Second Life-Virtual learning environment

Hey all,
Rashmi Melody is my Second Life human avatar name,sounds good isnt it?
I had absolutely no idea about SL until i found out about it in Facilitating online communities course.There was this email which talked about virtual birthing suite session (unfortunately i missed the session),which was totally new to me, later when i went on to read about it, i wondered ,is it really possible to learn virtually study in a environment created by you like a beach?
After creating my account and installing second life application in my computer, i realised you can do so much virtually, even buy you own house and have a virtual social life.What makes second life different is you can build a car(object) and program it to respond to other people or objects or the virtual world itself and then drive it or race it with others(virtually). This ability to create your own simulated world and interact with it offers some exciting possibilities in educational field such as role playing and interactive simulations.Learning has already extened to our home computers and it is possible to achieve learning self paced though distance.Personally i believe simulation can help learners succeed by adding the interaction element in learning.
Many universities have already developed their private space in second life for education, a real world approach to virtual learning spaces,wow!
Hopefully you find some interest in exploring and discovering more about second life as i did.Although it is free to create account and setup avatar, not all services are free,so you have to take membership to access many of the application, but why not try the basic free features, you will be amazed.

On a final note on Virtuality,watched Avatar in 3D last week, what was real and what was virtual?Worth watch in 3d glasses :-)

Cheers
Meena

Blogging Network

Hi Guys,
Blogosphere in short can be described as tons of interconnected,inter related blogs in the world wide web world.Each blog is centered around bloggers views and interest.Popularity of blogs have given rise to different communities including Afrosphere community of bloggers working towards rights of non-white individuals,Group Blogging (blogs combined by more than one author) , J-Blogosphere (jewish community) to name a few.
So in short it is collective community of blogs by people with common interest.
I facilitated a asynchrononous event on benefits of educational blogging couple in November and got heaps of feedback which helped summarise the purpose along with downsides of blogging as e-learning tool.Read my post on reflections to my blog event.It was a great experience tapping power of blogs to reflect and share.
Still having a travel hangover, so guess blogging communities related to travel are going to be hit again.Since i got response from my Travel Forum which is part of Travel Blog,i decided to continue on the same path and catch up with bloggers who regularly blog in the Travel Blog and have formed a large Travel community.Its free to signup and is fast becoming the worlds leading travel blog webiste by the look of it.It is moderated and facilitated by moderator, so if you publish a post it is subject to approval of the moderator.It gives you a opportunity to act like a travel correspondent sharing your travel experiences and providing advice to travellers in the Travel forum. It is even integrated with Facebook "the social networking site" which is a bonus for people to share their travel blog(unlimited space) to their many friends.I got in tocuh with Jon who has been with Travel Blog for more than a year, he is on a one year travelling journey and finds it easy to update family and friends with this travel-expedition.He seems to be very happy with its structure and its many benefits.

The world is made up of different types of people with different interest, and now those with similar passion can form their own community online, people have the opportunity to communicate ,to benefit by sharing and learning and exploiting the technology like "blogs".WOW!!!

Thats it in this blog now,coming up next Virtual worlds..Come on Rashmi Melody gear up to share your opinion on second life :-)
Cheers
Meena (SL Rashmi Melody)

Discussion Forums

Hi all,
Happy 2010 to all, i had a great vacation in Australia(hitting 33 deg in Canberra), wow.Happening Sydney,friendly howdy aussies,busy streets and last but not the least the impressive fireworks of Sydney , although my daughter was more impressed with the Koalas and Kanagroos in the zoo .
So back to finishing my blogs,i kind of missed blogging i must say :-)!!!
I heard of forums 8 years ago, but i guess forums used to be strictly business or technical focused those days. Today people are forming social group’s through participation. I wont say, i am a active memeber in any forum, although i have partcipated in forums related to Oracle application many years ago.With time,I have developed interest in travelling to new places although i realise travelling wouldn’t be easy like before with my little one. I have travelled to 7 countries so far with very little advice and knowledge, call it exploration and also ignorance of travellers community log.I decided to join the travel forum in the travel blog, where we have our own space like a diary to record our travel experiences and share photos, it is totally free and so far has unlimited storage for photos, videos and blogs. What interested me about this blog site is, it has a Travel forum,you receive free friendly travel advice from members.You can post replies or questions in this forum , which had so many topics to choose from.Its more than a gluide as it is so interactive.All forums are moderated, however it expects members co-operation in following guidelines.They have strict copyright,and privacy policies.Attempt is made by moderator to maintain a safe and healthy travel community and shares amazing travelling experiences.Interestingly there is also a missing persons post in this forum and the community is all getting together to get leads to the missing persons whereabouts, i mean isn't it amazing?people are no doubt building stronger relationshops online, it is getting bigger by the day as we imagine.
I contacted Mel in TravelForum and here's her response
""""Well, many of my friends and people I encounter cant relate to my passion for travel. Sites such as TravelBlog provide thousands of peers who understand what I am talking about when I mention travel and understand why I love travel. I suppose having peers, who understand the various aspects of our lives is important to some people. It is probably important to a lot of people, if I judge by how popular and busy TravelBlog is.Mel"""
If you visit the weblog forum, you too will realise how big a travel community it is becoming and benefting so many like minded people with interest in travelling .
I plan on a Annapurna range trekking trip to Nepal in few years,sort of a intrepid journey for me, compared to the pampered holidays i had so far.So yeah,will be creating a post as time comes near.CheersMeena

