On October 2, 2006, with 88 Avatars, Dr. John Bransfords presentation achieved the largest attendanc

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On October 2, 2006, with 88 Avatars, Dr. John
Bransfords presentation achieved the largest
attendance at an Educational Event in Second Life

• Jeff McNeill
• Laboratory for Interactive Learning Technologies
• University of Hawaii at Manoa
• October 09, 2006
• Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAl
  ike 2.5 License
• 7 second delay between slides, or on mouseclick,
  after first two

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About Dr. John Bransford and LIFE

• Dr. Bransford is the Primary Investigator on a 5
  year, multi-campus 25M NSF grant in Learning in
  Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE)
• Research has previously divided learning into
  first-hand, experiential and second-hand,
  descriptive learning, without any synthesis
  across this divide
• Their research suggests that a proper combination
  of these two kinds of learning are what result in
  effective transfer of knowledge
• Bransford suggests that a combination of Second
  Life (experiential), Real Life description, and
  further Second Life learning could be much more
  effective than simple experiential/exploration or
  classroom lecture/description learning
  individually
• Bransford refers to a set of rooms and showed
  this video during the presentation
• Available at http//life-slc.org/mazepilotdemo3.mo
  v
• Pictures courtesy of Jeremy Kemp
  (http//www.simteach.com/)
• Edited excerpt from the talk courtesy of Rik
  Panganiban (http//www.rikomatic.com/)

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Below me you see the rooms we built (picture
courtesy of Jeremy Kemp)
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There are many other things to which one can
connect these simple rooms (picture courtesy of
Jeremy Kemp)
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Inquiry can be much slower in the short run and
more efficient in the long run (picture courtesy
of Jeremy Kemp)
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Our telling occurs through discussions,
readings, etc. (picture courtesy of Jeremy Kemp)
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A good approach is truly distributed teams
(picture courtesy of Jeremy Kemp)
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It is the combination of experience and
description that helps learning (picture courtesy
of Jeremy Kemp)
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Summary of Bransfords Presentation

• Transfer is the important goal
• Bransford compared cumulativity of
  Airplanes/Aerospace industry (flimsy airplanes to
  jet airliners) over past 100 years with education
  which simply does not have that cumulativity.
• Adaptive expertise as the possible key to help
  make this happen, what that is and how it works
  is not fully understood.
• Inquiry (slow/less efficient in short term,
  faster/more efficient in long run)
• Experience vs. Description
• Portrayed an experiential --gt descriptive
  --gt experiential chain, and that a "right
  combination" of the two types of learning would
  be optimal for transfer
• Also called these at various times
  (experience/implicit learning/informal
  learning/exploration) and (explicit
  learning/introduction of formal
  structure/description)
• Expressed that instruction could be blended with
  Second Life (experience) --gt Real Life
  (description) --gt Second Life (experience)
  combinations
• Stated that MUVEs are a place for collective
  inquiry and action

• Efficiency vs. Innovation
• Indicated it could be possible to structure tasks
  to promote inquiry/innovation over efficiency,
  e.g., structure school learning as such this
  way...
• Expressed surprise at creativity of graduate
  students and seemed convinced that we need more
  opportunities/rewards for collaboration within
  the academy
• Need mechanism to reward distributed expertise
• Need to be able to give credit for those who
  design, and those who learn from that and improve
  the work of others
• Made a contrast between off-the-cuff
  interpretations (based on culture) and in-depth
  inquiry (same efficiency/innovation dichotomy)
• Links to papers and transcript
• http//aaalab.stanford.edu/papers/Innovation20in
  20Transfer.pdf
• http//aaalab.stanford.edu/papers/Schwartz_DKE_cha
  pter.pdf
• http//life-slc.org/?p382

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Excerpt from Bransfords presentation (Courtesy
of Rik Panganiban)

• Now lets come back to the idea of MUVES as a
  space for collective inquiry and action.
• If you look at our rooms and feel "I can do
  better"---we say fantastic. That's why we need
  collaborations. We've seen this in our LIFE
  Center. Senior researchers have been amazed at
  the creativity of the students. We know this kind
  of creativity exists in this audience, and across
  the world. However, finding how to focus this
  creativity is a real challenge.
• Think of the airline industry. In 100 years, they
  have gone from fragile planes to amazing
  jetliners. Education does not have this kind of
  cumulativity.
• Imagine a SL island where we collaborate to
  create and test environments to enhance learning.
  A simple starting example could be our simple
  stone age maze. Anyone could use it. Make it
  better, do studies with it and report them.
  Several of our LIFE students have already decided
  to use the maze to test how people have or have
  not worked in teams will collaborate if they go
  in pairs or larger groups. Other things could be
  more fun.
• Imagine a SL moon environment where people could
  help students learn things like the need for
  atmosphere for sound ways to carry. Or students
  might try to create a sustainable ecosystem for
  themselves for a year on the moon.

• We don't have start with a total adventures - we
  can begin with small pieces. The instruction can
  initially be blended----part SL, part real life,
  then return to SL.
• Eventually we might be able to create a new kind
  of journal where different people could actually
  get academic credit for their work in SL. Some
  credit could be for design, some for adding
  learning, some for improvements to others work,
  etc. The overall goal is to create a new kind of
  space that allows for cumulativity over time--and
  allows academic "credit" as well --- credit for
  different people doing different parts of
  collaborative tasks.
• The big thing I see is the creativity out there
  and how much we could do together. WE need to
  have a focused way to build on one another's work
  however.
• All of us in LIFE are far from having a clear
  idea of exactly how to establish this kind of
  innovation environment. But we are convinced that
  second life offers a great possibility for doing
  this.
• Ultimately, we could imagine a series of
  adventures for students that could become a new
  way to create curricula.
• It is one of the most powerful ways we know that
  might radically change the nature of education.