NMC Campus Observer

Teaching and learning on the Teen Grid

Corwin Carillon (aka Nick Noakes) : May 2, 2007 02:24am

In the Teachers Buzz meeting last Monday, it turned out that quite a number of the 35 avatars in attendance are teaching or mentoring on the teen grid. The three presenters, KJ, Clare and Victoria are conducting their research at least in part on the teen grid, so this is perhaps not so surprising. [Please see the links to their blogs in the earlier post here.]

During the discussion, which touched on the immersive nature of students and teachers experiences in Second Life, Maggie Marat of Ramapo Islands gave us a peak into a fascinating learning activity around identity that they are having students engage in. The teens, who are between 13-17, are asked to produce different avatars and reflect on these. In Maggie’ own words:

They are building five different avatars during the scope of the project. The first is “self” - as close to their real life persona as possible. Then there is the group discussion and reactions and reflections. Next they create the “beautiful” avatar - according to popular media standards and we show them a great movie from the Dove Company about how magazines and billboards are altered for the Perfect Models we see. Then they CHANGE GENDER and do it again. Then we have them revisit their own avatar and compare the first to the last and reflect. We are looking to see if the kids choose to be more “real” or still go for the media version of beautiful, since anyone can be beautiful in SL - this brings up real philosophical questions.

In response to this activity description, Clark Abismo asked if students on the teen grid were like a lot of people on the adult grid in tending to have their avatar to be more beautiful than they really are in RL. That is, when they personalized their avatars, what kind of person they loved to be. He expressed a concern about a danger of these teens changing their values about their own bodies. Lyr Lobo, a mentor on Ramapo, mentioned that in fact a lot of the students in creating their first avatar do not go for the optimal/most beautiful looks and many are very creative and some avatars are extremely unusual!

Whether you’re on the teen grid or on the adult grid, the issue of how and in what ways our identity is impacted by working, learning and playing in these virtual worlds is definitely a key one for educators interested in increasing engagement in learning! Look out for presentations on these themes at the upcoming New Media Consortium summer conference in Indianapolis from 4-9 Jun and it future Teachers Buzz sessions!

Our thanks to KJ, Clare and Victoria for a stimulating discussion. Be sure to check out the rest of the lively discussion transcript on the wiki and look out for the next Buzz on May 14. See you all then!

Story filed under: Teacher's Buzz, Teaching and Learning

See all stories by Corwin Carillon (aka Nick Noakes)