Immersion or Augmentation: A culture or just another tool?
As well as developing technology and processes many of the Users and Innovation projects are also engaged in much wider debates, pushing our understanding of the role of technology in the wider education sector.
The Habitat project is currently exploring the role of virtual worlds such as Second Life, which may on one hand be described as ‘immersive’ but in some pedagogical circles may be described as ‘augmentative’ The immersion verses augmentation debate may become more important as the sector looks at integrating these technologies into educational and research practice.
The immersion ‘camp’ tends to describe virtual worlds as a culture or society in which we play a role and/or become a member while the augmentationist ‘camp’ describes them as simply an addition to the range of tools we already use to communicate. Whilst for people not in either camp the debate looks reasonably esoteric, the debate is actually quite divisive and feeds the desire of those involved to be in a particular ‘camp’. In this way it is similar to the classic mac vs PC discussion we all like to partake of occasionally. Nevertheless the immersion vs augmentation concept could act as a useful yardstick for the projects such as the Habitat project which is piloting the
educational use of virtual worlds with art & design students and philosophy students.
When the project is developing its pilots, for example, for their philosophy students, the students may simply want to have a discussion at a distance so the only valid reason to use something like Second Life is if it brings a sense of presence beyond that of a straight text chat. In this sense the measure for the success of the pilot is focused on immersion. In contrast to this the art & design students will be in the same room whilst building aesthetic artefacts in world. This is a direct extension of their real life practice in the studio and could be said to fall into the augmentation category. Clearly the division between these principles and between the pilots is not black and white. Each aspect of the pilots contains elements of both immersion and augmentation. The Habitat team’s role is to delicately use the distinction to guide the pedagogical design of the pilots and to evaluate the success of their activities.
To keep an eye on the debate, and to contribute, monitor the Project Blog. Alternatively, if you are attending the Next Generation Environments conference (further information from Lawrie Phipps) there will be a chance to engage the Habitat team in the debate on day one of the event.
Eliciting Answers using web 2.0 tools.
Linked-In is a tool for maintaining and developing contacts – one of the features is the ability to ask questions of your network of contacts and the ‘public visibility’ of these questions.
I thought it might be interesting to pose a question around web 2.0 and then see what sort of answers we got back.
The Question: Does Web 2.0 facilitate connectivism, circumvent constructivism, or just pollute the knowledge stream with contradictory chatter?
In one week I received 8 ‘public’ responses and 2 private responses. The private ones were from contacts that aren’t involved in this sector, and know me from separate routes - both of them questioned my sobriety at the time of posting the question!
The answers to the question are all below, so now it’s over to you, do they answer usefully? Is it a tool, when used with trusted colleagues, that could help us in our practice?
Jose Roig
Web 2.0 does all of the above… which is kind of a cop-out for an answer. I blogged last week (http://tech-consulting.blogspot.com/) about how some of its functionality has great potential for corporate use. Wiki’s and Blogs are great tools for collaboration and for the publishing/sharing of documentation. Coupled with instant messaging, such tools are transforming the way that geographically dispersed teams work together.
In the public arena, Blogs give everyone a forum for free expression, which carries with it the risk that only the most shocking and confrontational viewpoints get noticed. It also carries the risk of doing nothing but turning up the volume on the noise and clutter. But I believe the potential reward of knowledge sharing is worth the risk.
Marc Aniballi
Web 2.0 connects databases to web interfaces so that you can do custom content generation and personalisation. This includes (obviously) user generated content.
Put any group of 10 people in a room and you’ll get all of your situations above. Online just happens bigger and faster.
David Kernohan
Web 2.0 is a resource like any other, and can be used to facilitate learning based on any theory of pedagogy you fancy. It’s like asking whether a textbook facilitates connectivism, circumvents constructivism…
Just because it is interactive doesn’t mean it is not a learning resource. It’s what you do with it that counts…
Malcolm Murray
I agree with the concept that there isn’t a one to one mapping between any technology and pedagogy - i.e. using Web 2.0 doesn’t make, nor require you to be connectivist.
That said, I think some of the tools really help, if we take connectivism to mean the ability to stay in touch with and lever the collective intelligence of a network of contacts and indeed their network of contacts.
The key issue for me is one of credibility/quality. How does a user know that the information they find is any good. Some of the newer web 2.0 tools (such as this discussion) help by providing information and context about the posters. For other older tools (e.g. wikipedia) although content may be subject to peer review, much of it is not directly (read easily) attributable.
