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Marti Pike

Teachers: Five Ways to Ease Back into School | Edutopia - 49 views

www.edutopia.org/...ease-back-school-elena-aguilar

shared by Marti Pike on 13 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • planning to see kids on my first day or two back to school
    • Marti Pike
      Marti Pike on 13 Aug 14
       
      Find a techy way to arrange this for my 5th grade teachers missing their students now in Middle School.
    • Marti Pike
      Marti Pike on 13 Aug 14
       
      Perhaps a lunchtime Skype!
  • If you know that on that first day you will return to your classroom you'll have a friend to help and talk with it'll be much easier.
    • Marti Pike
      Marti Pike on 13 Aug 14
       
      For the kids too.  See if parents can let you know who they are then make arrangements for them to pass notes in the halls and meet at lunch. 
  • fun back-to-school tasks
    • Marti Pike
      Marti Pike on 13 Aug 14
       
      Rebuild my webpage.  Create my first 3 Committee webpages so I'll feel like I'm ahead. Watch video clips and TedEd flip them. Marti Pike less than a minute ago Print, read, and mark up interesting articles that might be used in class or committees.  
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Our mindset is the key to how we experience our reality. If we can help our minds land on thoughts that are energizing, empowering, and affirming then we'll experience our return to school in an easier way.
    • Marti Pike
      Marti Pike on 13 Aug 14
       
      See also Carol Dweck's Mindset.  
  • The key is learning to shift these stories into interpretations that offer possibilities and empowerment
  • a rut story. A different interpretation could be
    • Marti Pike
      Marti Pike on 13 Aug 14
       
      This committee they've made me chair might turn out to be a powerful Think Tank on issuses that are important to me. I'm looking carefully for applications. 
  • Our thoughts create our realities
    • Marti Pike
      Marti Pike on 13 Aug 14
       
      "Nothing is but what thinking makes it so."  Shakespear
  • rejuvenated
    • Marti Pike
      Marti Pike on 13 Aug 14
       
      I spent time at the Family History Center. 
  • no more than three hours a day of work.
    • Marti Pike
      Marti Pike on 13 Aug 14
       
      It felt that way because I did the things I enjoyed about my job...and a few "must dos."
Nigel Coutts

Why we made homework 'Optional'? - 79 views

thelearnersway.net/...why-we-made-homework-optional

resources homework learning

shared by Nigel Coutts on 08 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Nigel Coutts on 08 Mar 15
     
    Of all the topics that can be discussed around Education, homework is possibly the one most likely to cause heated debate. It is either an essential component of learning, the foundation of positive behaviours for learning as an adult or a waste of time and energy that robs students of valuable time with family and friends. But can we homework something that benefits everyone?
Margaret FalerSweany

With Tech Taking Over in Schools, Worries Rise - NYTimes.com - 43 views

www.nytimes.com/...r-in-schools-worries-rise.html

privacy educational technology data mining

shared by Margaret FalerSweany on 16 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Technology companies are collecting a vast amount of data about students, touching every corner of their educational lives — with few controls on how those details are used.
  • growing parental concern that sensitive information about children — like data about learning disabilities, disciplinary problems or family trauma — might be disseminated and disclosed, potentially hampering college or career prospects.
  • implications beyond education.
  • Margaret FalerSweany on 16 Sep 14
     
    Discusses laws proposed in 16 states "prohibiting educational sites, apps and cloud services used by schools from selling or disclosing personal information about students from kindergarten through high school; from using the children's data to market to them; and from compiling dossiers on them."
anonymous

Mobile learning's major impact | eSchool News | eSchool News | 2 - 10 views

www.eschoolnews.com/...2

mobile learning stats

shared by anonymous on 10 Sep 14 - No Cached
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 10 Sep 14
       
      About HALF of all students in grades 3-5 have access to a tablet!
  • Eighty percent of students in grades 9-12, 65 percent of those in grades 6-8, 45 percent of grades 3-5 students
  • have access to a smartphone
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • A report released earlier this year confirms the trend, which seems now to be less of a trend and more of a permanent feature in schools.
  • the majority (77 percent) of families have at least one smartphone at home, and 46 percent have at least one tablet.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 10 Sep 14
       
