Level 10 - Why and how the modern school system *could try harder*

A common theme from Gee's (2003) 'What video games have to teach us...' is the notion that modern day schools systems are failing to inspire good learning as well as a well-designed videogame might. Here I want to assess these arguments and look at how schools might adapt their practices to accommodate Gee's theories of what constitutes good learning and teaching.

One of his ongoing proposals is that VGs stimulate *critical* learning, or learning that is highly reflexive. But do schools not teach critical learning already? As far as I can tell, many are at least trying. There is currently some enthusiasm in mainstream schooling for what is generally termed 'Critical skills', also known as 'Thinking Skills', and these skills encapsulate a whole host of advanced cognitive processes, such as making inferences, bridging with other subject areas and considering one's own thinking processes (or metacognition). The history of this direction of thinking about learning is very interesting, and is generally attributed to three main sources. Firstly the work of Reuven Feuerstein, who while testing the IQs of recently arrived immigrants to Israel post-WW2 found that the tests were woefully inadequate at assessing their true cognitive capacities. He went on to develop other tests that better assessed their ability to think and reason. Secondly, the work of Matthew Lipman, the founder of 'Philosophy for Children', who as a college professor, found that many of his undergraduate students failed to articulate basic concepts. On further examination of the primary and secondary school system he realised that schools were completely failing to encourage reflective thinking, so went on to design a whole series of lesson ideas that might encourage more articulated thinking and discussion. And thirdly the work of Edward de Bono, who has developed a whole host of 'thinking tools' , including brain-based learning (which always makes me smile, as I have no idea how else someone learns). The very fact that schools are considering the integration of these ideas is I suppose a step in the right direction. However the impression I get from teachers is that encouraging these skills in lessons sounds great in theory, but often gets set aside by the need to impart curriculum-based knowledge; the results-driven exam system of assessment makes it very difficult to stray from the current norm. Which is a shame - as in my view learning *how to think* should be one of the main priorities of schooling. I actually asked Ted Wragg at a conference whether he thought there might be a time when critical skills might be assessed, and he said he hoped not, using the amusing analogy that being assessed on a sex education class would take the fun out of it. While I don't dare differ with the highly-esteemed Mr. Wragg, I fear that without some form of assessment of these skills, teachers will never be motivated enough to include thinking development in lessons.

From this current conception of critical thinking, I feel that Gee's concept l takes this direction a step further. In his view, critical thinking 'involves learning to think of semiotic domains as design spaces that manipulate us in certain ways and that we can manipulate in certain ways'. There are two key points here. In terms of design spaces, Gee recognises that a semiotic domain is simply a subject that has been created by others, and is still in the process of being designed. With reference to games, but could also be said of any subject, he writes about the value in 'thinking about the (internal) design of the game, about the game as a complex system of interrelated parts meant to engage and even manipulate the player in certain ways. This is metalevel thinking, thinking about the game as a system and a designed space, and not just playing within the game moment by moment'. The second key point here is the recognition that design spaces affect and are affected by their users. In other words, he takes the idea that reflecting on a given subject is good for learning, but also includes the consideration that learners are themselves *changed* by this new understanding (they literally *identify* with the subject), and are also empowered to affect this domain with their own contributions. This is a significant development for critical thinking in my opinion, as instead of the learner encouraged just to objectively criticise a given subject, the learner is also encouraged to be personally involved with other like-minded people (the affinity group) who serve to assess, contribute and design the future direction of the domain.

An additional feature of good learning that Gee describes is the value of *active* learning, where the learner actively experiences the application of what they are learning. Experiential learning is something that VGs do very well to encourage, as it is potentially possible for a player character to experience anything that one can experience in non-virtual life, and more besides. Using Civilisation iv as an example, I can learn how best to manage the resources of a country by actually simulating the management of a country; reading a book on the subject would be nowhere near as close to the real practice of running a country. Where possible however, schools already do try to give learners practical experience of a subject, particularly in vocational subjects, but will claim (perhaps rightly) that there are practical limitations on how much direct experience can be offered. Gee is I feel a little unfair on schools when he writes that 'one thing that designers of video games realize, but that many schools seem not to, is that learning for human beings is, in large part, a practice effect.' I think its fair to say that teachers do recognise the value of experiential learning, but might attest that it's neither possible nor necessary to offer learning from direct experience all the time. So does it matter that learning is not always experiential?