Does this matter? Yes I think it does! Whilst “pollution” may be too strong a term - and I can see the massed ranks of social scientists just waiting to analyse the cultural loading this term implies) the problem for many today can be summed up as “there a shit load of material out there, but loads of it is shit”. To succeed we still need to be selective. That’s where the networking aspect comes in - it gives us help filtering out the dross.
Bruce Mason
I would say that this question veers towards technological determinism. I suspect that a couple of thousand years ago there may have been similar questions about this new-fangled writing business. That’s a somewhat flip response but it gets at the point that these new resources are useful in as much as we make use of them.
I do think that we’re having to acquire competence in web2.0 usage and that also includes those who design SNS sites. For example, I was on the verge of quitting Facebook until, one day, I noticed a little “block this application” link beneath all my notifcations. Now Facebook is positive for me again. Those who run Facebook responded to an emergent phenomenon and the site has been improved.
So, I think what is happening is that we’re acquiring competence in the emergent, communicational affordances of web2.0. Give it a few years and we’ll wonder what all the fuss was about…
James Farnhill
I think my natural first response was that you’ve got to understand the terms before you can couch an answer to this at all. Web 2.0 means very different things to very different people and can be more confusing than it is helpful. Having said that, I’d agree with the other posters that if you’re using social networking tools like Facebook and LinkedIn (and even stuff like Flickr, that might not seem like an obvious choice) and other Web 2.0 ‘most wanted’ apps such as blogs and wikis sensibly then there is a considerable amount of benefit from them. It’s just that some people are using Web 2.0 because it’s there and because it’s a bandwagon, meaning a large volume of rubbish gets generated that doesn’t help connect people or do anything else; for example, I’m getting to the stage where Twitter and tweets are really annoying me as they’re used as buzz words by Nathan Barley noo media types who only use it because it’s ‘cool’! So, I think for the future we need to have Web 2.0 to generate content but we also need Web 2.0 tools and technologies such as some of the stuff being done with Google maps and AJAX to bring the content together in a meaningful way. We can also use text mining tools and some of the more sophisticated tagging to start getting data about data and get some provenance in there. All that’s doing is what any arts and social sciences student could tell you they’ve been doing for ages, which is quality assuring the data they trust by review, meaning large amounts of seemingly contradictory opinions can be distilled into material that makes sense for you. Hope that hasn’t turned into too much of a ramble…
Tony Linde
To me (and I agree that it means different things to different people) Web 2.0 means three things: 1) the ability for users to add content to a website; 2) the use of AJAX to make pages more dynamic; and 3) the exposure of a site’s content via one or more APIs. All of these things existed before the Web 2.0 term but the explosion of websites with all three features did mark a significant shift in the web experience.
It is primarily #3 above which helps ‘facilitate connectivism’: our own experiences, exposed via #1 above are connected by #3 and by the internal workings of the website. Seeing these connections would, I would have thought, aid constructivism rather than circumvent it, in that only simple connections will be forged by data and software: the user of the sites ought to be able to construct knowledge upon a wider base using the connections supplied (needs research though).
The knowledge stream will only ’seem’ polluted by those students who are not able to critically assess what they see. Critical reasoning ought to be the first skill any student is imbued with, from primary school onwards.
Mark Childs
I’m currently conducting a research project (funded by the wonderful people at JISC actually - http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning_pedagogy/elp_blups.aspx) looking at how students use web 2 technologies and whether this has any effect on their learning. The answer is that, yes it does. Because students are more connected now, this gives them more opportunities to share ideas, help each other with their learning and (often underestimated in its importance) exchange information about the course and university procedures. This is sometimes due to them setting up specific groups within Facebook, for example, but it’s mainly because they are communicating so much using web 2.0 tools for social reasons, and it’s natural for them to segue from talking about meeting up to go down the pub to talking about the latest assignment.
Portrait of a User #2
S, Academic
Interview conducted by email, Oct 07
What do you think of as ‘technology’?
Well, even a pen was technology at one stage!
Technology is practical, every day, stuff which we take for granted (umm, usually powered by electricity in some form) as well as gadgetry and gizmos.
How would you describe your ability to use technology?
Well, when I was teaching computing I would have said that I was at the cutting edge but since I stopped my skills have remained in a state of limbo whilst the technology has moved on. But I’m happy to embrace new technology as, and when I need to.
What sort of technologies do you typically use?