      Devices are available and accessibility is at hand!
  • School and district administrators say that mobile technology, including tablets (41 percent), one-to-one programs (28 percent), mobile apps (22 percent), and BYOD (22 percent) have had a significant impact on teaching and learning,
  • South Korea trains teachers in digital learning and has broadband connectivity in all of its schools. Additionally, South Korea plans to phase out printed textbooks in the next two years. Turkey has plans to distribute 10 million tablets to students by 2015, and Thailand’s government has similar aims, with plans to supply 13 million mobile devices to students by 2015
dabennett7

Homage or Theft? A Closer Look at the 'Blurred Lines' Verdict - Law Blog - WSJ - 18 views

blogs.wsj.com/...k-at-the-blurred-lines-verdict

shared by dabennett7 on 29 Mar 15 - Cached
  • A federal jury in Los Angeles on Tuesday ordered singers Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams to pay about $7.4 million to the family of Marvin Gaye, after finding the duo’s 2013 hit song “Blurred Lines” copied parts of Mr. Gaye’s “Got to Give it Up.”
    • dabennett7
      dabennett7 on 29 Mar 15
       
      Attribution and intellectual property are a real concern for everyone. Remixing ideas is not a new practice, but in the 21st century it is easier than ever. How do we help prepare our students for careers in the 21st century?
  • only to compare “Blurred Lines” to the sheet music composition of “Got to Give it Up.” So the jury only heard a stripped down version of Mr. Gaye’s song, with his lyrics over a bass line and keyboards.
    • dabennett7
      dabennett7 on 29 Mar 15
       
      Attribution and intellectual property are a real concern for everyone. Remixing ideas is not a new practice, but in the 21st century it is easier than ever. How do we help prepare our students for careers in the 21st century?
  • substantial copying
    • dabennett7
      dabennett7 on 29 Mar 15
       
      From the arts to science, remixing and building upon the ideas of those who came before you is not new. In fact, it is a necessary practice that feeds the progress of our world.  Now musicians are haunted by this ghost of copyright. How can we develop and model practices for our students that celebrate the history of attribution and the growth of ideas? Can we elevate the student dreaded practices of citation and attribution to an act of reverence and respect?
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Use extreme caution when referencing your forebears in song (without first getting permission, of course)
    • dabennett7
      dabennett7 on 29 Mar 15
       
      From the arts to science, remixing and building upon the ideas of those who came before you is not new. In fact, it is a necessary practice that feeds the progress of our world.  Now musicians are haunted by this ghost of copyright. How can we develop and model practices for our students that celebrate the history of attribution and the growth of ideas? Can we elevate the student dreaded practices of citation and attribution to an act of reverence and respect?
  • It will cause people who want to want to evoke the past to perhaps refrain from doing so
    • dabennett7
      dabennett7 on 29 Mar 15
       
      From the arts to science, remixing and building upon the ideas of those who came before you is not new. In fact, it is a necessary practice that feeds the progress of our world.  Now musicians are haunted by this ghost of copyright. How can we develop and model practices for our students that celebrate the history of attribution and the growth of ideas? Can we elevate the student dreaded practices of citation and attribution to an act of reverence and respect?
  • a step backward
    • dabennett7
      dabennett7 on 29 Mar 15
       
      From the arts to science, remixing and building upon the ideas of those who came before you is not new. In fact, it is a necessary practice that feeds the progress of our world.  Now musicians are haunted by this ghost of copyright. How can we develop and model practices for our students that celebrate the history of attribution and the growth of ideas? Can we elevate the student dreaded practices of citation and attribution to an act of reverence and respect?
Roland Gesthuizen