Evaluating my 2 week asynchronous Event on blogs

Evaluating mini event on blogs as effective e-tool

Topic - Blogs as effective Asynchronous e-learning tool
Mode - Asynchronous through Discussion forum
Venue/Interface- Google Blogger

External Links- Link to presentation in You Tube

Interface - Open Source, anyone can post comment.

I advertised my conference details in the course wiki and also emailed blog link in the beginning of the forum to all the Facilitating Online Communities Group and also advertised in facebook to my friends.
Week 1 began with introduction to blog in education and where it fits in the broader context of learning and teaching in learning environment. Focus was not on just implementing blogs in e-learning set up, but its effectiveness in a learning environment whether its face to face delivery or online or blended.
Facilitation was aimed at generating content for participants to sink into the discussion and collaborate individual thoughts, knowledge and experiences.
At the end of Week 1 I summarised the discussions briefly and again sent a reminder to all FOC 09 participants and also notified my friends by email.
Since,everyone in the group was sorting out their mini-conference event, i thought (well I assumed) most of them must have forgotten about my asynchronous event amidst all organising their event.
Week 2 was about discussion around implementing blogs in education. I invited one of the participants from another module Katie Gibbs to share her experience with implementing blogs in her class.

How did it go?
Including mine , it created 40 comments to the post, so i must say the event generated intended outcomes.Everyone gave a valuable and useful contribution, which i summed up in my reflection.
HIGHLIGHT:In its second week, discussion came out to be more robust and alive and we were reflecting critically on use of blogs as a e-tool.

What went well?
The advertisement, the video and the content kicked well. It put everyone is state of equity and convenience; all got the writing space to voice their opinion because of asynchronous nature of the learning event. Unlike in real time where you could miss out on people who take longer to understand and post questions, the 2 week time frame generated lots of enthusiasm and contribution from the participants.
Being asynchronous in nature it overcame the rigidity of a live event where, if someone misses, they miss voicing their opinion, even though they could listen to the recording later.
Also, partcipants had time to digest,reflect and fine tune their thinking before posting.It made possible for all to give personalised feedback on their informal learning achievements like that of Debra,Katie,Roseanne,Satish,Catherine,Krishan,Ajit,Neethika to name a few.
I moderated the blogs, so that i knew who is posting, and that helped me facilate the discussion.I acknowledged all posts and tried to establish link with my content to generate more dialogue for continuing discussion.
The video presentation by my presenter Jagadish Ghimire was very clear,great synchronisation of voice and music with the content.
I must say it was hard to keep track and facilitate for 2 weeks, i had to be watching my blog all days (well not 24/7, but you can say that too).

What went wrong?
The hassle of clicking on link and going to Youtube could have been avoided by embedding the video, rather than the link.Participants could view the presentation but had to come back to blog to comment.This could have created confusion among the partcipants, about posting their thoughts/comments, although my blog clearly requested everybody to have discussion threads under my blog.
The interaction and the collaborative nature of event itself went smooth,however the content/discussions got questioned for its spelling and grammar credibility.So,that was a eye opener.

What did I learn?
I discovered peer-learning with this event and to some extent developed good writing communication skill. I try and re-check my draft, but obviously need to re-read and learn to polish my writing skills in the future.I tried my best to facilitate the event to my ability, and tried to generate rather than create content.

What would I change?
I could have combined the asynchronous activity with a synchronous one, where we get the real time buzz. Agreed about the technical nightmares one can face in a online live environment but hey, it could have enriched the understanding of the topic. We could have achieved the best of both worlds, would have been more effective to have interaction and live question on the topic.
I could have added the video inside my blog ,to void hassle to learners to go forward and come back.

Thanks Sarah for being such a supportive and motivating tutor.I was so lost in the beginning until you rescued me and got me sorted.

Thanks to FOC 09'ers, have learnt a lot from you all.I thoroughly enjoyed all your conferences on various topics.Now, how could you have possibly achieved that at the comfort of your Computer at your convenience and still be learning.

