Infrastructures in Virtual Learning

New Media Consortium, June 13, 2008Holly WillisInstitute for Multimedia LiteracyUniversity of Southern California

Overview

1) introduction to the presentation

2) conceptual framework

3) getting real: IML island development

- classroom extensions

- research

- learning objects

- projects

4) conclusion(s)

5) discussion

“Will there by condominiums in data space?”– Bill Viola, 1980

Case Western Reserve University

http://blog.case.edu/

Princeton Universityhttp://www.3pointd.com

Remediation? (Jay David Bolter, Richard Grusin)

Domesticating?

Question:As we reckon with the changes affecting learners and as we rethink teaching practices,what can the design of virtual spaces do toenhance that rethinking?

Remediation? (Jay David Bolter, Richard Grusin)

Domesticating?

Question:As we reckon with the changes affecting learners and as we rethink teaching practices,what can the design of virtual spaces do toenhance that rethinking?

“Residents become engines of creation themselves, working as the producers of content in world, designing and reshaping the space around their own ideas and interests.”Cory Ondrejka, “Education Unleashed: Participatory Culture and Innovation in Second Life.”

Background – Institute for Multimedia Literacy

School of Cinematic Arts

– Honors in Multimedia Scholarship

– Multimedia in the Core

Honors in Multimedia Scholarship

IML BackchannelIML Backchannel

IML Backchannel Text

IML Honors blog

Learning from Katrina vlog (Fall 2005)

Honors in Multimedia Scholarship | Podcasting

Social Bookmarking

del.icio.us / RSS

Flickr

Facebook

Multimedia in the Core

Vectors Journal of Culture and Technology

Starting Points – questions about new literacies, new learning and new teaching

– two programs dedicated to scholarly multimedia, plus a journal

– faculty members with diverse interestsand abilities

– desire to push the boundaries of pedagogywithin the needs and abilities of our programs

Other issues:

- SL doesn’t exist in a vacuum

- coextensive with high information density learning environments

- one among many commercial social software applications we use

- one among many possible MUVE platforms

- lacks appeal for gamers

Part Two: Conceptual Framework

– “The Infrastructure of Experience and theExperience of Infrastructure: Meaning andStructure in Everyday Encounters With Space,”Genevieve Bell and Paul Dourish

– “From Interaction to Participation: Configuring Space Through Embodied Interaction,” Amanda Williams, Eric Kabisch, Paul Dourish

Part Two: Conceptual Framework

Infrastructures:– space is never merely a container for actions but instead “a setting within which we act.”

-infrastructures describe how we encounter spaces, not just as walls and streets, but through information, practices of use and social interaction.

-infrastructures are also “crystallizations of institutional relations” and they reflect power and control

Part Two: Conceptual Framework

Infrastructures:– frame our experience of the world

– operate invisibly until breakdown

– are “relational”

– are embedded into social structures, but are part of that structuring mechanism

“As a number of commentators have observed, despite the revolutionary and transformational rhetorics surrounding the development of networked information infrastructures, in practice they are as likely to reinforce as to destabilize existing institutional arrangements,” (Bell and Dourish, 3).

Part Two: Conceptual Framework

Trialectics:– Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 1971 (translated in 1991)

– Ed Soja, Thirdspace

– Kevin Leander, “Reading the Spatial Histories of Positioning,” in Spatializing Literacy Research and Practices, 2008

Part Two: Conceptual Framework

Trialectics:

– perceived space

– conceived space

– imagined space

- also: sociality, historicality and spatiality…

Part Two: Conceptual Framework

Artists and Architects

Brad Kligerman’s Ars Virtua Project, 2006

“Avatars trace a path through the exhibition space, composing content in their wake.”

http://transition.turbulence.org/AVAIR/

Metaverse Territories, Blog by Brad Kligerman

– attempt to disrupt connections between real world architecturalpractices and those in the virtual realm

– “constuct a platform from which inworld physical and social patterns can generate the symobology of immaterial architecture”

– build foundation for new media forms emerging from collective intelligence as they become manifest in 3-D space

http://metaverseterritories.com

“The concept of Reflexive Architecture is only one of may branches of opportunity for a new language of virtual architecture to emerge, fromfrom the habit of pure physicalreplication.” – Jon Brouchaud

Jon Brouchaud, “carvable architecture”

http://clearnightsky.com/taxonomy/term/21

“The result is we get a continuallymoving and evolving liquid/crystallizedarchitectural body whose form isderived from avatar movement andinhabitation.” – Michael Ditullio

Michael Ditullio, “emergent architecture”

http://interactivearchitectures.blogspot.com

Michael Ditullio, “responsive architecture”

Michael Ditullio, “responsive architecture”

Kimio Itozaki + Hidenori WatanaveArchidemo: Architecture in Metaverse

http://archidemo.blogspot.com

“contents oriented space”Kimio Itozaki + Hidenori WatanaveArchidemo: Architecture in Metaverse

http://archidemo.blogspot.com

“We have created a social vocabularyfor the space that lets people communicate based not just on text chatbut by the movement of their avatar around the space.” – Drew Harry

Drew Harry’s meeting space: where your avatar standsdenotes your position relative to issues in the discussion.

