Reflections On the Collaboration Of the GROUP 5.2

The experience made with my group was very interesting.
It was about the creative education: we found a route through literature, music and architecture.
Liuba Pezzinetti has analized the literature, Elisabetta has visited in particularly the land of The University of the creative arts and I explored the Architecture Island.
My group had first chosen to analyze the problem solving tools in web 2.0 for the didactics and scaffolding. Then my group realized that there was not a lot of material so changed for the creativeness in didactics.
In this phase Skype has been very useful because gave us the way to arrange the structure of the guide and the assignements were distributed among us.
We went together in Second Life to visit the places and we took the first information. Subsequently each of us analyzed the single land.
The land that I visited consisted of a lot of environments, it was vast and rich of interactivity.

About the collaboration process….
Working in group is one of the most actual and useful methods of learning:
it gives the possibility to those who are better and fast to learn of “to teach” to those who are less. The result is that All succeed in learning using a method of direct learning. Of course, the the leaders will prevail and they would be better in the moment when the whole group will have acquired the same knowledge.
I think that sometimes the activity of working in group doesn’t give the possibility to the single individual
to show his own individuality, even if this course offers us other ways to show our skills, such as the personal blog or the personal wiki.
Another judgement I have to do is related to the use of time. It was too tightened: it’s not possible for everybody to be every day on the computer! I think that each of us wants to give
the maximum of ourselves in a such a beautiful training and so much interesting programme as this!
I also believe that in every workgroup cooperation could be more positive if the possibility to participate is given to those who have much less free time, taking into consideration some delay….of course.:-)

My discovered places

ARCHITECTURE ISLAND
Location: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Architecture%20Island/209/50/24
What does the place offer: here you can explore the use of technologies and virtual environments applied as an educational tool and comunication platform.
Recipients, tools and interactivity: people can receive landmarks, notecards about the place, can see movies displayed.
Land description: the place is near the beach and there is the Art Park.
The places to visit are:
-a Sandbox were you can create objects and etc.,
-the Gallery were you can see many paintings,
-three Space laboratories,
-a  video laboratory where you can try a real videocamera
-a Skybox where there are many very colourful objects,
-an Ampitheater where the meetings take place,
-there is an Entry Zone.
Here you can receive these landmarks: The Australian Centre of Virtual, ACVA (116, 168, 295), Ars Simulacra: NMC’s SL Artist S, Ars Simulacra (93, 134, 26), RMB City: People’s Worksite, RMB City 1 (199, 192, 21).
There is a group that you can join.
The owner is Angry Beth.

The University of creative arts is a fantastic world to enhance creativity.

THE LIBRARY

location: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Aslan/215/137/34

This place offers the opportunity of reading or buying or selling books for free.
There are many books on different subjects, so you can enjoy reading these books.
It’s placed near the beach. The library consists of two floors to explore.
There is a new bigger location where you browse a collection of books…. all for free!
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Aslan/218/146/33

You can have notecard books, thinc books, intellibooks, tutorials and more. Items added daily.
There’s also a TP upstairs to some interesting places around SL.
It’a a peaceful place to sit and talk or just think.
You’re can also enjoy the spectacular views from a terrace or from the lighthouse
observation decks.
Free Kayaks on the dock, you can paddle around the bay or even try to make it around the continent

If you have any books they don’t have or know of any they can pick up.
Also, if you’ve made a book you’d like them to showcase, they can arrange that too.

There’s a box upstairs where you can leave a notecard – right next to the TP to the places they’ve
collected so far.
There is a Monthly Short Story Contest too.
Winner will receive:
*a prize of 500L
*a copy of their story with copy/transfer permissions in a format of the authors choice (from what they have available) You’ll be able to sell the book or give it away.
*inclusion in the “Bookcase Hall of Fame” (a display of works they are beginning at the library – these works will be ONLY available to read while at the Library – not available for distribution by yourself or any others)

Reflecting on my digital identity.

My experience playing with my avatar’s appearance was very difficult.  I tried to change appearance to make my avatar look like me as much as possible and after  many attempts I lose  many accessories and parts of the body such as my hair.  With the help of  another avatar  I went to some freebies where could have the opportunity to change my look in many different ways….I liked this experience.

I feel better if my avatar’s changes make me appear the way I would like to be,  or the way I would like the other could see me, even hiding some little imperfections.

On the other hand, I think that in a formal context such as in educational activities is important to identify myself with my avatar,  making  it  look like me as much as possible.

My first day in Second Life

During my first steps I had many difficulties, sometimes I couldn’t move and I often “crashed” as someone told me. I was really curious about this virtual world and I wanted to take  snapshots but I wasn’t able. Then I found a person who was so kind and helped me to manage my technical problems.

Now I want to tell you what happened to me with the use of voice…..

During my explorations I had frustrating experiences so I was so nervous and talked aloud by myself…then I realized that the other avatars approached to me and were listening to me.

So I was surprised and stopped talking …

Finally I was happy because I discovered this new tool which can be used to communicate with our real voice.

Self-Diagnostic exercise

A. I am your friend. I don’t work in education. You are talking to me about the idea that we all learn from each other, in all kinds of contexts, and that this can often be richer than more formal classroom based learning. I am sceptical. Tell me about an informal learning experience you have had online in which collaboration was involved, show me a concrete example to help me to see what you mean.

I believe that everyone can learn both in informal and in formal classroom learning. Many online tools can be very useful because we can create cooperative settings for us or for our students. I think that
the World Wide Web is a tool that can create and support learning environments. The use of computer networks allows learners in different geographical locations to interact with one another either in synchronous or asynchronous for the the construction of knowledge as learners can formulate their ideas and the reflective interaction and collaborative learning can be encouraged and supported.

I have no informal learning online experience in which collaboration was involved but I’d like to make esperimentation about this because I think that a teacher has to encourage collaboration, in common learning activities especially using problem-based learning.

 

 B. We all explore new technologies, some grab our attention more than others, some seem revolutionary, others simply bore us. Tell us about that new tool, or set of tools, you have just discovered that really excites you, talk about the potential it has to change your work. What do you want to do with it?

I think that many tools are useful for classroom educators, because they provide teaching and learning opportunities.

New tools I discovered which can be really revolutionally in the school are for example all the Internet Resources such as blogs, Blog-Podcast-Vlog-Screencast Resources, WebQuests,online social bookmarking tools,pages for sharing of information, links, photos and Collaboration-Wiki Sites,etc.

 C. Do you see yourself as a pioneer? Do you think you are more innovative than others in your organisation? Do you think your organisation is lagging behind? Tell us how you feel about this?

 

 

 

Hello world!

 

 

Welcome to my blog. I’m going to describe my first experiences and exploration in the world of Second Life. My aim is to find out the potentialities of SL in teaching and learning. This blog will describe my progressive steps relating my on-line course in “Teaching and learning with Muve’s”.