Diaries of Viki Silvansky – Planning and conducting a workshop, February 22, 2009

Dear Diary
Another interesting thing happened in my life today and that was my first ever official workshop.
As a part of my MUVEnation activities, I had to design a workshop and manage everything else around it…
For me choosing the topic was not that hard as I had some ideas in my mind…
I had a very good feedback on my hypnotee so I though I can teach everyone else to make one.
The planning and preparing took quite a time specially considering my virtual disabilities (not having WIKI) but I managed to finish everything a day before with the help of my amazing friends (specially Anna).
I build my own platform, wrote my workshop materials, create an evaluation form, take photos of my step by step creations and putting them as slide show.
Everything was ready and at 1:00pm people start to arrive at my skybox…
It was a great feeling… everything was going so smooth that I was wondering is this for real?
It didn’t take much until I make a disaster… not exactly a disaster but something wrong and funny…
I deleted my own platform ) Imagine that…
Why may ask how that happened… and why that funny…
Story started days back when I attended Cvetka’s workshop. Someone mistakable deleted her platform which created a bit of unwanted break. Seeing and knowing that, I decided to lock my platform to prevent that… and I did…
After the first session of the workshop, i gave a short break to everyone else and in the mean time i decided to turn back the wings left from other participants. Now you can imagine what happened next..
I clicked and choose delete…
Got a message telling me “the object is locked, are you sure you want to delete it?”
And my answer was “YES”
The next second I was watching myself falling down from 400m above the ground and laughing out loud as I did such a mistake…
Anyway… as we were in the break and everyone else was sited nothing serious happened and I was back on track after 2 min with a new platform.
But all that though me something… it’s better to have your feet on the ground
Most important thing was how my brain fooled me… thinking that I have locked the platform and nothing will happen to it make me be so sure about deleting even though I saw the message…
Other than that most of things were just great…
Participants were my best friends who I always enjoy working with them and we all managed to do a great job.
I guess everyone learned a lot… and that includes me too…
I have realized some many new things….
For example, as part of event discretion I mentioned that all levels (newbies, experts) are welcome and I really included all the instructions necessary for every level…
But during the workshop I realized that is not they day to do it because those participants who were experts might get board of my detailed instruction that I was giving newbies and the pluses within the workshop. On the other hand, newbies are ever feeling worse, getting anxious that everyone is building quickly and they don’t even know how to drag an object.
After all everything went on and we ended up with 5 wing trees for session one and 4 flexi wing trees for session two…
The results were amazing, and I am really happy about them.
It was another day in SL to remember

A Braclet to Embrace SL tools ;)

 

When educators enter SL there are usually wondering where they should go or what tools they should use for their educational purposes, better to say, “where the hell should I start” kind of sentences. As part of MUVEnation we have been asked to design a tour guide for tools that can be used for education so this is what I designed and the reasoning behind WHY is done so…

Based on my experiences after a year of living my SL, everyone has its own ideas and dreams from joining SL and although they might share the same tools and places they take different approach in using them. As I’m completely against limiting human mind, I decided not to explain the tools and abilities that they might have in details as I believe it will stop peoples’ mind to think of creative ways to use those tools, moreover, there are things that might not be defined as tools but still be used for educational purposes.

After a long long challenge between Anna’s’ logic, MUVEnation’s description and Viki’s imaginative brain, the decision has been made to create something in the middle… let’s say kind of “Treasure hunting thing” but with a different approach. Basically it will give you the guide to the places where the treasures are and show you everything there but then you have to choose whether or not what you see is a treasure.

Picuter: Eyem Beck

Based on that I designed a sample of tour guide in a shape of unisex bracelet which will accompany people to different island that are offering education tools, where there are tours within the island that will show all the opportunities within the islands. This object is very easy to use, it communicates only with owner so it will not bother others and it exchanges dialog best on triggered command from user which will give time to them to take their time and explore things.This sample will cover three islands that are designed for different proposes but tools within them can be used for education.

1. IBM business centres: for computer and business related subjects
2. Boracay: educational island, mainly focusing on self-governed learning
3. Science Friday: for science related subjects

Although each of the island takes a specific approach but there are common shared tools within them, items below mentions some of those tools with a short description about them.

But before reading that let me first clarify “what an educational tool is?” based on my opinion: education tool can be anything that will add a value of knowledge to person or help them in learning things.

• Places for meetings, gatherings, socialization: this places are consider as one of the main tool for informal and colborative learning where people with same or different ideas can get to gather and exchange experience, information and knowledge.
• Lecture rooms, conference rooms and amphitheatres: for one way knowledge transformation or mmore formal discussions these places are the best tools to be used to meet those purposes.
• Objects to show Pictures, slides, audio and video: some of them are one way knowledge transfer which can be used without presence of educator. This is the good way to engage students and provide them with resources that can be helpful. On the other hand, such tools can be used for group activates with both students themselves or in the presence of the educator, as tool to facilitate the discussions about different topics in real time.
• Books, projects and newspapers: these tools can be either interactive or one way communicators. In some of these islands like IBM innovation pod, projects are linked to news on the web as addition source for student’s information and in Boracay some student projects are available (rez on demand) both as resources and group decisions.
• IBM provides meeting with authors that is a unique opportunity for students to discuss with authors of the books, ask their questions and learn from others ideas.
• Boracay provides interactive objects with research background such as design centre and the audio room. Moreover, it provides educators with whiteboards, a chat recorder that will email a transcript to you every few minutes and in the case of people’s consent recording the meeting.
• Science Friday is providing in- world meeting for their Friday radio broadcasts which will allow people to discuss about the subject and share their ideas which is good example of informal learning.