Mobile technologies, my PDA replaced my trusty filofax two years ago. And yes, I do use it; it is more than a glorified diary, I use the excel spreadsheets for expenses and mpg of my car, word for notes of meetings if I haven’t got my laptop. And yes, it does have a selection of music and photos too. It also has wireless, so I use it for email and internet access when away from the office or abroad. It is both work and pleasure.
My mobile phone is 8 years old - state of the art at the time but it functions. I usually have a digital camera with me, so there is no need for a camera phone (for better quality photos and videos). My PDA gives me access to email, so no need for that either.My laptop goes most places with me but this will change when I get my PDA keyboard working efficiently! And yes, I have an ipod too with music, photos and some files.I’ll get SKYPE, when more than one other person I know uses it!
What’s on your business card?
A colleague from a library in the North East sent me a PDF of his new business card this week. It looked for all intents and purposes like a traditional business card but I noticed that other than just the institution’s website, his email and directline, there were two additions. These included his MSN messenger address and his Skype details. This is a major change for his institution’s Corporate Communications Unit.
The business card is in many ways a physical representation of interoperability. They are normally the same or similar size and carry standard information. The modern business card has its roots in the visiting cards of 17th Century France, presented to servants as a means of introducing visitors, when it would contain at the minimum a name, title and where appropriate a coat of arms or crest. In the 19th Century they were adapted for business use, where a visiting card may have been presented when making a social call, a business card would state what business you were in and the address as a way of saying you had called and expected a bill to be settled. This practice of having a card to represent you in your business became what we now have, an effective means of exchanging simple information about each other’s roles and how to keep in touch. This 19th Century method remained largely unchanged until the advent of the telephone, whereupon the telephone number was also added, in the 80s a fax number, and in the 90s we saw the widespread addition of e-mail being added and the business’ website address.
Perhaps then the business card can be seen as a way of measuring the spread of communication technologies. This year I have attended several conferences, and as always at these things you end up with a fistful of business cards: mine are filed in a large pile on my desk. When my colleague sent me his PDF it prompted me to pick up the pile and see what other information was being added to the cards (disclaimer: this is in no way scientific!)
Out of the 157 cards that I’ve collected (in 18months or so)
- All bar 1 had name, title/role, address (mainly HEIs), telephone and email.
- 93 had a Fax number (59%)
- 81 had a personal/project website (52%)
- 31 had a blog address (20%)
- 24 had a MSN messenger or other IM address (15%)
- 7 had a skype address (4%)
- 1 had a LinkedIn public profile address (had no physical address)
What does this all tell us? Probably not a lot, at the positive end of the spectrum (from my perspective) I wonder if it says we are deviating from the norm and there is acceptance that ‘users’ are taking control of the way in which they are contacted. I also wonder how the demographic changes depending on which conferences you go to, and how it will change over the next 18 months.
Portrait of a User #1
These ‘Portrait of a user’ posts aim to provide snapshots of both staff and students in higher education.
Mel, Mature 3rd Year Anthropology Student (part time)
Interview conducted by MSN, Oct 07
What do you think of as ‘technology’?
Anything online, I use the University databases a lot.
How would you describe your ability to use technology?
I think through work and my partner being involved in IT I am probably more knowledgeable than most of my fellow students
What sort of technologies do you typically use?
Through my athens log in, all the relevant databases to my course, facebook, msn, I am also registered to a online datastore for literature that can be read in pdf.
On a typical day what’s the first couple of things you do when you switch on your computer?
Log in to msn (automatically), check hotmail and my university email and VLE for updates.
Your institution uses a Virtual Learning Environment, how much time do you spend using it and what are the main things you do in there?
I use it to check essay questions, seminar and lecture updates and relevant reading we need to do.
Do you have your own blog or something similar that you use either for your academic work or outside?
No, but I have been thinking about starting a personal blog.
Do you use any social networking sites?
I use Facebook.
How do you feel about using the same sites for your academic work, such as discussions etc?
There are a lot of anthropology groups from my institution on Facebook but I am not a member of any of them, I don’t really consider myself as my university would put it a ‘3D student’, i.e a student who gets involved with all the activities and the ‘brand’ – I’m a 2D student, I want what I paid for – my degree.
If there was a ‘device x’, a technology that doesn’t currently exist, or one that you’re not aware of, that could help you with your studies, what would it be, what would it do?
Annotated and indexed podcasts, that would be very helpful - as I work it would be nice to review things and have website links if I am unable to make it to the library, especially as there are shortages of key texts.
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Lawrie is available through Skype
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