AASA :: Feature: Quality and Equity in Finnish Schools (Sahlberg) - 1 views

www.aasa.org/content.aspx

equity Finland school education testing performance teachertraining

shared by Roland Gesthuizen on 03 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • teachers and administrators had designed a curriculum that suggests this school invests heavily in ensuring all students have access to effective instruction and individualized help
  • Finland invests 30 times more funds in the professional development of teachers and administrators than in evaluating the performance of students and schools, including testing. In testing-intensive education systems, this ratio is the opposite, with the majority of funding going to evaluation and standardized testing
  • Finnish schools use two strategies to enhance equity in schooling: (1) school-based curricula that give teachers and administrators the power to define values, purpose and overall educational goals for their school; and (2) emphasis on and access to professional development to help schools reach these goals.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • all children, regardless of family background or personal conditions, have a good school in their community. Because Finnish educators and policymakers believe schools can change the course of children’s lives, these schools must address the health, nutrition, well-being and happiness of all children in a systematic and equitable manner
  • research demonstrates that investing as early as possible in high-quality education for all students and directing additional resources toward the most disadvantaged students as early as possible produces the greatest positive effect on overall academic performance
  • Standardized testing that compares individuals to statistical averages, competition that leaves weaker students behind and merit-based pay for teachers jeopardize schools’ efforts to enhance equity. None of these factors exists in Finland
  • Roland Gesthuizen on 03 Sep 12
     
    "A Finnish education ambassador shares how his country's school system ensures all students have access to quality instruction, sans constant testing"
Benjamin Allen

Getting A Job Is Not The Purpose Of School - 41 views

www.teachthought.com/...ose-school-is-not-to-get-a-job

educational philosophy vocational training

shared by Benjamin Allen on 21 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • By calling it “school” (rather than learning), and “a job” (rather than work), we’re unwittingly creating a tone of drudgery and compliance that centers the institutions and their processes (grades, academic success and performance), and de-centers the end result (skills–>understanding–>creativity–>wisdom).
  • the vast majority of social ills that plague us–as a planet, not just in one country–stem from a surplus of bad work
  • And because we’ve all had jobs that sucked, it’s easy to shrug it off as a necessary evil in life, but it’s not. Work that demeans, dehumanizes, mechanizes, and depersonalizes individuals also, by design, demean, dehumanize, mechanize, and depersonalize society at large, and telling people to “be thankful they have a job” is an antiquated response that misses the point.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • The curse of social conditioning and norm-referencing here is also at play
  • Wendell Berry in a letter he wrote responding to the idea of a “work-life” balance
  • Only in the absence of any viable idea of vocation or good work can one make the distinction implied in such phrases as “less work, more life” or “work-life balance,” as if one commutes daily from life here to work there.
  • If such questions are not asked, then we have no way of seeing or proceeding beyond the assumptions of (the author) and his work-life experts: that all work is bad work; that all workers are unhappily and even helplessly dependent on employers; that work and life are irreconcilable; and that the only solution to bad work is to shorten the workweek and thus divide the badness among more people.”
  • no matter what sort of values a family promotes, the learning process, by design, changes a person
  • Doesn’t the quality of a culture rely in part on a deep, dynamic interaction between those who are adults now, and those who will be soon?” And in that intersection sits education.
  • Getting a job is not the purpose of school. Good work is a shared core of both education and social improvement. I’m not entirely sure what this means for learning on a practical level, but I keep having the idea of diverse learning forms embedded in authentic local communities as a kind of first response.
Andrew McCluskey

Occupy Your Brain - 111 views

schoolingtheworld.org/...occupy

education education reform education system schooling pedagogy indigenous indigenous pedagogies knowledge alternative education standardization state standards national standards global standards power authority intellect