Gee argues it *does*, explaining that one of the key values of experiential learning is the scope for fully situated meaning. He suggests that a school's failure to provide experiential embodied learning makes it very hard for students to arrive at a meaningful understanding of a subject. 'Purely verbal meanings, meanings that a person has no ability to customize for specific situations and that offer the person no invitations for embodied actions in different situations, are useless (save for passing tests in school).' He uses this example: 'if you can't use "democracy" in a situation-specific way..., then the word does not make sense to you, no matter how well you can repeat a dictionary definition for the word.' This is fairly damning stuff, and applies to tertiary education as much as primary and secondary. If what Gee suggests is true, then learning something out of a personally relevant context literally makes no sense. As he mentions, ''one good way to make people look stupid is to ask them to learn and think in terms of words and abstractions that they cannot connect in any useful way to images or situations in their embodied experiences in the world. Unfortunately, we regulartly do this in schools... In school, words and meanings usually float free of material conditions and embodied actions. They take on only general, so-called decontextualized meanings. Their meanings just amount to spelling out a word or phrase in terms of still other words and phrases, themselves with only general meanings.' So words to explain more words to explain more words doesn't do much to help students achieve a meaningful understanding of a subject. But given the budget and logistical limitations that schools have, how can situated meaning and experiential learning be further fostered in lessons? One clear solution is to employ immersive VG simulations that will at least offer greater similarity to true experience than traditional 'chalk and talk' teaching.

I feel slightly bad at this stage for giving schools such a hard time, as I'm sure there are great inroads already being made in these areas. However one area I'm particularly concerned about is schools' universal drive towards knowledge acquisition and retention, over knowledge application. Plato recognised the futility of this tenet and is quoted as saying 'Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind'. This still holds true today. As Gee once again points out, '[students] are learning to store discrete facts and elements of knowledge, not deeper patterns... if people have a pattern in their mind, however, when they are faced with a new situation, they can reflect on how this pattern can be revised to cover the new situation.' So while knowledge accumulation can be easily evaluated, it is mainly the capacity of a student's memory that is being tested, rather than their ability to piece together items of knowledge in meaningful ways. Gee calls terms this learning to *use* knowledge effectively, *pattern thinking*, where 'you are, in reality learning how to situate the meaning of the word or concept... to fit different situations, including situations you may not have seen before. Lists require no such thinking and learning. Patterns are experiential theories... that we change with more experience, more probing and reprobing of the world.' So instead of focusing so intently on *how much* knowledge a student can accumulate, school evaluation systems would do well to look a little more at how well a student is able to make sense of the little knowledge they might have.

But to use Gee's reference to cultural models, the current view on evaluation asserts that "exams prove whether a student is clever and/or works hards". Another one might be that "exams show how much the student has learned and are good at categorizing students as better or worse". Yet another might be, "exams results show how successful the teacher has been at imparting the subject". But these are all dangerous assumptions to make. As someone who has 'played' and 'won' many examinations to get to this academic stage, I can be thankful that I've a good enough short term memory to get here. But on reflection, such short-term memorisation to pass exams barely constitutes understanding of a subject (just try asking me to write an essay on philosophy - my undergraduate subject - now. I fear it would be woefully inadequate.) So I feel that part of the change to accommodate all of Gee's theories about good learning must involve a change in the evaluative process a the end. This is I suppose already occurring, with a move towards more and more coursework, but things still have some way to go. [Some progressive and forward-thinking courses now require no examinations at all - their designers must truly be innovative and enlightened educational pioneers ;-)]

The final consideration of Gee's that I want to address here is his proposal that 'learning... is very much a matter of being situated in a material, social, and cultural world'. In other words, learning cannot and should not be isolated from other people. For as Gee points out, 'the patterns... in our heads, ... become meaningful ("right" or "wrong") only from the perspective of the workings of social groups that "enforce" certain patterns as ideal norms toward which everyone in that group should orient.' Thus we rely on other people's verification of our thoughts to indicate whether they are meaningful or not. For example, scientific pioneers such as Einstein and Newton only really become 'right', when enough experienced people validate their work. Without the assistance of a group, no thinker has any way to test wether their theories are veridical. But as Gee suggests, schools regularly segregate students from social corroboration. He writes that 'schools still isolate children form such powerful networks - for example, a network built around some branch of science- and test and assess them as isolated individuals, apart from other people and apart from tools and technologies that they could leverage to powerful ends.' So although steps toward co-operative and group learning *are* being made in schools [http://edtech.kennesaw.edu/intech/cooperativelearning.htm], this enforced individualism does little to make use of the potential for networked learning.

