Research

Second Life

               Second Life is a virtually based environment that allows student to have a simulations running over the web. The population of users on the second life platform has doubles from January 2007 to May of 2007. The platform has over six million virtual users. 3-D programs such as second life are considered social networking virtual worlds. People can collaborate and meet with each other virtually which allows them to use multimedia content. Second life has even started to branch out into the educational realm making it so that lectures can be housed in an online virtually environment. The New Media Consortium (NMC) which is an internationally based non-profit organization promote Second Life as an affordable “Sim” like educational facility. Students can use their avatar to connect with other students and collaborate on projects. I worked on a research grant committee and we looked at Second Life for use at the University of Toledo. While the project never happened I was astonished at the features that Second Life had. Second Life allows university to create an exact scale replica of a university. The buildings and environment would look like those that are housed on a typical campus.

There are many campuses that are successfully using Second Life as part of their curriculum. One of the more impressive campuses from the article is that of Healthinfo Island. This is a medical and Consumer health system.   The main target for this module is to provide training modules and on-on one support to health care professionals. There are people from all over the world so there are sub groups to specialize in certain areas such as mental health or other disabilities/ disorders. Another educational reason that Second Life could be used is to help those that have physical disabilities which make it hard for them to venture on to campus or the elderly. Second Life has many perks to be used in the education realm. The ability to have a whole virtual online campus provides an atmosphere that is drastically different from what education use to look like. The Horizon report looked at virtually simulations and the use of future technology. This is one of those technologies that is holding to be more common. By using this program there are more opportunities for students that would not have the opportunity otherwise. I think of online classes and how they are held now. If I had the ability to go to a virtual classroom while I was in the comfort of my own home after work I think I would be much more successful. I also believe that this still allows students to get personal attention and the interaction that is sometimes lose via web courses.

PEW/ Internet

The PEW Internet Projected Data Memo discusses the major findings from 2 surveys that deal with the use of overall usage of social media for one month in 2008. The data reflected that adults were much less likely to be involved in the uses of social media from teenagers. In comparison 65% of kids ages 12-17 had social media profiles compared to those 18 and above which was at 35%. The odds are that adults that had the social media profiles were more likely to be between the ages of 18 and 24 and were about evenly distributed between men and women. The majority of the profiles were users of MySpace rather than Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube or Yahoo. Twitter was not mentioned in this article as one of the leading social media groups and was release 2 years prior to the survey data in 2006. Most people use social media for their own personal advancements rather than professional or networking. 72 % of people who use social media are likely to have more social profiles rather than professional profiles such as LinkedIn which sits at 6%. At this time almost a third of people who had social media accounts checked their profile at least daily. With social media trends they ability to use a tool in education should be embraced.

Since at the time one third of people who used social media checked it daily I am sure the number has grown. It would be advantageous to use online social media programs as a way of presenting projects and homework. By making the programs more readily available for students and student more comfortable you are setting them up for a better success. Like this class for example. We were able to use Skype to conduct our classroom meetings.  I know many times in the past when I have been studying and posted to Facebook that I was struggling and someone who has the same material has posted back lets study together. I think this a tool that if embraced could help students apply outside of the classroom. The idea is that if a student is out somewhere and feels like they can related it back to school they can post it to Facebook and wait to see if anyone can add or answer their questions. Technology has only improved and become more readily available since 2008 and its potential is not being utilized as much as it could be.

Creating And Connecting Research and guidelines on Online Social and Educational Networking

 Creating and Connecting research and guidelines reviews the use of social media by teenagers.  Compared to the PEW analysis this article was based off of data from 2007. The trends in this report tend to be different than those of the last report. About 96 percent of teens use social media sites and of that 71% check it at least once a week. While students are using social media to have conversations they are having conversations that are educational. When looking at the postings 60% of teens post topics that start conversations dealing with their school work. The use of social media allows students to be creative and express how they are using their time with music, photos, videos and many other ways. Since this article was written there are now applications such as Vine which allows users to make short videos and was released in July of 2013. Almost 30% of the users indicated that they download videos on a regular basis and 10% said that they upload videos. Many students are also using these tools to do online authoring of stories and creating ideas. The students are stepping outside of their comfort zone and are becoming “Nonconformists”. It is found that many schools ban social media during the school say even though “parents believe that social networking could play a positive role in students’ lives,” (National School Board Association, 2007). Most schools block “inappropriate” websites and have rules against online chatting or other means of media.

