Ian MacLeod

Hi everyone and greetings from CIT 2007 in Nashville Tennessee. I'm sorry I couldn't join you live yesterday, but we've had some poor connectivity issues here (and boy am I suffering :-)) . You don't realize how social the Web has come until you are away from it for a few days.

There are already a lot of amazing conversations happening here and I am really looking forward to seeing where the next three weeks take us.

Here are some of the things I would like to know and get all of you to help figure out:

• Are we facing a fundamental a paradigm shift in how we will reach and help learners learn, and is that shift being driven by social media or something else?
• What are some of the things we are doing well now that we can take with us into the brave new world of social media?
• Who is driving social media in the education space? learners. educators, administrators...

I'm sure that there will be all sorts of other questions as we go along. One of the big themes here at CIT 2007 is the whole idea of open educational resources (check out OER Commons) and collaboration. In combination with social media this will definitely change the educational landscape.

Where do we go next...

( Hmm, intriguing questions Ian...I've split this post off to another thread. Edited by Therese Weel - original submission Wednesday, 14 November 2007, 06:44 AM)

Graham and Gina - as educators do we need to think about how to get learners from the "show me the objective" point to the truly exploratory and experiential approach that I think Second Life lends itself to?

I'm with Graham in that I like the freedom and unprescribed nature of SL - it certainly suits my learning style better. But I know that is not the case for many of my learners; yet I need to get them to that place where I am as it is essential for them to be successful life-long learners. So maybe it's an incremental process (sort of like scaffolding and fading) - a game starts with specific, named objectives and as a gamer advances through the experience the objectives go from prescribed to self-defined.

BTW - to me Second Life is NOT a game.



Cheers


Ian

Hi, it's Ian MacLeod from the Nova Scotia Community College in Halifax. I'm really looking forward to this seminar as I have been interested in games and learning for some time now. I currently teach an Intro to Business course and use business simulations in the course - they result in a lot of positive learning opportunities.

I am exploring Second Life quite actively, and am looking at using it to run a business simulation with learners as its vibrant economy seems to offer a lot of opportunities for creating, developing, and running a business.

But mostly, I am really looking forward to learning from all of you.


Cheers


Ian

Thanks for all of this Sylvia. The wiki looks great and I'll be sure to use it. Looking forward to the next seminar. SCoPE is such an amazing learning environment. See you on the 4th!


Cheers


Ian

Hi Nick:

Saturday or Sunday in SL works for me. Just let me know what time it will be and I will do my best to be there.



Ian (hondomac Dalgleish in world)