I wanted to wrap my mind about the diversity of informal learning contexts that might arise in this seminar. So I invite you to mention the environments that you are working with or interested in so that we can begin to find the edges of what we are talking about.
Bronwyn Stuckey
Posts made by Bronwyn Stuckey
Hi Bron Stuckey here...
I have been recently absent (keeping a watching brief) from Scope but this topic and esteem held for its facilitators drew me back in a hurry. My lifeworld is probably the equivalent of a very quirky tool mashup; kinda cobbled together, free range and very fluid. I am an ex-classroom teacher and curriculum developer and and now a consultant, workshop leader/facilitator and post-doctoral researcher at Indiana University, teacher educator and in my purview are themes of community of practice, online identity, games and online virtual worlds MUVEs. Informal learning and levels/degrees of informality touch on every aspect of my work and learning.
I am really looking forward to some juicy exchanges here about how we evaluate (personally, professionally and organisationally) in informal learning contexts.
Bron Stuckey
www.bronwyn.ws (currently updating)
Bronst - skype
Bronst - twitter
Bron Bloxome - Second Life
Bronwyn Stuckey - Facebook
Bron - Quest Atlantis ( www.QuestAtlantis.org )
I have been recently absent (keeping a watching brief) from Scope but this topic and esteem held for its facilitators drew me back in a hurry. My lifeworld is probably the equivalent of a very quirky tool mashup; kinda cobbled together, free range and very fluid. I am an ex-classroom teacher and curriculum developer and and now a consultant, workshop leader/facilitator and post-doctoral researcher at Indiana University, teacher educator and in my purview are themes of community of practice, online identity, games and online virtual worlds MUVEs. Informal learning and levels/degrees of informality touch on every aspect of my work and learning.
I am really looking forward to some juicy exchanges here about how we evaluate (personally, professionally and organisationally) in informal learning contexts.
Bron Stuckey
www.bronwyn.ws (currently updating)
Bronst - skype
Bronst - twitter
Bron Bloxome - Second Life
Bronwyn Stuckey - Facebook
Bron - Quest Atlantis ( www.QuestAtlantis.org )
Deirdre and Jo Ann,
You must have both read my mind :-) I love the fact that I can subscribe and like Deirdre the email draws me back into the community when the topics peak my interest. But like Jo Ann I also worry about how to store, sort, and value all the juicy dialog when I have it in so many parts. I do have folders and subfolders but I need to do more with this great stuff!
I am member of several NING groups and again am only drawn back into them when the leader sends an email message to the group, someone tweets or blogs about it, and I go in and pick up the dialog from there. So much passes me by if it is not pushed in front of me.
I do collect feeds as well into Netvibes and have over time set that up to gather content (again the push keeps me in the loop). But I don't think I have the matching time management practices to visit all the content (physically and mentally) regularly enough and make the most of what I have gathered.
MMmmm - so I love push technology and have tools to collect feeds but my weaknesses are probably time management. Any ideas?
You must have both read my mind :-) I love the fact that I can subscribe and like Deirdre the email draws me back into the community when the topics peak my interest. But like Jo Ann I also worry about how to store, sort, and value all the juicy dialog when I have it in so many parts. I do have folders and subfolders but I need to do more with this great stuff!
I am member of several NING groups and again am only drawn back into them when the leader sends an email message to the group, someone tweets or blogs about it, and I go in and pick up the dialog from there. So much passes me by if it is not pushed in front of me.
I do collect feeds as well into Netvibes and have over time set that up to gather content (again the push keeps me in the loop). But I don't think I have the matching time management practices to visit all the content (physically and mentally) regularly enough and make the most of what I have gathered.
MMmmm - so I love push technology and have tools to collect feeds but my weaknesses are probably time management. Any ideas?
Hi Nancy,
Professional development and design and facilitation of online communities is my bag. For the last 5 years I have been working in an educational 3D virtual world program Quest Atlantis (QA) and now that we have a critical mass of teachers engaged globally working to support community amongst them.
