And Justice for All: Using Artificial Environments to Create Community and Teach Diversity
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And Justice For All: Using Artificial Environments to Create Community and Teach Diversity A.J. Kelton Laura Nicosia Leslie Wilson
description
Original presented by Leslie Wilson, Laura Nicosia, and AJ Kelton at the National Network for Educational Renewal (NNER) 2009 Annual Conference in Bellevue, Washingon, on October 16, 2009.How electronic networks and artificial environments, including Twitter, Facebook, Ning, and Second Life, promote ideas of democracy for students, future teachers, and faculty. We will discuss how these tools foster democratic choices leading to the growth of future teachers in establishing societal rules in the classroom.
Transcript of And Justice for All: Using Artificial Environments to Create Community and Teach Diversity
And Justice For All: Using Artificial Environments to Create Community
and Teach Diversity
A.J. Kelton
Laura Nicosia
Leslie Wilson
Traditional Problems in the Relationship Between College of Education and Arts and Sciences in
Teacher Education
• Faculty have problems working outside of their academic units/departments
• Philosophical differences between branches of the university
• A&S faculty not understanding or embracing their mission with future teachers
• A&S faculty not feeling or being rewarded for work with future teachers
• A lack of common ground between A&S and CoE to share with future teachers
Consequences and Challenges for Future Teachers as a Result of the Friction
Between the CoE and A&S• Can future teachers equally trust their professors?• Can future teachers share information learned in one
discipline/setting with faculty in other settings?• Will future teachers blend their knowledge in
constructive manners during student teaching? • How do future teachers determine which models &
philosophies to embrace during and after student teaching?
• How do future teachers determine what is sound pedagogy?
• What should future teachers do to maximize what they have learned in both settings?
What can arts and science faculty do to better prepare future
teachers?
• Reduce friction between themselves and CoE colleagues
• Work in networks with CoE Colleagues
• Create a reward structure for work with future teachers
• Embrace new ideas of teaching and learning
Finding Common Ground
• Use the Agenda as a bridge to foster a common ideology for CoE and A&S faculty
• Employ a strategy that can satisfy the needs of both groups
• Select a strategy that can fulfill the Agenda and the needs of future students
Democracy and Diversityas a bridge
• Our goal is to create culturally responsive teachers
• Our goal is create a diverse population of teachers
• Our goal is to develop educated citizens in a democracy
• Our goal is to unify educators across disciplines
Goals
• Create a democratic classroom• Give each student a voice• Allow students to work collaboratively in
unique settings• Have students embrace difference• Teach students how to work in
numerous environments
How Can Technologies Enhance Democracy and Diversity?
• Second Life
• Ning
Ning
• With Ning you can: Upload profile pictures or avatars Upload videos, documents or urls Start & moderate discussion forums Create groups Create FAQ pages Post & monitor blogs Invite members
Using Ning to Foster Democratic ThoughtsLaura’s Story
• I have created, used & participated in several Ning sites: Sue Nobles, a secondary school teacher, & I piloted this site, where MSU students joined Virginia high school students and corresponded with them about their writings and journal entries.
• During Spring ’09 I piloted Ning in my Methods classes—calling it “virtual fieldwork” My Methods classes were paired with 2 English classes at a public high school in Fredericksburg,VA. They read the students’ writings (blogs, discussion forums & mini-essays) and left feed-back. They asked critical thinking questions and provoked the secondary students to dig deeper for their responses. They communicated with the classroom teacher—asking her questions and suggesting resources for her to use.
Collaborative Work that Fosters Democracy
• My students read the HS students’ discussions• The teacher established these directions: MSU students
responded:• Each of her students received dozens of readings with
constructive comments and suggestions: Look at all the responses! How often can an individual instructor respond with this kind of frequency and depth?
• My undergraduate student responded to the student’s forum comment about Desdemona’s characterization.
• MSU students offered “real time” responses One of my graduate students responded with this thoughtful and constructive posting
• The classroom teacher writes to my students
Broader Application
• Center of Pedagogy develops multiple Ning sites for Teacher Education, MSUNER, Leadership Associates, and on-going research through the ADP Center
• Center of Pedagogy invites A&S faculty to join the Ning site
CoP Ning Community
Second Life
• POOF! Now It’s a... Teaching Lab• POOF! Now It’s a... Amphitheater• POOF! Now It’s a... NOAA Demonstration• POOF! Now It’s a... Conference Setting• POOF! Now It’s a... [Insert Setting Here]
Second Life Provides
Guided Inquiry, where experience is central to learning
Scaffolding of in-world prior experiences through seeking, sieving and synthesizing experiences
Decentralization of the class, where knowledge is created across a community rather than delivered from an individual
In The Process, We …
Share and exchange resources, cultural knowledge, stories and experiences
Engage in social exploration using a multiplicity of perspectives and points of view
Apply critical thinking and problem-solving in context and in process
Unlearn assumptions about communities and the “Other”
However
While Second Life captures the imagination of individuals who wish to create new lives free from societal and physical limitations of ethnicity, gender, geography, sexual orientation or status; it still manifests aspects of society (American, capitalist, gendered) from which it sprung and therefore is more reflective than transcendent” (Jones, 2005)
Embracing Diversity and Creating Democracy with Second Life
A.J.’s Story
• Avatars as an expression of individuality
• Changing notions of gender
• Creating open learning spaces within an educational setting
• Giving power to students to explore and mature outside of the confines of the classroom
Broader Application
• CHSS faculty use CHSS Island in numerous classes
• AJ gives presentations of CHSS Island & SL to administrators
• The MSU library joins the CHSS Island• The ADP Center staff joins the CHSS Island
Community• AJ builds CEHS Island and the colleges are
connected
Facebook & Twitter
Should Facebook and Twitter get all the attention? – Daily American Facebook Users (all ages) – 30 million – Daily American E-mail Users (just adults) - 130.5 million • That’s 60% of adult Internet users checking e-mail on typical day, within 30% staying offline so only 10% who go online don’t check their e-mail that day)
Sources: Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics E-mail users: Pew Internet and American Life Surveys – http://pewinternet.org Twitter: http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cs/2009/06/new_twitter_research_men_follo.html e-democracy.org
(Steven Clift, E-Democracy.Org)
Facebook Pages
• Provides social networking in the public domain
• Allows everyone to create their own personal and public spaces
• Is available to a wide audience
• Can be a complimentary or primary tool
• Can be used to address specific topics or used to address general topics
• Encourages users to “follow” others
• Offers quick and inexpensive transfer of information
• Can have a small or large audience
Broader Applications
• Twitter can be used to give voice to the silent• Twitter provides instant surveys• Twitter can be used by phone or computer
democratizing the number of users• Twitter can be opened up to the greater
community leading to real democratic conversations
Other Technologies
Wiki
Slideshare
Blogging
DimDim
Pageflakes
Epsilen
Me Globe
Live Polling
Questions?
