Je poste ce commentaire ici et non pas sur When it all goes wrong!, car il est rejeté par le filtre anti-spam du blog d’Eloise Pasteur. Un autre post en anglais: mais je ne fais pas exprès!
Eloise, I would like to give you some further insight towards understanding “A teaching nightmare!”. This post presents itself as a short narrative that was written as part of a wider research process using storytelling to describe experiences in the area of teaching and learning in Second Life. I have been studying ‘hand-on workshops’ for several months in the role of participatory observation. From the analysis and mapping of these workshops, we (Steven and I) elaborated a taxonomy that covers four main processes and 26 criteria.
- Taxonomy of Second Life practices in learning and teaching activities: Analysis grid for “hands-on workshops” – V.1 (1/2)
- Taxonomy of Second Life practices in learning and teaching activities: Analysis grid for “hands-on workshops” – V.1 (2/2)
Amongst the results of our research we found a tension between teacher’s IRL experience, pedagogical approach and the control of the virtual environment. Control (of the space, of conversational flow, of communication dynamics) appeared to be a factor that greatly influenced the outcomes of the workshop and the difficulty for experienced IRL teachers is that this belong to a specific set of knowledge and skills related to teaching in SL. Reflecting about this I wanted to test with myself, and evaluate if an experienced SL denizen in the grid since 2006, IRL teacher for more than 16 years, but without any specific knowledge of the ‘backstage of ·hands-on workshops’ (e.g. never used a script to give automatic instructions) was capable of presenting a practical workshop and evaluating its outcomes. I wanted to know what other criteria for success I would find … when this time being an insider! I agree, practice first is good advice. However in my opinion, this has a lower impact when plotted against other criteria such design/display of the learning environment. This experience allowed me to identify some missing criteria in the grid such as ‘interaction policies’ and ‘didactic strategies for individualisation of learning in a short synchronous session’. There is also one issue that interests me and this is about the time spent in the preparation of the activity. I would appreciate if you shared your experience about this. Finally, a word about telling unsuccessful stories. I am convinced that unsuccessful stories can uncover good practices and help us to identify better ways of using virtual environments for education. Sadly these stories disappear behind the culture of the successful-look-at-me-teacher or the too-shy-to-recognize-I-have-also-failed. I will kindly accept your offer to test the next workshop. So be prepared for an invitation! But I would also like to interview you as experienced teacher. Finally I was wondering if you would like to tell me a meaningful story about teaching and learning in Second Life: one that worth the effort to be passed on, that will smooth my path as a virtual teacher!