shared by Andrew McCluskey on 11 Feb 13 - No Cached
Ant Heald liked it
  • One of the most profound changes that occurs when modern schooling is introduced into traditional societies around the world is a radical shift in the locus of power and control over learning from children, families, and communities to ever more centralized systems of authority.
  • Once learning is institutionalized under a central authority, both freedom for the individual and respect for the local are radically curtailed.  The child in a classroom generally finds herself in a situation where she may not move, speak, laugh, sing, eat, drink, read, think her own thoughts, or even  use the toilet without explicit permission from an authority figure.
  • In what should be considered a chilling development, there are murmurings of the idea of creating global standards for education – in other words, the creation of a single centralized authority dictating what every child on the planet must learn.
  • ...26 more annotations...
  • In “developed” societies, we are so accustomed to centralized control over learning that it has become functionally invisible to us, and most people accept it as natural, inevitable, and consistent with the principles of freedom and democracy.   We assume that this central authority, because it is associated with something that seems like an unequivocal good – “education” – must itself be fundamentally good, a sort of benevolent dictatorship of the intellect. 
  • We endorse strict legal codes which render this process compulsory, and in a truly Orwellian twist, many of us now view it as a fundamental human right to be legally compelled to learn what a higher authority tells us to learn.
  • And yet the idea of centrally-controlled education is as problematic as the idea of centrally-controlled media – and for exactly the same reasons.
  • The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was designed to protect all forms of communication, information-sharing, knowledge, opinion and belief – what the Supreme Court has termed “the sphere of intellect and spirit” – from government control.
  • by the mid-19th century, with Indians still to conquer and waves of immigrants to assimilate, the temptation to find a way to manage the minds of an increasingly diverse and independent-minded population became too great to resist, and the idea of the Common School was born.
  • We would keep our freedom of speech and press, but first we would all be well-schooled by those in power.
  • A deeply democratic idea — the free and equal education of every child — was wedded to a deeply anti-democratic idea — that this education would be controlled from the top down by state-appointed educrats.
  • The fundamental point of the Occupy Wall Street movement is that the apparatus of democratic government has been completely bought and paid for by a tiny number of grotesquely wealthy individuals, corporations, and lobbying groups.  Our votes no longer matter.  Our wishes no longer count.  Our power as citizens has been sold to the highest bidder.
  • Our kids are so drowned in disconnected information that it becomes quite random what they do and don’t remember, and they’re so overburdened with endless homework and tests that they have little time or energy to pay attention to what’s happening in the world around them.
  • If in ten years we can create Wikipedia out of thin air, what could we create if we trusted our children, our teachers, our parents, our neighbors, to generate community learning webs that are open, alive, and responsive to individual needs and aspirations?  What could we create if instead of trying to “scale up” every innovation into a monolithic bureaucracy we “scaled down” to allow local and individual control, freedom, experimentation, and diversity?
  • The most academically “gifted” students excel at obedience, instinctively shaping their thinking to the prescribed curriculum and unconsciously framing out of their awareness ideas that won’t earn the praise of their superiors.  Those who resist sitting still for this process are marginalized, labeled as less intelligent or even as mildly brain-damaged, and, increasingly, drugged into compliance.
  • the very root, the very essence, of any theory of democratic liberty is a basic trust in the fundamental intelligence of the ordinary person.   Democracy rests on the premise that the ordinary person — the waitress, the carpenter, the shopkeeper — is competent to make her own judgments about matters of domestic policy, international affairs, taxes, justice, peace, and war, and that the government must abide by the decisions of ordinary people, not vice versa.  Of course that’s not the way our system really works, and never has been.   But most of us recall at some deep level of our beings that any vision of a just world relies on this fundamental respect for the common sense of the ordinary human being.
  • This is what we spend our childhood in school unlearning. 
  • If before we reach the age of majority we must submit our brains for twelve years of evaluation and control by government experts, are we then truly free to exercise our vote according to the dictates of our own common sense and conscience?  Do we even know what our own common sense is anymore?
  • We live in a country where a serious candidate for the Presidency is unaware that China has nuclear weapons, where half the population does not understand that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11, where nobody pays attention as Congress dismantles the securities regulations that limit the power of the banks, where 45% of American high school students graduate without knowing that the First Amendment of the Constitution guarantees freedom of the press.   At what point do we begin to ask ourselves if we are trying to control quality in the wrong way?
  • Human beings, collaborating with one another in voluntary relationships, communicating and checking and counter-checking and elaborating and expanding on one another’s knowledge and intelligence, have created a collective public resource more vast and more alive than anything that has ever existed on the planet.
  • But this is not a paeon to technology; this is about what human intelligence is capable of when people are free to interact in open, horizontal, non-hierarchical networks of communication and collaboration.
  • Positive social change has occurred not through top-down, hierarchically controlled organizations, but through what the Berkana Institute calls “emergence,” where people begin networking and forming voluntary communities of practice. When the goal is to maximize the functioning of human intelligence, you need to activate the unique skills, talents, and knowledge bases of diverse individuals, not put everybody through a uniform mill to produce uniform results. 
  • You need a non-punitive structure that encourages collaboration rather than competition, risk-taking rather than mistake-avoidance, and innovation rather than repetition of known quantities.
  • if we really want to return power to the 99% in a lasting, stable, sustainable way, we need to begin the work of creating open, egalitarian, horizontal networks of learning in our communities.
  • They are taught to focus on competing with each other and gaming the system rather than on gaining a deep understanding of the way power flows through their world.
  • And what could we create, what ecological problems could we solve, what despair might we alleviate, if instead of imposing our rigid curriculum and the destructive economy it serves on the entire world, we embraced as part of our vast collective intelligence the wisdom and knowledge of the world’s thousands of sustainable indigenous cultures?
  • They knew this about their situation: nobody was on their side.  Certainly not the moneyed classes and the economic system, and not the government, either.  So if they were going to change anything, it had to come out of themselves.
  • As our climate heats up, as mountaintops are removed from Orissa to West Virginia, as the oceans fill with plastic and soils become too contaminated to grow food, as the economy crumbles and children go hungry and the 0.001% grows so concentrated, so powerful, so wealthy that democracy becomes impossible, it’s time to ask ourselves; who’s educating us?  To what end?  The Adivasis are occupying their forests and mountains as our children are occupying our cities and parks.  But they understand that the first thing they must take back is their common sense. 
  • They must occupy their brains.
  • Isn’t it time for us to do the same?
  • Andrew McCluskey on 11 Feb 13
     