By networked learning here, I mean making use of the potential that a myriad of connected networks has for helping store and a disseminate knowledge and ideas. The internet has really made this opportunity for mass communication of ideas possible, and we as teachers and learners should make full use of it. Already it is being used for research purposes on a large scale, much like people might use a library, but currently its capacity to interconnect *people* is being underused in traditional learning environments (see Web 2.0 usage study). And as Gee suggests, the ability to make use of such networks will be an important skill for future generations. 'The power of distribution - of storing knowledge in other people, texts, tools, and technologies - is really in the way in which all these things are networked together. The really important knowledge is in the network... not in any one "node", but in the network as a whole. Does the network store lots of powerful knowledge? Does it ensure that this knowledge moves quickly and well to the parts of the system that need it now? Does it adapt to changed condtions by learning new things quickly and well? These are the most crucial knowledge questions we can ask in the modern world. They are hardly reflected at all in how we organize schooling and assessment in schooling'. So (without blowing our e-horn here) when you compare the highly adaptive network of knowledge, people and skills created for and by students of this course, with a traditional single desk classroom structure, one can clearly see the greater scope for knowledge distribution, peer learning and learning that adapts quickly to the requirements of the teacher, students and the subject area as a whole. Within such a networked learning framework, a competitive ethos where students compete against each other by hoarding knowledge, makes the network as a whole suffer. However, when students compete to become a more *active* 'node' in the system (such as during the Second Life tasks in this module), the individual and collective learning that takes place increases.

This direction towards networked learning is not just important from a learning perspective, but it will also be important for preparing students for a networked society and the so-called knowledge economy. It is estimated that by the year 2020 the greatest employer will be the *self*, for every 100 full-time jobs there will be 2000 part-time jobs, and peoples' working life will involve on average seven complete careers changes (Negroponte, 2000). So students must learn now how to manage multiple tasks and to constantly learn new skills to adapt to rapidly changing work environments. But in teaching only knowledge items, and not how to make best use of networks for storing and disseminating knowledge, schools are ill-preparing students for skills they'll need in the workplace. As Gee writes, 'if we want to know how good students are in science - or how good employees are in a modern knowledge-centered workplace - we should ask all of the following (and not just the first): What is in their heads? How well can they leverage knowledge in other people and in various tools and technologies (including their environment)? How are they positioned within a network that connects them in rich ways to other people and various tools and technologies?'. He then goes on to highlight that, 'schools tend to care only about what is inside students' heads ..., isolated from others, from tools and technologies, and from rich environments that help make them powerful nodes in networks. Good workplaces in our science- and technology-driven "new capitalism" don't play this game. Schools that do are, in my view, DOA in our current world - and kids who play videogames know it'. Thus schools could do better to encouraging uses of networking tools for learning, which at present, young people are already better than their teachers at using.

So part of helping schools to apply Gee's theories on literacy and learning will come from a greater integration of digital thinking and collaboration tools in the classroom. I don't mean to say that increased use of technology is the *only* way forward, but simply that it provides some of the answers. I was recently speaking to a young boy who had just been grounded by his parents, and had had his computer and his mobile phone taken away from him. He didn't like it - yet this is what schools do to kids all the time. As Gee mentions, 'in school we test people without their thinking tools... we want to know what they can do all by themselves. But in the modern world - and this is certainly true of many modern high-teck workplaces- it is equally or more important to know what people can think and do with others and with various tools and technologies.' While there is some argument for encouraging abilities such as handwriting and mental arithmetic without assistance, there are also plenty of reasons for testing just how well students get on *with* computerised tools. A carpenter may come with something of value with a pocket knife - but imagine what she could do with full access to her workshop. As David Shaffer, author of 'How video games help children learn', expains at a conference entitled 'Do video games help kids learn?', allowing computers to substitute some of our basic cognition helps us to do more. Like the invention of paper and writing before enabled humans to share and store knowledge, computers take care of basic (and complex) thinking processes so we can do other things. Networked learning and society doesn't necessarily entail that individuals then become insignificant nodes of a collective beast. Rather both the individual and the network become enriched by the value that each brings to the other.