Despite all of the rules and regulations that schools have set forward about use of social media in technology almost 69 % of schools districts have student website programs and 49% of those schools will participate in collaboration with other schools. “Large proportions of district leaders say that a strong emphasis on collaborative and planned activities... would be required for them to buy into social networking for school use, (National School Board Association, 2007). The article has reflections of weeks 1 and 6 in this class. In the first week we saw a video about Walter Peyton High School. In this video the students got to use the internet to speak with professionals about their experience with different subject matters. Social Media could be used to employ student to collaborate with professionals and people from all over the world. There is a piece in education where students become well versed in culture that I feel is missed many times.  Many students may want to go over to other countries to study or may want to host a foreign exchange student but their situation may not allow for this. Social Media can make it so that students can interact with individuals that are all over the world. Students can get different viewpoints and relate them back to what is relative in their discussion in school. I do think there needs to be regulations and classes taught on the appropriateness of language and content used. Looking back at week 4 of the course and talking about ethics would apply to this. Students may not realize that what they are doing is wrong if they are not taught otherwise. Once something is posted to the web it cannot be undone. Also, there are many privacy settings that students would need to be aware of. However, I do not believe that banning the use of social media is the correct response.

References

Boulos, M. N. K., Hetherington, L.,  & Wheeler, S. (2007). Second Life: an overview of the potential of 3-D virtual worlds in medical and health education. Health Information & Libraries Journal, 24(4), 233-245.

National School Boards Association (2007, July).  Creating and Connecting: Research and Guidelines on Online Social--and Educational--Networking. Retrieved March 3, 2008, from http://www.nsba.org/Search.aspx?SearchPhrase=Creating+and+Connecting%3a+Research+and+Guidelines+on+Online+Social--and+Educational--Networking.

Lenhart, A. (2009). Adult and social networking sites. Retrieved January 9, 2010, from http://pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2009/PIP_Adult_social_networking_data_memo_FINAL.pdf.pdf

Theory

An important theory in Higher Education is the Use of Experiential Learning. Carl Rogers defines experiential learning as needs that “address the needs and wants of the learner,” (Culatta, 2013). The ideal behind this is that people grow and learn with what they want know. Knowledge is not always learned by the typical interaction of learning in a class room.  Rogers defines learning into two different categories one being “experiential” or significant learning and the other being “cognitive” or meaningless learning. I would compare his cognitive learning definition as that of being taught to rather than learning hands one. Rogers explains experiential learning can only be done by those of a certain set of qualities but everyone has the natural ability to learn.

Since every human has the ability to learn than how they learn is directed by their teacher. The teachers have the ability to provide 5 settings themes in learning. The first would be to make the classroom or learning environment positive. Second would be to clearly identify the purpose of why the learner is doing what they are doing. The third would be to make any resources available and organized in a way that is easy for students use. The fourth would be to help the student learn how to create a good balance between the “intellectual and emotional components of learning,”( Culatta, 2013). The fifth setting that the teacher assists with is providing knowledge of their own experience and feelings on subjects. However, teachers have to be careful not to over empower their thoughts on the students so that they can also learn to think and develop on their own.  Along with these five things learning is only facilitated when the student partakes in the 3 processes.

The first process would be that the student actually participates in the learning process. The student has to want to learn and have control over what they allow their mind to know. The second process is that the learning is actually based upon something that is “social, personal or a reach problem. The third process that would need to happen is that the student is able to effectively self-evaluate. The student has to realize how to look at their methods and know what was successful and what they may need help doing in the future.

Some history around experiential learning it is an approach on psychology based off of theory’s for adult learners which were created by Knowles and Cross. In 1982 a professional by the name of Combs looked at Rogers work and examined the significant of it. This particular theory reminds me a lot of on that I learned in my Higher Education Student Development Theory Class. The theory way by David Kolb and the basic principles  is similar to that of Rogers. More information on Kolb’s theory can be found at http://www.businessballs.com/kolblearningstyles.htm. Rogers’s theory runs off of four basic principles.

The first principal of exponential learning is that will occur when the subject is something that is of interest to the student on a personal level. The second basic principal is that learning that may be threating to a student development and gestalt is minimal when there are external threats. The third principal is that the learning will happen faster when the threats are lowered. The fourth and final principal is that the learning is motivated by the student, lasting and pervasive. This is a learning style that is quite frequently used in higher education.

Exponential learning is something that could be and is currently being used constructively for incorporation of internet based applications. For all programs that are online this would be a great way for professors to help students learn and interact with people out of the realm of the typical classroom. I know what I was in college I was taking a web design class online and I had to develop a website for a local non-profit organization. This was real experience where I had to work with a company and learn about how I would be putting everything that I learned into action. I think this is an important part that is sometimes left out of education. I think with the new advancements of online games and simulations it is make the experiential learning so much greater. Also, I believe that the new requirements for internships and co-ops are also adding to this.

References:

Culatta, R. (2013). Experiential learning (carl rogers) . Retrieved from http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/experiental-learning.html