Brand new to the list

[Scot]

Dear Colleagues:

I am brand new to this list. I am a professor of education at George
Fox University in Oregon, USA. I am just beginning an exploration of
informal learning in multiuser virtual environments, which will lead
to my sabbatical work in the fall in Second Life. I am interested in
having you share with me your experience of using Second Life or
other similar environments to set up and conduct project-based,
problem based and experiential learning projects.

I look forward to studying the archives here and interacting with
you. Good day!

Regards,

Scot Headley

[Russ Robertson]

Welcome Scot!

I hope your explorations prove at least personally fruitful.

Pardon me for being skeptical, but I can't help but comment that you
appear to be planning an experiential activity of sorts in a "virtual"
space (Second Life) - I find at least the soul of these things to be
at best, contradictory.

Please explain - I'm sure I'm missing a key detail.

Regards,

RR

[Roger Greenaway]

Hi Scot, RR and others,

Hmmm ... experiential learning without soul?

I think this question arises from problems in defining 'experiential learning'.

I recently wrote about this problem in 'Other Ways of Learning':

What is experiential learning?
The embarrassing answer for its advocates is that experiential learning is a
contested idea that gets pulled and stretched in so many directions that it has
no clear basis for claiming any distinctiveness from other forms of learning.
Ironically, one of the most quoted authorities on experiential learning came to
the conclusion that all learning is experiential: “Learning is the process
whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience”
(KOLB 1984, 38). And a leading association of experiential educators cautiously
offers its provisional definition of “experiential education” as part of
an “ongoing conversation” (AEE, 2007). How can experiential learning be
taken seriously if its exponents have difficulty defining it, describing it or
demonstrating its distinctive value?

So I think Scot can claim to be researching 'experiential learning' even if virtual activity may lack soul.

I wonder if the experience of Second Life is similar to the experience of being puppeteers?

Many experiential education programmes claim to be real, but weave in so much metaphor that there is a question about whether experience and reflection is happening at the make-believe level, as well as there being a question about whether the reality of experiences in a brief, temporary, designed world (a programme) connects at any significant level with everyday realities.

I am not a fan of Second Life, but there is a sense in which experiential education programmes are secondary worlds with their own rules, roles, metaphors and realities. Maybe a lot of useful learning for the broader field of experiential learning will come out of Scot's Second Life study?

Roger

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[schoolhouseink]

When considering the study of online virtual reality-using
experiential learning theory seems
like an interesting choice. I wonder if you have considered the ideas
that Kieran Egan puts forth especially
in his new text The Future of Education-and how imagination will play
a larger role in how to approach educational
methods in the future. A while back there was a book, mostly
discussing English and Language arts entitled
Learning through Imagined Experience-and if you can tie these ideas
in to experiential learning and virtual reality,maybe you can find the
soul it is said to be lacking. ??

Joe Polizzi
Marywood University
Scranton, PA

[Russ]

Let me attempt to elucidate my perspective.

I am somewhere involved in developing a notion - a vital notion I
would say for times such as these. As I see it, this upcoming
generation is the most connected generation - even to the extent that
they will hardly have any perspective of their own about what it means
to be "wired" as everything in their world has become wireless. They
'live' more vicariously than any generation before them - and worse -
they're fine with that. They accept the trade-off as it appears to
have some value to them.

This generation lives a virtual life like none before. You could make
a decent psychological argument that in previous generations,
individuals surrendered their personal liberty and acceptance of their
culpability for their actions by adherence to some overarching social
construct such as religion or perhaps from a strict political
framework (democratic is as Democratic does, etc....). But this
generation is doing it without any coercion or mandate. It's not a
familial thing. It's not a national/cultural thing tied to geography
or proximity - in fact, quite the opposite.

Before I get off in the weeds too much, let me just remark by
observing how tied to the cell phone and text messages and instant
messages and Facebook and You-tube and whatever this generation is
self-absorbed in today. They have in effect relinquished and
abdicated their personal responsibilities in exchange for volunteering
to be "always-connected" or always-on.

Therefore, I project that no one owns their own soul anymore. The
soul has truly become that Collective Entity that was postulated way
back by Jung. Electronically perhaps - but nonetheless.

That's where I begin. What is the soul of experience?

RR