Does What You Learn in Second Life Transfer to Real Life?

"Second Life" is an example of an immersive environment, a simulated world in which participants can move around a landscape, communicate, create things, etc. On EDUCAUSE Connect I have been listening to an excellent podcast:
http://www.educause.edu/ELI072/Program/
12402?PRODUCT_CODE=ELI072/GS07
The moderator, Alan Levine of the New Media Consortium, asked participants at one point the question in the title of this posting. I think participants' responses are quite interesting, diverse, and all to the point.

I'd echo one of the participants in asking, "Does what you learn on campus transfer to real life?" The two questions are parallel. Their common answer, "Learning often transfers less than students and faculty assume. 'What is learned in the classroom stays in the classroom (if it stays at all.)'

I especially like some of the educational lessons that are bundled under the heading, "teaching for understanding." For example, if you learn about something in context A and are only tested on that knowledge or skill in Context A, you're not real likely to be able to apply what you learned, months or years later, to context B. You're more likely to be able to apply what you've learned in some unfamiliar context later on if you were taught about the idea in more than one context, and then tested on your ability to apply it in familiar and unfamiliar contexts.

In short, students benefit when they're given practice and feedback as they 'transfer' learning from one sphere to another. The same is almost certainly true of learning in Second Life. We may look at a student designing jewelry in Second Life and hope that the lessons transfer to real life. But if that transfer is an explicit agenda, and if the learning and assessment are based on transfer, transfer is more likely to happen. A virtual world is a different sort of world, but its still a world and what we know about learning in other spheres applies to humans in virtual worlds, too.

PS If your institution is a TLT Group subscriber, you want to take a look at the chapter in the Flashlight Evaluation Handbook on evaluating educational activities in Second Life; it's Section VI.W. It's still primitive, but it's developing, and we even have a little item bank on this topic in Flashlight Online. We'd love to work with a subscriber or two on studies in this arena, and use the work to develop this further.

New Learning Spaces: Health Care Embraces Electronic Info + "Bodies...the Exhibit "+ Valparaiso Univ. Lab

While pornography may be the industry to most rapidly adapt new information technologies, the health sciences are often the academic disciplines to do so. If you want to find some examples of innovative integration of technology, physical space, and virtual realities, look into medical education - whether in colleges and universities or hospitals. E.g., visit "Bodies...the Exhibition" when it comes to your city [see below] or see silent slide show (< 2 minutes) about Valparaiso University's Virtual Nursing Learning Center, and read the article excerpt below about Integrating Electronic Medical Records.

VIRTUAL NURSING LEARNING CENTER
This slide show ends by taking your browser to a Web page where you will find more info about this fascinating learning/teaching space, including a longer, full-motion narrated video about it. Click here: http://www.tltgroup.org/TailoredWebsites-gigs/Valpo/VVNLab.htm

BODIES...THE EXHIBITION
"Bodies... the Exhibition" - slightly controversial mix of art and anatomy education - human cadavers extraordinarily preserved, displayed, annotated, and explained. For more info, see: www.bodiestheexhibition.com . I saw a version of this exhibit in Chicago a couple months ago and was astonished, fascinated, educated, and exhausted. I need to go at least once more.

INTEGRATING ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS
"The electronic medical record is the most important single development helping to usher in the Era of No Excuses in modern medicine. It is an age in which clinical decision-making, physician performance and patient outcomes are increasingly transparent; patient safety is mechanized; and the once-secret medical chart is sometimes open to contributions from the patients themselves.

"Electronic medical records make confusing and physically unwieldy masses of data instantly available, portable and searchable -- altogether more useful than when the information was stored on paper. Computer-accessible records have the potential to save the cost-strangled American medical system billions of dollars in waste, repetition and error. They may also prove to be essential tools of research, allowing scientists to examine patterns of medical practice, drug use, complication rates and health outcomes."

Excerpt from: "VA Takes the Lead in Paperless Care - Computerized Medical Records Promise Lower Costs and Better Treatment," By David Brown, Washington Post, April 10, 2007; p. HE01
VA Takes the Lead in Paperless Care - washingtonpost.com

"Touch of Greatness" - Video about teacher; "Geranium on the Windowsill Just Died...."

"Students are turned on by greatness and bored by mediocrity."

"Children who get early exposure to great art, great music, great literature, don’t run away from it - ever in their lifetime - it’s like a friend."
- From preview clip of PBS movie, “A Touch of Greatness.”
Preview and 2 other BRIEF clips from PBS documentary film about teacher Albert Cullum - teacher, author who died in 2003 - See this URL available as of 4/5/2007 at:
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/touchofgreatness/teacher.html

Cullum is perhaps best known for his book: The Geranium On The Windowsill Just Died But Teacher You Went Right On (written 1971, reprinted: Harlin Quist Books, 2000)

Watch for Cell Phones on Campus! Why?

8 to 12 year olds are using cell phones. Wake Forest Univ. students can check their laundry status via cell phones.

See below for more... including "5. Class resources like a mobile periodic table at your fingertips" from list of"...top 20 reasons" student should "...join MobileU" [cell phone system at Wake Forest]

What's the difference between a cell phone, a pocket pc, and a clicker?