    Carol Black, creator of the documentary, "Schooling the World" discusses the conflicting ideas of centralized control of education and standardization against the so-called freedom to think independently--"what the Supreme Court has termed 'the sphere of intellect and spirit" (Black, 2012). Root questions: "who's educating us? to what end?" (Black, 2012).
  • Andrew McCluskey on 11 Feb 13
     
    This is a must read. Carol Black echoes here many of the ideas of Paulo Freire, John Taylor Gatto and the like.
Martin Burrett

OurStory.com - Timelines - 8 views

www.ourstory.com

timeline history collaboration

shared by Martin Burrett on 24 Jul 09 - Cached
  • How it Works: Make your timeline about anything Collaborate with family and friends Share it with whomever you want Share your stories
  • Jay Swan on 24 Jul 09
     
    Capture stories, photos and videos on a collaborative timeline.
  • Martin Burrett on 26 Jul 11
     
    A good timeline creating site. Add text and pictures to your timeline and embed on your site or blog. Easy to collaborate and share with others. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/History
Steve Kelly

One Easy Thing You Can Do to Improve Your Relationship with Your Kid | Common Sense Media - 22 views

www.commonsensemedia.org/...our-relationship-with-your-kid

media media_literacy ML screentime boundries limits health digitalcitizenship digital citizenship CSM commonsensemedia

shared by Steve Kelly on 29 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • One Easy Thing You Can Do to Improve Your Relationship with Your Kid
  • If you own a smartphone, chances are, you love it. You take pictures of your kids, stay in touch with friends and family, keep up with the news, and text your spouse reminders to pick up milk.
  • It's 2016, and that's totally normal.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • But despite your love for your phone, you probably also feel guilty about using it around your kids too much.
  • It's all about taking control over your phone instead of letting it control you. In a nutshell: Put down your phone.
  • Set Boundaries
  • Be Mindful
  • Be a Role Model
  • If you limit your extracurricular phone time, you'll be better able to expect the same from your kids.
Warren Apel

