be a joy to just fly around an explore and maybe find someone to interact with. This is a welcome break from the daily toils.

Games and Simulation

This semester I am starting a new subject learning about games and simulations. We are starting with a new tool Imprudence which has been a bit of a challenge. I have been able to modify my character.

This subject comes at a very good time for my work project and my Capstone. I don't have any gaming experience which I am in need of for both projects.

My Capstone is to create a tool to inform educate and inspire people about a set of goals being developed at my work that have to do with Sustainable Development.  I shared an example of a presentation a classmate gave using Inside Disaster about the earthquake in Haiti.
http://insidedisaster.com/haiti/experience

Colleagues at work agreed this would be something we could model to educate people about the Sustainable Development Goals SDGs. We took the idea to the Director of the Division and are working on developing the first module.

I found Jane Mcgonical's TED talk a great inspiration. It prompted me to but the book http://www.amazon.com/Reality-Broken-Games-Better-Change/dp/145583291X



This week we will be meeting with colleagues from work who are also working on using a game for learning and have three members of the Game for Change team attending our working group http://www.gamesforchange.org/ We spoke with Susanna Pollack Friday and she will be facilitating our workgroup.

I am excited about learning more about gaming. To date though my initial efforts with Jokaydia seem to be a solo effort. I expect once I view tutorials things should improve in my virtual world experience.

The New Digital Age and Diigo

It seems a bit strange to be speaking about a New Digital Age Transforming Nations Business and Our Lives - Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen. http://www.newdigitalage.com/

Having finished chapter 7 it was an interesting read as it relates to my work at the United Nations. Not that at this moment I am directly involved in the issues with regards to Natural Disaster or War but they could be an assignment away. Today we are now faced with an Ebola Virus Crisis and we are working to communicate information to staff on how best to prepare or deal with this traveling to or returning from these areas. As staff we were quick to post our concerns to management who responded reasonably quickly with a Global Town Hall Meeting.

Staff from around the world were able to listen in and ask questions as we had a Video Tele Conference with duty stations around the world.  So with the new digital age we are presented with so much information how can we sort through it quickly? We can use a tool like Diigo that organizes our bookmarks on the web and highlights important content that we can tag and share with others. People looking for similar information can benefit from our bookmarks. I believe this would be an example of Connectivism. As society is able to connect and share ideas to find solutions we can shorten the time it takes due to numbers. This could number of people coming together with ideas to find solutions or perhaps funding. Video,  E-books, documents all shared via the web with people connecting in real time are the transformations we find in the New Digital Age.
Links:

• Global Town Hall on the Ebola Virus Disease - Friday, 24 October 2014 Video on WebTV
• Guidelines for NY-based UN System Staff Members travelling to EVD-affected Countries
• Ebola Response - Psychosocial Self-Care
• FAQs

VIDEO from UN TV

Funderstanding - The Big Four - Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Social Constructivism, Connectivism

 

Researching  - The Big Four - Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Social Constructivism, Connectivism

Below we have the metaphors used to describe these learning theories. In researching I found a website Funderstanding.

• Behaviorism – learning as a machine – inputs and outputs. Funderstanding
• Cognitivism – The mind is a computer – computation, short and long term memory storage and retrieval.
• Social Constructivism   - our knowledge is a metaphor, a subjective representation or our world, our best mental model of reality, it is a construction of our minds.
• Connectivism – Mind as a node in a network made up of data points (people, databases, fields of knowledge)

I believe a trip to this site is worth a visit as it nicely packaged with a lot of easy to access information. Learn more about Funderstanding

Below are how Funderstanding defines roles:

"Let’s be clear on roles:
1. Student: be open minded, creative, and ready for a challenge
2. School: teach the basic facts. Drills matter. Take it for what it is.
3. Parents, progressive teachers and caretakers: provide support to students and provide fabulous environments for true, deep learning.
4. Funderstanding: provide the resources for people who are inspiring and who want to be inspired.
Ultimately, we have one goal: make you step away from the computer. Get your hands dirty. 
Do things!"

Thanks to my Legal and Ethical issues course I have learned to be more careful about how I am sharing images and information provided by others on the web. I was drawn to this site while searching for an image to depict Behaviorism where I found a cartoon image of a mouse holding a sign - "will press lever for food". I found the image cute then read the disclaimer for the site. I then remembered "A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words" but when it is copyrighted the words are "Cease and Desist"

This short video on Learning Retention Rates is an example from Funderstanding.

Learning Retention Rates

Agency, Divergence, Multimodality and Conceptualization

Photo courtesy http://icoblog.wordpress.com/category/new-media/

New Media, New Learning
Bill Cope, and Mary Kalantzis, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA

"...Consider how digital media has affected Agency, Divergence, Multimodality and Conceptualization in your life, in the lives of your students, or in society in general...." - Jane

Agency - Today we now have thousands of channels to chose from on the television. There are so many options we can create our own angle. We can now contribute to Wikipedia and create our own YouTube Channel. We are content providers. We have become users instead of watchers and listeners. In the case of games we are now participants online as opposed to watching on TV. As consumers we can chose how we view digital media by device, browser and through our own custom interface. Instructors can create their own channels for our students.

Divergence - there are opportunities for new groups to form where it requires less skill and infrastructure. The web provides the ability to broadcast and share information developed by smaller groups. Short print runs are an option for publication which provides for more flexibility for content and turn around. The economy of scale Production TV to Youtube, Large print runs to print on demand. Knowledge and culture can become more fluid. Students and teachers can create their own content.

Multimodality - This concept of everything can be reduced to a pixel as digital print, and video can be shared over different devices. Actually the content as binary code can be transferred and shared as print, web, video, audio and stored remotely or locally and shared with others include viewing or working together at the same time if needed and from remote locations. Students and teachers can share information in real time or with others as needed.

Conceptualization - This perhaps are new skills that are required to look at information and think how is this being presented. There are categories and fields that have been organized in a database that was developed using an ontology. As a user you will learn to recognize patterns and become familiar with how the information is being presented.

Image Courtesy IVRY TWR

We have new hardware and technology along with new ideas and ways of teaching. It may be useful to go back and think how we are using the new technologies. Are we still applying the same practice to New Media that we used for Old media?

The Innovators by Walter Isaacson - Video interview - The Colbert Report

The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution. Perhaps Connectivism in action building on the history in this book. Isaacson wrote this book using a wiki with contributions from others. Ada Lovelace provided logic to program computers, Jobs and Gates collaborated or borrowed from others. Consider where ideas came from and how Xerox Parc had innovations that others were able build on.

The Colbert Report
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Colbert Report on Facebook

Steven Johnson - "How We Got to Now" Video from the Dailey Show

Steven Johnson discusses how the objects often taken for granted are the result of some of the world's greatest innovations in his book and mini-series "How We Got to Now." (5:51)

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook,Daily Show Video Archive