Thanks for stopping by! I’m looking forward to your presentation with interest. By the way, do you have an information site, blog or wiki somewhere that I can take a look at in the meantime? It would be great to get a background on the project before the presentation if possible.

Cheers,

Mike

All this has really gotten me to thinking about immersive environments and how they relate to - or can benefit - self-directed learners. It seems almost paradoxical that SecondLife’s steep learning curve has actually made me want to devote more time to understanding the realm - not less.

I’m not sure how that works exactly, but it almost seems as if the complexity of the platform is actually fueling my engagement with it.

The usage and examples you see in the virtual environment itself have definitely contributed to my interest - no doubt about that. There seems to be no end to people’s creativity, and I find that really inspiring.

I wonder if that relates to social constructivism somehow? This is an area I’m not an expert in; hopefully Leigh’s course will help enlighten me. I listened to a podcast of his last night that really struck a chord.

In the context of my own learning processes, half the time I don’t know what learning objectives I’m setting for myself - or perhaps more accurately I don’t set learning objectives for myself most times. It’s a very organic process, and before I know it I’ve learned how to do things that I couldn’t do before, just through experimentation. I wonder if that’s a key value for SecondLife?

This of course leads me back to the question of how to tie things back to - or incorporate them into - formalised educational systems and structures like those we see in higher education. I certainly benefit from self-directed exploratory learning, but I don’t know how much you could get away with a whole course founded on the notion - despite it’s benefits.

As Leigh said in the podcast I listened to last night, it’s like trying to fit a large circle into a square hole. I wonder if we’re destined to reach the point where the two are in perpetual conflict with one another, and the only way to fully embrace self-directed learning is to forgo the formalised system entirely?

I have more questions than answers it would seem…