A. $100
B. 1 year
C. 2 ounces
D. Students' dependence
E. Faculty attitudes
F. All of the above

NOTE:

• Pocket PC = very small handheld computer; over-developed PDA = Personal Digital Assistant; Handheld device; Palm; etc.
• Smart Cell Phone = whatever works on latest cell phone models!
• Clicker = Personal Response System; students individually and anonymously answer multiple choice questions in class

Following excerpt is from "Three Dads, a Kid-Oriented Cellphone Service" By Kim Hart, Washington Post Staff Writer, Washington Post, Monday, April 2, 2007; p. D02
URL as of 4/3/2007: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/01/AR2007040100683.html?sub=AR

"Daniel Neal scoffs at the notion that children are too young for cellphones.

'Kids are using more advanced mobile devices than even their parents,' said Neal, co-founder of a new cellphone service geared specifically toward 8- to 16-year-olds. 'They're adept. They're swimming in technology, and they're comfortable using it.'

"...it is the 'tween' market of 8- to 12-year-olds that is considered to the be one of the last frontiers for wireless companies, according to a 2006 study by the Yankee Group, a market research firm. More than half of the 'tween' population will be wireless users by 2010, the study predicted.

"Most of the 'tweens' already using cellphones are on family plans -- the earliest attempts by wireless companies to capture business. In the past two years, a handful of companies entered the 'tween' market. Disney, LeapFrog, Verizon and LG rolled out kid-friendly phones with parental controls.

Following is from Wake Forest University Website about it's Mobile University plan
URL as of 4/3/2007: http://mobileu.wfu.edu/?page=spring2006details

"MobileU Spring 2006

Registration is open NOW for spring enrollment in Information Systems’ MobileU™ pilot program. Join! If you know nothing about technology – or know everything – MobileU is for you! As a member of the Wake Forest community, you have the opportunity to join in one of the nation’s first Pocket PC phone pilot programs. See for yourself what everyone is talking about!

Use the Mobi to lead your sorority more effectively. Keep in touch with your teammates about changes in practice or game strategies. Prepare for the technology you’ll be expected to use in the real world. Or, just love it as a phone!

The $279 cost includes the Cingular 8125 (Mobi), warranty, insurance, free 1 GB storage card, PLUS 20% discount on Cingular service.

The top 20 reasons YOU should join MobileU:
20. Free Wi-Fi!
19. 1 GB Storage card
18. No service plan contract!
17. 20% off Cingular service plans
16. E-mail on the go
15. Instant messaging on the go
14. Track the campus shuttle arrival time
13. Check laundry from anywhere
12. Unlimited mobile-to-mobile minutes
11. Enhanced cellular coverage on campus
10. Mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint Viewer, Campus Map, WIN, and more!
9. Leave virtual messages in campus buildings for others to find
8. Use it to store your music files
7. It’s a camera!
6. It’s a video camera!
5. Class resources like a mobile periodic table at your fingertips
4. Mobile class schedule that turns off the ringer when you’re in class
3. Insurance through May, 2008
2. Great on-campus support team
1. And oh yeah, it’s a cool phone!

Educational Uses of Second Life (Notes from FridayLive!)

We just had a fascinating online discussion about Second Life and its educational uses in our free FridayLive! webcast series. The session was led by Ilene Frank and Drew Smith of the University of South Florida, and there were tremendous contributions in the chat room by many of the 75 participants.

Here are a few notes I took about educational applications of Second Life that were mentioned in the discussion. I've tried to emphasize functions where Second Life might have an educational advantage over other online formats as well as over feasible face-to-face interactions. Under each item, I've listed a potential concerns that occur to me, concerns that a feedback survey should address.

Each of these items would lead to a cluster of items for use in evaluative or feedback surveys or interview guides that I'm designing for the Flashlight Program. We'll put the survey items into Flashlight Online as a template, once it's ready. (If you post a comment here or send me an e-mail, it would encourage me to finish this up and share it with our subscribing institutions).

1. Lectures (e.g., people who couldn't attend a face-to-face lecture; might be centered in Second Life, or streaming video from a f2f lecture)

• Compared with a f2f lecture, are listeners more or less likely to be distracted by their immediate environment?

2. Student projects that involve building or creating something

3. Faculty or students creating something that people can walk through or manipulate: something where learning benefits from happening in a simulated three dimensional environment.

• For various participants, is the simulation real enough and engaging enough to create lasting memories and insights?

4. Both #2 and #3 create an occasion for comparing simulation and reality: that activity has its own educational value. (This might or might not happen in Second Life, but it's an educational opportunity created by these uses of Second Life.)

5. Activities that benefit from the participant's sense of being part of a group or crowd. A sense of "presence" can be an important part of engagement for learning, working meetings, perhaps even lectures.

• Any down side to this sense of presence, when compared to a competing way of holding the gathering? (more or less group think?)

6. Using setting, physical design, furniture to create a mood that's useful for the particular function

7. Learning a new language and culture by interacting with people from that other culture, perhaps in a simulated environment that mirrors their environment. For learning another language both chat (a slower pace of interaction, where novices don't need to worry about their accents as they learn to think in a new language) and voice chat have advantages.

A question common to all of these uses, especially those that involve student creation of artifacts (buildings, laboratory experiments, garments, devices, etc.): Time and effort are needed to learn to use Second Life to build things. Is there enough payoff from the activity to justify the effort (not just payoff from this project but from other projects that students might create)? Was the initial experience with the activity sufficiently motivating for the learners and leaders to keep doing this sort of thing (and thus get more payoff from the initial experience with Second Life.)