“Unreal Meetings,” Erica Naone, Technology Review, July 11, 2007

Drew Harry’s meeting space: a cylinder above your avatarindicates when you have held a position for a long time.

Part Three: Let’s Get Real: August 2007

– abstract ideas only got us so far

– shift from thinking to doing

- what do we need for specific classes?

-the teamBjorn Littlefield-PalmerBrandi Wilcox

Bjorn’s design blog: http://imlslislanddesign.blogspot.com

Holodeck reconfigurable classroom

The Immersive Syllabus

The Tufte Tunnel Prototype

open source learning objects

building tutorial

CTCS 505: Survey of Interactive Media

CTCS 505: Survey of Interactive Media (Fall 2007)

CTCS 505: Survey of Interactive Media (Fall 2007)

CTCS 505: Survey of Interactive Media (Fall 2007)

CTCS 505: Survey of Interactive Media (Fall 2007)

Informal classrooms

Student Projects: Matt Lee, Rivenscryr, 2008

Matt Lee, Rivenscryr, 2008

Matt Lee, Rivenscryr, 2008

Matt Lee, Rivenscryr, 2008

Matt Lee, Rivenscryr, 2008

Matt Lee, Rivenscryr, 2008

Matt Lee, Rivenscryr, 2008

Matt Lee, Rivenscryr, 2008

Matt Lee, Rivenscryr, 2008

Cameron Parkins, Cultural Imperialism, 2008

Cameron Parkins, Cultural Imperialism, 2008

Honors Program Thesis Showcase

Honors Program Thesis Showcase

Faculty Showcase: Virtual Window Interactive

Anne Friedberg | Virtual Window Interactive

Anne Friedberg | Virtual Window Interactive

SL simulcast of 24/7 A DIY Video Summit (Spring 2008)

Yochai Benkler SL simulcast at 24/7 DIY Video Summit

Gone Gitmo: Nonny de la Peña and Peggy Weil

Nonny de la Peña

Gone Gitmo Constitution Day Event with Seton Hall Law School (Fall 2007)

Gone Gitmo Constitution Day Event with Seton Hall Law School (Fall 2007)

Gone Gitmo Constitution Day Event with Seton Hall Law School (Fall 2007)

Second Life: Gone Gitmo | 2007

IML Island: hybridity and interoperability

Second Life: Information graphics

Part Four: ConclusionsWhat Worked for Us

- classroom substitute -> classroom supplement

- extensions of the physical classroom

- presentation space for student and faculty research

- project development and display space

- synchronous event space

- iterative design process

Part Four: Conclusions

- abstractions versus the concrete- new literacies- allow for the unexpected

Part Five: Discussion

- other models?- other conceptual notions?– exemplary spaces? practices?

Works CitedGenevieve Bell and Paul Dourish, “The Infrastructure of Experience and the Experience of Infrastructure: Meaning and Structure in Everyday Encounters With Space.”

Jon Brouchoud, “Toward a New Virtual Architecture” <http://archsl.wordpres.com/2007/07/12/toward-a-new-virtual-architecture>

Drew Harry, Socialable Media Group, MIT, < http://web.media.mit.edu/~dharry >

Brad Kligerman, “Building With (Im)materials: When Actual Materiality Surpasses Even Real Virtuality,” Metaverse Territories blog.

Kevin Leander, “Reading the Spatial Histories of Positioning,” in Spatializing Literacy Research and Practices (New York: Peter Lang, 2008).

Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (London: Blackwell, 1991).

Erica Naone, “Unreal Meetings,” Technology Review, July 11, 2007. <http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/19035/?a=f>

Cory Ondrejka, “Education Unleashed: Participatory Culture, Education and Innovation in Second Life,” in The Ecology of Games: Youth, Games and Learning, Katie Salen, ed. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008).

Ed Soja, Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places (London: Wiley Blackwell, 1996).

Bill Viola, “Will There Be Condominiums in Data Space?” in Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality (NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001).

Amanda Williams, Eric Kabisch, Paul Dourish, “From Interaction to Participation: Configuring Space Through Embodied Interaction.”

Works Cited

Images:

Brad Kligerman, http://transition.turbulence.org/AVAIR

Princeton University Second Life Campus: < http://www.3pointd.com >

Case Western Reserve Campus: < http://blog.case.edu/ >

Spaces:

Gallery of Reflexive Architecture, SL space, Jon Brouchoud

NikkeiBP+NikkeiBP sim, Archidemo

IML Island: 103 / 189 / 52