So in conclusion, there is much that Gee has to say that highlights current inadequacies in mainstream education. But this not to say that current schools systems are shockingly bad, or that teachers are failing pupils on a massive scale. It is just that the potential for computer and network technology is making traditional whiteboard-and-pen teaching seem insufficient. And the good news is that younger generations (or digital natives) are already becoming highly proficient at making use of these new tools, partly because they recognise the value in their potential. As Gee writes about video games, which are really just one product of this digital revolution: 'They situate meaning in a multimodal space through embodied experiences to solve problems and reflect on the intricacies of the design on imagined worlds and the design of both real and imagined social relationships and identitiies in the modern world. ... And people get wildly entertained to boot.' If only regular lessons could start to get even close inspiring similar engagement. The earlier that teachers and schools start recognising and utilising the value of these digital thinking tools the better.

Bonus level - Welcome to Digitalia

I have had an idea brewing over the past month or so, which I had intended to submit as my game design assignment - but with the Digital Earth competition taking this over, have just decided to note down the bones of it here.

*Welcome to Digitalia*

The main aim of this website-based game is to teach teachers about digital functions that young people use all the time, giving them direct practice and ideas for educational use.

Digitalia is a fictitious country in which children are the main inhabitants (or 'natives'). The home page contains links to information about some of the customs (social networking, blogging, Web 2.0 functions, games, etc), artefacts (internet, iPod, computer, etc) and some of the learning preferences (teamwork, parallel processing, hypertext thinking, etc) of the Digitalia Natives (DNs).
It also has a Visa application process for Digitalia Immigrants (DIs) who want to access the country. As part of the application process, teachers (or whoever) mustcomplete a series of tasks/games/challenges, each relating to technology and Web 2.0 functions such as blogging, making podcasts, using Del.icio.us, Wikis, and Google Earth, etc., which relate to how they might be integrated into teaching practice.

The game is also designed to encourage some of the skills needed to flourish in the information age, such as:

Play — the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem-solving

Performance — the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery

Simulation — the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes

Appropriation — the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content

Multitasking — the ability to scan one’s environment and shift focus as needed to salient details

Distributed Cognition — the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities

Collective Intelligence — the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal

Judgment — the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources

Transmedia Navigation — the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities

Networking — the ability to search for,synthesize,and disseminate information

Negotiation — the ability to travel across diverse communities,discerning and respecting multiple perspectives and grasping and following alternative norms.

(taken from NML white paper - see below)

There is also scope for automated character interaction via email, video, audio, etc. However, unlike most popular ARGs which unfold in real-time (Perplex City for example), this is designed for individual players to go through at their own pace (like BBC's Jamie Kane), though some team-working with other applicants will be required.

Once the visa application process is complete, the older generation can become Digitalia Natives themselves!

[This game links in with some of the work carried out by the New Media Literacies project, which seeks to identify and inform teachers about the various skills required for the information age, as well as helping 'children to learn what they need to know to become fuller participants in the new media landscape. NML combines an interesting group of researchers and educators, including Henry Jenkins (Convergence Culture, 2006) and Ravi Purushotma, who have done much research into the educational potential of digital games, and ARGs especially.

They have recently produced the NML White Paper (2007), which goes into great detail about children's media use and the related skills they are developing in using internet-linked technologies - skills that are well-suited to a forthcoming knowledge economy, but which currently schools are failing to address. The paper coins the phrase *Participatory Culture* to describe the younger generation's practice of creating and sharing media content. The paper explains that 'a participatory culture is a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices. A participatory culture is also one in which members believe their contributions matter, and feel some degree of social connection with one another'. The point about informal mentorship is particularly interesting from an educational perspective, as this describes a peer-to-peer learning process that many teachers (the good ones at least) would love to see from their students. Other potential benefits of a participatory culture include 'the diversification of cultural expression, the development of skills valued in the modern workplace [see Gee, Hull and Lankshear 1996, 'The New Work Order'], and a more empowered conception of citizenship'. These are all benefits that teachers really ought to be capitalising on, and a game like Welcome to Digitalia might be a useful tool for helping them do this.]