How To Make The Most Of Your 10 Minutes With The Teacher - 30 views

www.npr.org/...ur-10-minutes-with-the-teacher

npr parent-teacher conference research

shared by Warren Apel on 02 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Warren Apel on 02 Nov 15
     
    So you finally get the chance to meet one-on-one with your child's teacher - now what? Like a good Scout, be prepared: Educators agree that doing your homework before a parent-teacher conference can make a big difference. The Harvard Family Research Project's Tip Sheet for Parents suggests reviewing your child's work, grades and past teacher feedback.
solisg58

Encourage Students to Use AAC by Supporting Communication Partners: Help embed AAC use ... - 2 views

leader.pubs.asha.org/...leader.scm.24042019.36

Using an AAC device

shared by solisg58 on 04 Jun 19 - No Cached
  • speech-language pathologists hope to accomplish with augmentative and alternative communication (AAC)
  • In her inclusive kindergarten classroom, she tried an AAC app with a basic grid display on a mobile tablet and made measurable progress with it. However, Lily’s team felt the AAC app lacked depth, so they switched her to a more advanced version
  • this research-supported approach provides the foundation for several training programs
mgranger

Media and Technology Resources for Educators | Common Sense Media - 15 views

www.commonsensemedia.org/educators

InternetSafety digitalcitizenship cyberbullying Internet_safety cipa

shared by mgranger on 01 Apr 11 - Cached
  • gital driver's license
  • with complete confidence. Our online trainings show you how. More about parent professional development Research Credentials Check out our DNA. Our programs are built on respected digital ethics research. More about parent research credentials Turn wired students into great digital citizens Get all the tools you need with our FREE Digital Literacy and Citizenship Curriculum and Parent Media Education Program. The relevant, ready-to-use instruction helps you guide students to make safe, smart, and ethical decisions in the digital world where they live, study and play. Every day, your students are tested with each post, search, chat, text message, file download, and profile update. Will they connect with like minds or spill ... read more Get started Browse our classroom lessons and parent education resources by grade level or topical area. select gradeK123456789101112 select topicCell phones & digital communicationCyberbullying & online relationshipsDigital creation, plagiarism & piracyFamily media managementGaming & online worldsInternet safetyMedia's influence on kidsOnline privacy and securityOnline research & learningSocial networking & communityViolence in media Get Started Educator Updates Common Sense announces di gital driver's license Common Sense Media announced plans to create a digital driver’s license, an interactive online game that will teach kids the basics of how to be safe and responsible in a digital world. Read more about our plans for interactive curriculum modules
  • Marc Patton on 01 Apr 11
     
    Digital citizenship curriculum targets 4th, 5th graders
  • Susan Crowley on 03 Jul 11
     
    Lesson plans, articles, and tools to teach Digital Citizenship and Internet Safety
  • mgranger on 23 Aug 12
     
    Internet safety FREE curriculum and implementation guides. The site has admin, teacher, and student resources. Digital Passport is one of the Internet Safety programs available.
Adrienne Michetti

Where Everybody Knows Your (Screen) Name: Online Games as "Third Places" - 52 views

jcmc.indiana.edu/...steinkuehler.html

games gaming social

shared by Adrienne Michetti on 19 Nov 09 - Cached
    • Adrienne Michetti
      Adrienne Michetti on 19 Nov 09
       
      This is, I think, why I'm more keen on today's social networks than I am on games -- games do not provide deep emotional support.
  • "bowling alone" hypothesis (Putnam, 2000), which suggests that media are displacing crucial civic and social institutions
    • Adrienne Michetti
      Adrienne Michetti on 19 Nov 09
       
      Putnam - need to check this article. Interesting; not sure I agree.
  • ...80 more annotations...
  • According to Putnam, time spent with relatively passive and disengaging media has come at the expense of time spent on vital community-building activities.
  • The evidence to date is mixed
  • A core problem on both sides of the debate is an underlying assumption that all Internet use is more or less equivalent
    • Adrienne Michetti
      Adrienne Michetti on 19 Nov 09
       
