NMC Campus Observer

Monday Teacher Buzz: Plork

CDB Barkley (aka Alan Levine) : Sep 11, 2007 11:10am

Here’s a relatively early heads up for the next NMC Campus Teacher’s Buzz session, a discussion session led my Aurili Oh, (aka Suzanne Aurilio) of San Diego State University. The topic is PLORK: Adults at play and work: A Collective Reflection.

I had to do a bit of deeper than one click googling to get at the concept of Plork - not the PLOrk Princeton Laptop Orchestra (that that sounds interesting). And on the Urban Dictionary, I was fairly sure it was not the first two entries, but the third:

plork
The act of playing and working at the same time.

which is all so apropo for Second Life. So Aurili (and I met her recently in SL, her name is pronounced “Oh Really”, clever), has described what looks like a great topic for us:

Whether you’re a newbie or a seasoned resident, you’ve probably noticed that Second Life is a bundle of plork. It’s fun, satisfying, frustrating, intense. It’s a lot of thinking and feeling rolled up into flow (Csiksczentmihalyi, 1991) experiences for many of us. I’d like to lead a lively discussion on our experiences and observations of others’ experiences learning in and about Second Life. How do people in Second Life come to have the skills and knowledge they have? How do we/they you learn? What kind of learners are successful in Second Life? What kinds of learning seem to work best? What kinds don’t? I work with faculty and instructional staff on teaching and learning issues. Our program, pICT – People, Information and Communication Technologies, recently launched a Second Life Initiative, The pICTsl Farm. We’re introducing faculty and instructional staff to SL, providing consulting and support for them to explore and experiment.

So let’s gather around the Teachers Buzz fire pit and talk about this notion of play and work (and learning). This Session is scheduled for September 17 6:00pm SLT/PDT (check for local time). We meet at Boracy (192,79,28).

Bring on the plork!

Story filed under: Teacher's Buzz, What's Happening

See all stories by CDB Barkley (aka Alan Levine)