Bonus Level - Games for appreciating other cultures

Gee's (2003) fascinating analysis of the *Under Ash* computer game, in which a Palestinian boy fights with Israeli soldiers and occupiers, got me thinking about the potential of VGs for giving players immersive experiences of cultures. While the notion of fighting against Israeli soldiers may be abhorrent to some (mainly Israelis), a relativist view would see it as no different to creating a game where an American soldier kills Arabs (of which Gee gives an extreme example of the game *Ethnic Cleansing*). What is interesting is that the very outcry for protection from kids playing games that go against the cultural standards, suggest the implication that playing such a game has the potential for significantly affecting a child's (or even and adult's) belief system. Which means that this tool is potentially powerful, but for both good and ill.

There is a fascinating documentary film *Judah and Mohammed*, which tracks a year in the life of two fifteen year old boys, one Israeli and one Palestinian. The film clearly highlights the entrenched cultural models that each child is growing up in, from the media they absorb, the conversations with their friends and family, and most alarmingly, the versions of history they are taught at school. In comparing their two lives, the viewer can't help but appreciate the deterministic fate that both boys are tied into, with each of their cultures so heavily imposed on them, and with the boys so determined to uphold their own cultural values. In spite of sharing similar interests and hobbies, the situation is such that the two boys could never be friends. A compromise between their two cultures seems even further away.

How could one of these diametrically opposed cultures ever reach a resolution? One way is to fight the other culture until one or the other gives in. A more diplomatic solution would be to try to understand where the other is coming from, recognise similar experiences and pastimes, and work to resolve differences with peaceful means. Media and literature have always been effective tools for supporting both war and peace. For war, propaganda through news reports, films etc is notoriously effective at imposing cultural values. Likewise for peace, objective and investigative news and films such as the one mentioned above, can highlight the misery of war, and the suffering it causes. With the rise of the internet and accessibility of digital media (see the Iraq war YouTube videos), information has become more readily available and this has in many respects been a force for peace. Governments are less able to hide behind disinformation (though some still do a good job of it), and activists are more able to communicate abuses of power. With this 'power of transparency' in mind, and following the success of his Shoah interviews, Stephen Spielberg's recent program involves giving video cameras to Israelis and Palestinians which will then be swapped later, as a way of helping the two cultures to appreciate their similarities, instead of focusing on their differences. IMHO this a very progressive and potentially beneficial approach to take (though of course this is just my cultural model speaking).

But as Gee mentions, 'interactive media like video games are a more powerful device than such passive media'. And this is where VGs could potentially come in use - as a means for appreciating the experiences of others, in an experiential, immersive environment, thus beginning to move people away from entrenched cultural models that demand the hating of another group of people, to a model that is more appreciative and less aggressive. As Gee writes, 'far more interactively than you could in any novel or movie, you would have experienced the 'other' from the inside'. So a game like Food Force, which I've mentioned in a previous posting, far from being an insensitive mockery of a serious issue like famine, is actually a very powerful way of encouraging 'players' to appreciate the experience of hungry people.

So in an ironic twist, the playing of violent video games might, if employed with ethical intentions, actually be a valuable force for peace. Gee suggests that 'if we are willing to take none but our own side, even in play, then violence would seem inevitable'. In homage to Kane's vision of a 'play ethic', VGs as diplomatic anti-propaganda will hopefully be something we see more of in the future.

Bonus level - Having a Second Life

From a personal point of view I find the topics of Second Life, virtual/fantasy worlds and avatars one of the most fascinating that we have touched on so far in this course - yet haven't really covered any of this in this blog so far. There are many features that interest me about Second Life, which probably require an entire semester to cover but hopefully I can at least lay down a few ideas about why I think SL is such a valuable, exciting and perhaps dangerous medium, not just for educators, but also for anyone who communicates with others online.