      SO True
  • It would be more plausible and empirically rigorous, then, to consider how specific forms of Internet activity impact civic and social engagement as a result of their particular underlying social architectures
  • combining conclusions from two different lines of MMO research conducted from two different perspectives—one from a media effects approach, the other from a sociocultural perspective on cognition and learning.
  • By providing spaces for social interaction and relationships beyond the workplace and home, MMOs have the capacity to function as one form of a new "third place" for informal sociability much like the pubs, coffee shops, and other hangouts of old.
  • loosely structured by open-ended narratives
  • They are known for their peculiar combination of designed "escapist fantasy" and emergent "social realism"
  • from two research projects: one an examination of the media effects of MMOs, the other an ethnographic study of cognition and culture in such contexts.
  • the conclusions of both studies were remarkably aligned.
  • the assumption that the most fruitful advances are sometimes made when congruent findings are discovered through disparate means
    • Adrienne Michetti
      Adrienne Michetti on 19 Nov 09
       
      Love this quote.
  • demonstrate the "effects" of game play vs. no game play.
  • first project was a traditional effects study
  • second project, a qualitative study of cognition and learning in MMOs (
  • ethnography
  • sociocultural perspective
  • as a way to tease out what happens in the virtual setting of the game and how the people involved consider their own activities, the activities of others, and the contexts in which those activities takes place
  • a reasonable level of generalizability (random assignment to condition in the first study) and contextualization (ethnographic description of existing in-game social networks and practices in the second)
    • Adrienne Michetti
      Adrienne Michetti on 19 Nov 09
       
      but I wonder why he chose these games -- this is not specified. Only their success in US and abroad?
  • brick-and-mortar "third places" in America where individuals can gather to socialize informally beyond the workplace and home
  • the exaggerated self-consciousness of individuals.
  • In what ways might MMOs function as new third places for informal sociability?
  • virtual environments have the potential to function as new (albeit digitally mediated) third places similar to pubs, coffee shops, and other hangouts.
  • in this section we analyze the structural form of MMOs that warrants this "third place" assertion.
  • eight defining characteristics of third places
  • there is no default obligation
  • To oblige any one person to play requires that explicit agreements be entered into by parties
  • the default assumption is that no one person is compelled to participate legally, financially, or otherwise.
  • Unless one transforms the virtual world of the game into a workplace (e.g., by taking on gainful employment as a virtual currency "farmer" for example, Dibbell, 2006; Steinkuehler, 2006a) or enters into such agreement, no one person is obligated to log in
    • Adrienne Michetti
      Adrienne Michetti on 19 Nov 09
       
