Next week I am off to the NMC’s Horizon.au advisory board meeting. I am doing my homework right now and finding some great articles about emerging technologies in the associated wiki - its public for viewing, so go have a look!

The press clippings are most interesting, with an assorted compilation of reports, articles, and media attention given to new media and education. I am in the process now of starring the clippings I think are significant from my teaching and research perspective. But its difficult not to just star them all.

In a very clever move, popular soap opera The Young and the Restless has developed an online magazine and blog for a fascinating blend of fiction and reality.  Restless Style is a magazine that is an important part of the YATR storyline, and although fictional, it now exists in the online world so fans can access extra-diegetic videos, info, tips, music and so on. There are fake news clippings about the launch of the magazine, interviews with the “magazine CEOs”, videos of magazine cover shoots, fashion tips and more, all linked to the fictional characters in YATR and yet…. linked to RL fashion events and info like a real fashion magazine might do.  I think it is very clever and wish the show was on Australian free-to-air TV so I could watch for intertextual links.  

I found out about it via one of my favourite pop culture blogs, Pink is the New Blog, here.  

I just found a great series of videos about blogging in the classroom and kids online.

Here is a Sydney classroom’s blog: Wormbins.

I especially love their class video on worm farms!!!

I have prepared a whole lot of images to be flickering past in the background as I speak about Second Life - hopefully meaning will be made in some third space between my spoken text and the images
(thanks to Jo Kay and Alja for letting me use some of their great images!!).

In addition I may refer to Jo Kay and Sean Fitzgerald’s wiki on the Educational Uses of Second Life.

I also like the following very well constructed video, which provides a wonderful glimpse into different educational spaces and possibilities in SL:

OMG the best news ever today - the ARC grant I have been working on for a long long time was successful! I am very very excited as this means I will get funds to help me research younger children’s machinima, game-making and 3D digital storytelling. I have been working on the grant application with colleague and co-chief investigator, Professor Len Unsworth, and we are collaborating with our industry partner, the Australian Children’s Television Foundation, specifically with Peter Maggs, who is the Head of New Media at the ACTF. If you are interested in the long process of getting an ARC grant, please read on.

Getting a grant is a really long process. Here are some of the things Len and i did -
- first of all, I spent 3 months study leave at the end of 2005 at UNE working with Len on a range of projects, focussing on the initial creative development of the ideas
- we met with staff at the ACTF to seek interest in the ideas we had planned out and had some quite long discussions about our mutual interests
- next, I wrote a bit of a lit review about the field, and presented some initial thoughts at a 2006 seminar (see above image)
- then Len and I submitted a paper about new media in education to an Australian governmental enquiry, and were cited quite heavily in the resulting enquiry publication
- at the same time, I was becoming heavily involved in Second Life and became the leading lady in an award-winning machinima (Lip Flap)
- I then started writing about machinima in general and have spoken at several conferences and published one paper about it
- Len and I wanted to broaden the scope of the project and met with other potential linkage partners who were keen to be involved (the education department). We worked closely with them and the ACTF for some months, but then the education department had a restructuring, and the people we had been working with were no longer in the same positions, so we had to revise our ideas again working solely with the ACTF, which brought us to the end of 2006
- During 2007 Len and I worked closely on all the paperwork associated with an application to the ARC - which involved further meetings and liaison with the ACTF, in particular related to detailing a long and complex budget.
- Also during this time Len and I had separate meetings with our respective research offices at our Universities to seek feedback and advice about every little aspect of the application. After these meetings we had discussions to do revisions and then these revisions had to be negotiated with the ACTF.
- In November 2007 we submitted our application, 2 years after starting work on it!
- In March of 2008 we received the ARC assessor’s reports. The assessors were very positive but had questions and critiques of this aspect or another, and so we had to write a rejoinder to address each point made by each assessor.
- And today we found out the result!!

So stay tuned for more updates over the next few years

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An otherwise bright light in a stressful semester - a very complimentary review of my book, Youth Online. The review is from the Education Review Journal and can be found here. Here is an excerpt:

Conclusion

This work is extremely important for educators in understanding the state of current students, and as a call for changes in the future educational process. This is an accessible work that explains the theories and their applications in a very clear way. Through Thomas’ case studies, it also offers a picture of the world of the modern and future student. This work is useful for those in academia, in teaching, or those looking to understand what it is that students do online. However, it only offers a glimpse. Thomas opens the reader’s eyes, but it is up to the reader to proceed down the rabbit hole.

Can the institution of education proceed in the traditional manner? Students spend most of their lives outside of school. What they are learning outside the institutional environment is not replicated inside it. Certainly students need to learn about mathematics, language, and science. But is the medium currently used the best, or is the world that Thomas is showing a better one to model for educators? This is something that Thomas calls for in Australia, and around the world. Online literacy will be important for success in the future. It is a travesty for schools not to integrate these areas of literacy into education

Thomas is not the only voice urging these ideas. Her work resonates with that of Gee, Hawisher, Selfe, and Steinkuehler. Some of this work focuses on videogames and how they can be used in education, but also on how videogames form an important part of learning literacy. Reading and writing are not enough – other literacies are important in education.

As Thomas has shown, students will spend the time learning them, and they can learn from each other as a community of experts. This work also attempts to understand identity creation of students in online environments, equally echoing the call from Gee. The problem with utilizing these works is not educating the students, but educating the educators.

Lovely words, my thanks to this reviewer!!

An inspirational introduction to the potential of Second Life, from the NMC’s Symposium on Creativity:

Your avatar: the means for personal expression and identity exploration.

Robbie Dingo’s machinima, MASK:

Questions: what do you know about Second life already? What were some of the key ideas made in these two videos? What are the questions you think would make an interesting discussion?

Slides: A sociocultural overview of Second Life

Reflection:

a) What makes Second Life unique and of interest to so many different groups of people?

b) What do some of the stories and case studies tell us about the worth of a space such as Second Life in their lives?

c) What are some of the potentials for using Second Life in and across a range of contexts?

d) How might you now answer your own questions before viewing the slides? What is left unanswered?

Further References:

iVillage Fashion Show:

IP Precedent (the sex bed):

Mixed reality event (beer):

Persephone Milk

Question : What do you think of this man’s story?

Reflection:

1. What are some of the key themes and issues related to life in virtual worlds?
2. Some say that 80% of internet users will have a second life within the next few years - do you think this is probable? Do you own bit of future speculation
3. What questions do you still have unanswered? (Take them to your tutorials!)

Look me up on Second Life - Anya Ixchel

These are for a group I am working with today

Tomorrow the CEO of the New Media Consortium, Dr Larry Johnson, will address congress in Washington in a Hearing on Online Virtual Worlds.  Larry’s address is entitled:

“Online Virtual Worlds: Applications and Avatars in a User-Generated Medium”

A pdf copy of his testimony can be located here.

Of particular interest is one of Larry’s key points:

The emerging landscape of virtual worlds represents as profound an opportunity, as profound a driver of changes in the way we think, learn, and work, as any other technology that has ever preceded it - and more so.

Larry makes some calls for action to the US congress which we in Australia would do well to take note - speaking to the need for programs and policies that would allow people, communities and institutions to take full advantage of the potential of virtual worlds.

Larry address also uses CommentPress, so if you want to comment on any aspect go and do so!