My initial impression of in-world 'talk' is that there is undoubtedly a significant shift in dynamics when three dimensional graphics are involved, as opposed to a simple SMS system. A 'person' can move around, approach people, fly, and visit things much like we do with our physical bodies. This is a quantum leap from a simple text discussion, like we experience in most online communication, and adds a far more intuitive (tho by no means perfect) dimension to communication. Studies have shown that a significant amount of f2f communication is non-verbal, ie we are very sensitive to body language, and will form assumptions, both consciously and unconsciously, by interpreting how other people occupy physical space. While communication in SL is not nearly as complex as in 'first life' (FL), and text is still the norm, it does appear to be somewhat richer than say email, SMS or other text-based networking sites. Avatars can make fairly complex gestures and actions which add a physical context to any written words - like taking the 'smileys' a great leap forward. Avatars can also make basic sounds, and as audio capabilities increase to the point that people are able to chat via microphones, the depth of communication is likely to increase (though I am not entirely sure how managable it might be having a number of people speaking at the same time - perhaps similar to a FL situation). However, as it stands now, having a 3D virtual space to occupy appears to make communication easier and more engaging than most other online means.[I would be interested to know whether people find it more engaging using SL than live video link-up?]

My next impression is that SL and other virtual worlds invite a whole host of interesting questions in terms of psychology of users, the economics and sociology of the virtual society and the anthropology of virtual cultures. Do these worlds simply offer mindless escapism, or can it be a mentally and emotionally rewarding experience? How is identity constructed? Is there a point where becoming immersed in a virtual world becomes psychologically and socially unsettling for people? And can it lead to deeper self-knowledge and learning? As a starting point, it might be worth considering plain fact that these virtual worlds are instinctively appealing to literally millions of users. Why is this so? In his article Living Digitally: Embodiment in Virtual Worlds (in The Social Life of Avatars, Schroeder ed. 2002), Taylor provides some interesting case studies on this subject, writing that 'some users have even come to identify their avatar as "more them" than their corporeal body'. This I find slightly unsettling, though as one avid SL fan blogged, 'our corporeal body is merely an avatar too. We are simply a vessel of meat and water that carries our tenuous consciousness from place to place'. It seems that existence as an avatar certainly enables people to express themselves, perhaps even in ways they cannot with their corporeal body. As Meg put it, one of Taylors subjects, "I usually change my av [avatar] to suit my moods, or to experiment with others' reactions to different appearances, or to see how different looks affect my own action s and comfort levels". Another subject wrote that her avatar 'absolves (herself) of some of the responsibilitiy of "acting human"'. Many users claim such similar experiences of liberation. One even goes so far as to say, ' "I see being an avatar as sort of a long-term self-exploration and even self-reconfiguration" '.

Gee (2003) relates a similar experience of self-understanding through fantasy game playing, writing that 'a good role-playing video game makes me think new thoughts about what I value and what I do not'. Developing an avatar or in-game alter-ego requires an assessment and recognition of values in out-of-game experience, whether or not the in-game character upholds these values. In Gee's view, participants 'must come to see this virtual identity as their own project in the making, an identity they take on that entails a certain trajectory through time defined by their own values, desires, choices, goals, and actions. This is what creates ownership.' He calls this the 'Self-Knowledge Principle', suggesting that in taking on and playing with identities, making choices that determine the history of a character, and taking risks where real-world consequences are lowered (Erickson's psychosocial moratorium), then 'learners learn not only about the domain but about themselves and their current and potential capacities'. It seems that in spite of limitations of movement, actions and auditory speech, people find that being in a virtual world offers significant freedom of expression and opportunity for in-game and out-of-game self development and identity creation.

Another interesting feature is that life as an avatar can be particularly helpful for people who can struggle to communicate and socialise effectively in f2f settings. There was an interesting study done in Nottingham with people with ASDs (Autism Spectrum Disorders), who found it easier to cope with communication in a virtual avatar-based world, for the following reasons: [1] The user has active control over their participation in the VE; [2] Interaction can take place without face-to-face communication which many people with autism find particularly confusing; [3] The social complexity of the situation and the non-verbal and verbal features of communication can be directly controlled and manipulated; and [4] Interaction takes place within an environment that is safe from potentially negative real world consequences. The research showed that the VE significantly helped people with ASDs in learning social skills, and provides an interesting example of how the unique features of a VE can be exploited for learning. (See www.virart.nott.ac.uk/asi for more info)

While I've only touched on some of the reasons why SL might be engaging for users, when you couple this potential with an increased facilitation of communication, it is clear that SL and other virtual worlds will provide online educators with an extremely valuable medium for teaching. The challenge over the coming years is how to manage and design effective courses, while continuing to explorie the many avenues of teaching and learning that might arise. Watching the NMC's (New Media Consortium) vision of what a virtual campus might look like is like watching a science fiction film. Only this future is likely to be months from now, as opposed to years.