      and this is why, in my opinion, you will never see games in school. The game cannot be the Third Place because school is a Second Place.
  • Yee's (2006) interviews also reveal that individuals who game with romantic partners or family find that such joint engagement in the "other world" of MMOs allows them to redefine the nature and boundaries of their offline relationships, often in more equitable terms than what may be possible in day-to-day offline life
  • the relationships that play-partners have with one another offline are often "leveled" within the online world
  • an individual's rank and status in the home, workplace, or society are of no importance
  • appeal to people in part because they represent meritocracies otherwise unavailable in a world often filled with unfairness
  • conversation plays an analogous role
  • "In all such systems, linguistic interactions have been primary: users exchange messages that cement the social bonds between them, messages that reflect shared history and understandings (or misunderstandings) about the always evolving local norms for these interactions" (p. 22).
  • third places must also be easy to access
  • such that "one may go alone at almost any time of the day or evening with assurance that acquaintances will be there"
  • accessible directly from one's home, making them even more accommodating to individual schedules and preferences
  • barriers to initial access.
  • "What attracts a regular visitor to a third place is supplied not by management but by the fellow customer,"
  • "It is the regulars who give the place its character and who assure that on any given visit some of the gang will be there"
  • affective sense
  • As one informant satirically commented in an interview, "You go for the experience [points], you stay for the enlightening conversation.
  • engendering a sense of reliable mentorship and community stability.
  • Oldenburg argues that third places are characteristically homely, their d�cor defying tidiness and pretension whenever possible. MMOs do not fit this criterion in any literal sense
  • In neither of our investigations did the degree of formality exhibited by players within the game bear any relation to the degree of visual ornamentation of the players' immediate vicinity.
  • Thus, while the visual form of MMO environments does not fit Oldenburg's (1999) criterion of "low profile," the social function of those environments does.
  • Oldenburg (1999) argues that seriousness is anathema to a vibrant third place; instead, frivolity, verbal word play, and wit are essential.
  • The playful nature of MMOs is perhaps most apparent in what happens when individuals do bring gravity to the game.
  • the home-like quality of third places in rooting people
  • Participation becomes a regular part of daily life for players and, among regular gamemates such as guild members, exceptional absences (i.e., prolonged or unforeseen ones) are queried within the game or outside i
  • create an atmosphere of mutual caring that, while avoiding entangling obligations per se, creates a sense of rootedness to the extent that regularities exist, irregularities are duly noted, and, when concerning the welfare of any one regular, checked into
  • Are virtual communities really communities, or is physical proximity necessary?
  • Anderson (1991), who suggests that geographic proximity itself is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for the emergence and preservation of "community."
  • Social capital (Coleman, 1988) works analogously to financial capital; it can be acquired and spent, but for social and personal gains rather than financial
  • operates cyclically within social networks because of their associated norms of reciprocity
  • bridging social capital is inclusive.
  • This form of social capital is marked by tentative relationships, yet what they lack in depth, they make up for in breadth.
  • On the one hand, bridging social capital provides little in the way of emotional support; on the other hand, such relationships can broaden social horizons or worldviews, providing access to information and new resources.
  • bonding social capital is exclusive.
  • social superglue.
  • it can also result in insularity.
  • shows that bridging and bonding social capital are tied to different social contexts, given the network of relationships they enable.
  • Virtual worlds appear to function best as bridging mechanisms rather than as bonding ones, although they do not entirely preclude social ties of the latter type.
  • One could argue that, if the benchmark for bonding social capital is the ability to acquire emotional, practical, or substantive support, then MMOs are not well set up for the task:
  • While deep affective relationships among players are possible, they are less likely to generate the same range of bonding benefits as real-world relationships because of players' geographic dispersion and the nature of third places themselves.
  • Despite differences in theoretical grounding and methodologies, our conclusions were remarkably similar across complementary macro- and micro-levels.
  • It is worth noting, however, that as gamers become more involved in long-term social networks such as guilds and their activities become more "hardcore" (e.g., marked by participation in large-scale collaborative problem-solving endeavors such as "raids" into difficult territories or castle sieges), the function of MMOs as "third places" begins to wane.
  • It may be, then, that the structure and function of MMOs as third places is one part of the "life cycle" for some gamers in a given title.
  • In such cases, MMOs appear to enable a different kind of sociability, one ostensibly recognizable as a "community" nonetheless.
  • However, our research findings indicate that this conclusion is uninformed. To argue that MMO game play is isolated and passive media consumption in place of informal social engagement is to ignore the nature of what participants actually do behind the computer screen
  • Perhaps it is not that contemporary media use has led to a decline in civic and social engagement, but rather that a decline in civic and social engagement has led to retribalization through contemporary media (McLuhan, 1964).
  • Such a view, however, ignores important nuances of what "community" means by pronouncing a given social group/place as either wholly "good" or "bad" without first specifying which functions the online community ought to fulfill.
  • Moreover, despite the semantics of the term, "weak" ties have been shown to be vital in communities, relationships, and opportunities.
  • is to what extent such environments shift the existing balance between bridging and bonding
  • In light of Putnam's evidence of the decline of crucial civic and social institutions, it may well be that the classification "lacking bridging social capital" best characterizes the everyday American citizen. T
  • Without bridging relationships, individuals remain sheltered from alternative viewpoints and cultures and largely ignorant of opportunities and information beyond their own closely bound social network.
  • it seems ironic that, now of all times, we would ignore one possible solution to our increasingly vexed relationship with diversity.
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