So yes learnt to dive in facilitating communities course(ocean) and came out alive too in the end YAY

P.S:Have to learn to make blogs more interesting and improve writing too in future.

Here's to the never ending journey called "Learning"
Meena

slices on Facilitating Online Communities Course: Reflections on 2 week Asynchronous Event on Blogs

http://meenaadhikari.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html

Reflections on 2 week Asynchronous Event on Blogs

In this post i will be reflecting on my 2 week asynchronous event on implementing blogs in e-learning that took place between 16th Nov and 30th Nov 09.

I came across this wiki link on e-learning that i would like to share with readers,it provides overview of e-learning and many more related topics.

My reflections on the event that was:

As part of my mini-conference for Facilitating Online communities’ course, i chose topic e-learning using asynchronous delivery with blogs as an effective learning tool, how successful it can be?

The outcome i wanted to achieve was that Collaborative learning/sharing activities using blog can be implemented as a great teaching and learning method.

Is it collaboration or is it sharing, or is it sharing collaboratively!

Did the two week time frame allow for reflection and collaboration?

“Yes”, it surely did. The content in the blog post with the youtube link on educational blogging surely generated knowledge from our lovely participants. It reflected our personal belief, experience, apprehensions and also our understanding of the complexities of a teaching and learning process.Special thanks to Jagadish Ghimire for his contributions,you set a collaborative tone to the event through your presentation on educational blogging with your youtube link.

Here is my summary of learning outcomes i believed we all achieved collaboratively on implementing blogs as effective tool in e-learning enviroment:

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PROS

1. Blog as tool to facilitate learning is the excellent way of sharing knowledge.

2. Blogs help you formulate your thoughts and Improves Writing skills.

3. Being asynchronous it gives more time for a reflective thinking as it is the deepest level of learning.

4. As a Free eLearning tool is accessible globally and time is not the factor.

5. Teachers can link the students to the original source of materials for deeper thinking into that subject matter.

6. Blog is a good way for students to collaborate their ideas and reflect on their teaching activities.

7. Blogs are great learning tool to facilitate peer-to-peer learning.

8. It provides a platform for the readers to leave comments in an interactive format.

9. Blogs can be used as a forum for teachers and the students to interact about a particular topic that is being covered.

10. Teachers can facilitate the student learning and encourage self-initiated learning. Teachers can facilitate the student learning and encourage self-initiated learning.

CONS

1. Students miss on real life interactions with their teachers as well as their class mates. This could lead to developing poor communication skills as they progress in their life as majority of their interaction is done virtually.

2. Students will only "write" what they have to for an assignment rather than writing to learn or for enjoyment so this could also be a struggle for some!

3. Blogs are time consuming and hard to maintain.

4. In blogosphere, opinions are not rendered and debated at the same time. In a class atmosphere, discussions take place in real time and when the class finishes the teacher is free to do some other task.

5. Chances of discussion being hijacked by another topic or debate is high thereby leaving few queries being left unanswered, which in face to face had yielded real time response.

ADDITIONAL INPUTS SHARED IN MY BLOG EVENT BASED ON EXPERIENCES

1. Very useful especially in the age of on demand knowledge base.

2. Any form of learning is good learning, as long as they are learning the right thing.

3. When we look into blogging, particular information is provided, and for further reading, links can be established allowing the learners to go ahead if they want to get further details on that subject matter.

4. We do not “own” information, we can use our facilitation skills to direct learners to these information or resources and they learn from it.

5. Promoting reflective thinking through collaborative tools like blogs prompts learners to understand their own thinking, relate what they have learnt to prior understanding and what they need to know as they explore.

6. You don’t have to be a technical expert to use blog tool as seems to be as easy to use as email so students make a smooth transition. The students do get to visit subject areas and reflect on these and it is great how it creates their journey. They can look back on their learning and see what worked well and what may need to be developed in their own teaching practice.

7. It has high scope of interactivity with the wide world, you are not controlled by time & distance and the reach and access has not only changed the way we think and learn but how we live.

8. In this student-centred educational setting, students discover what it means to be autonomous, spontaneous, creative, and self-disciplined in their efforts to reach their own goals.

9. It takes time to write a meaningful and exciting post which is essential, to entice someone to read the blog. People have limited time due to personal and professional commitments; hence there is a slow decline in blogging.

10. Blogs can be easily and quickly updated, categorized and can help to order the chaotic thoughts and experiences we all have, while learning.

11. In a blogosphere due to its 24/7 “opening time” threads can be posted anytime. This makes it hard for the blog moderator or facilitator to keep track and kindle the discussions. Moreover the moderator or facilitator has to spend more time, at different hours, “looking after” the blog.