I also coach online in the CPsquare Communities of Practice workshops which offer professional and immersive learning for CoP developers.
I personally graze the world (online) to find PD activities to suit my needs and am currently learning machinima and SL building with the University of Illinois, in an online workshop of Facilitating Online Communities, and running online and inworld PD for QA for teachers about the globe. Like Jeffrey I find it matters not where the learning originates from geographically but how well reputed institutions, leaders and courses are. My own learning is a mix of no and low cost activity. I'm happy to pay fees if it looks like the gains are there. I usually follow leads when I get a message from my networks, or a colleague recommends. To that end I have found networks (including Facebook), tags and Twitter invaluable in getting things onto my radar.
While I engage in a lot of PD and from many angles I think there is still SO MUCH TO LEARN about all this topic in the 21st century and I am truly looking forward to joining you all in this event.
~ Bron
Professional development and design and facilitation of online communities is my bag. For the last 5 years I have been working in an educational 3D virtual world program Quest Atlantis (QA) and now that we have a critical mass of teachers engaged globally working to support community amongst them.
I also coach online in the CPsquare Communities of Practice workshops which offer professional and immersive learning for CoP developers.
I personally graze the world (online) to find PD activities to suit my needs and am currently learning machinima and SL building with the University of Illinois, in an online workshop of Facilitating Online Communities, and running online and inworld PD for QA for teachers about the globe. Like Jeffrey I find it matters not where the learning originates from geographically but how well reputed institutions, leaders and courses are. My own learning is a mix of no and low cost activity. I'm happy to pay fees if it looks like the gains are there. I usually follow leads when I get a message from my networks, or a colleague recommends. To that end I have found networks (including Facebook), tags and Twitter invaluable in getting things onto my radar.
While I engage in a lot of PD and from many angles I think there is still SO MUCH TO LEARN about all this topic in the 21st century and I am truly looking forward to joining you all in this event.
~ Bron
I work in a research and implementation team for Quest Atlantis a virtual world designed and developed at Indiana University as the brain child of Sasha Barab. It is a series of worlds designed for kids 8 to 14 years of age where they complete games, missions and quests organized around curriculum work and values-based activities. teacher act as curriculum designers and have a whole interface for planning, overseeing and reviewing student work.
It is built on the ActiveWorlds platform but has so much more than visual 3D design added to it by the team at IU. It is fully moderated and we do not permit VOIP for other than teacher in teacher-nly worlds as we have no way as yet to moderate the dialogue. Otherwise the whole site is moderated both by a profanity filter and a human being who scans logs, bulletin boards etc for duty of care issues like bullying, racial epithets, or sexual innuendo. This moderation has proven very important as we get QA into schools where SL will never go. People know this is a protected and safe environment.
This program has been running for over 5 years and is in some 8-10 countries yet is known by only a few. It strikes me as funny that there are many virtual world environments (take a look here Virtual Worlds Wiki) but it really took SL to get us all talking. While I think the SL developers are shameless self-promoters and very opportunistic they have pushed the agenda for all of us.
It is built on the ActiveWorlds platform but has so much more than visual 3D design added to it by the team at IU. It is fully moderated and we do not permit VOIP for other than teacher in teacher-nly worlds as we have no way as yet to moderate the dialogue. Otherwise the whole site is moderated both by a profanity filter and a human being who scans logs, bulletin boards etc for duty of care issues like bullying, racial epithets, or sexual innuendo. This moderation has proven very important as we get QA into schools where SL will never go. People know this is a protected and safe environment.
This program has been running for over 5 years and is in some 8-10 countries yet is known by only a few. It strikes me as funny that there are many virtual world environments (take a look here Virtual Worlds Wiki) but it really took SL to get us all talking. While I think the SL developers are shameless self-promoters and very opportunistic they have pushed the agenda for all of us.