12. Educators could update latest course content, assignment submission reminder and links.

13. 'Many educators are already supporting mixed delivery to support self paced learning with live conference/chat sessions. 'Even subjects that are more hands on and perhaps considered as ones to be taught face-to-face only can be successfully adapted for blended delivery.

14. Blogs are time consuming but so is preparing lessons and resources.

15. Downside to using blogs in learning-lack of access to technology:We live in a changing world and more and more people are gaining access to web 2.0 technology.

16. Technology is a tool to be used appropriately to enhance and support learning. It is not a panacea; a poor teacher will not become a great teacher by using technology. A variety of teaching methods and variety in assessment methods should meet the needs of students and encourage learning to take place.

INTERESTING FACTS

Blogs have come down to 14th place in 2009, unlike last year when they were no 10.2. Educators and learners have already started venturing out of their networks and forming groups through blogs, wikis, twitter, facebook page.

[Source Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009.]

WEBSITES SHARED IN THE BLOG EVENT

• http://room7enviro.blogspot.com/ Blog link by Katie, initiave by teachers in giving students ownership of learning and voicing their thoughts on their learning process.
• http://www.worldwidelearn.com/elearning-industry/trends.htm Link about implementing online learning to your benefits.
• http://www.youngestround.blogspot.com/ Teenage sailor Jessica Watson’s blog
• http://www.connectivism.ca/ Link to find out more about learning in a network or community. A look at "connectivism" which is a learning theory mooted by George Siemens.

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Thats about it in the reflection guys.

Once again big thank you to all partcipants for bringing my blog alive with your positive and critical comments and to all my colleagues in being part of my learning journey.

Feedback welcome for my reflections.
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Happy learning everybody and thanks all FOC09'ers for all the support in my learning process.Congratulations to our colleague Rachel for being nominated in the best Student Blog category in edublog awards.

Greetings of the season.
Meena Adhikari
Second Life: Rashmi Melody

Asynchronous event 16th Nov to 30th Nov 09

Electronic learning (e-learning) as we all know is the use of technology that enables learning and teaching online so anytime and anywhere through synchronous(real time) or asynchronous(delayed) delivery .Selection of these methods however would depend on individual learner and of course the subject matter too.

In this context collaborative learning is creating waves in e-learning like:wikis are becoming popular,discussion forums are at large and blogs are also incorporated as online learning tool.These tools help learners overcome feeling of isolation and achieve learning outcome in a synchronous or asynchronous mode of their learning.The use of these various tools offer us opportunity for information sharing,and ease of collaboration.

The other reason of its growth could also be that many tools are free ,easy use and open source nature.Ummm yeah!

Today,as part of my mini conference assignment i choose to facilitate asynchronous event on "Blogs as asynchronous means of online learning".
If effectively implemented blogs like other e-learning tools, can offer a great medium of enhancing learners engagement and enriching their learning experience.
If we go back long ago...beyond technology blog like features existed from before in different forms eg journals that people have created "offline".In our current Facilitating online communities course too, we shared ,read,reflected ,made comments and learnt from one anothers blogs. Here i am looking forward to facilitating his event and achieving outcome on Educational blogging, how it can be achieved.

Jagadish Ghimire my guest speaker is working as a Research Engineer @ Telecom SudParis after completing his Masters in Information Communication Technology from A.I.T Bangkok last year. He has been a blogger for 5 years . He will be following the blog, so if there are any questions for him he is happy to answer.

He has prepared a 8.24 minutes presentation and uploaded in Youtube.He shares valuable insights in his youtube link on educational blogging. He talks about how implementing blog as a tool can help peer to peer sharing, exchanging ideas and how we can have links to many resources to dvelve deeper in the subject.

There is a slide that talks about creating map, i like this point of my guest speaker as its true that we record our thinking, and its also true that, through blogs/journal we capture changes in our thinking....pattern.Dont we all agree??????Although Jagadish doesnt elaborate much on this topic, it is thought provoking.What do you guys reckon?

Having said that there are lots of downside to blogs:they cant be the best modes of discussions for many reasons one being the blog author has more influence in facilitating and moderating blogs. They have full control on the original content.

Jagadish has some critical views on implementing blogs in e-learning like monitoring progress of learners and difficulty maintaining learning flow,we can discuss more on this issue.

So guys what do you all think about using blog as a e-learning tool, how effective it can be and what could be its shortfalls?

Please comment as a thread rather than in the youtube link, so that we can create a threaded discussion and can make conclusions @ the end of the two week open forums.(i mean through comments).The reason i choose gmail-blogger for the discussion is its free, as if you wished to comment directly in youtube you would have needed a account.
Just keeping it simple.
Cheers
Meena Adhikari