bifurcated brain
Am sitting in on my advisor’s seminar on virtual world’s right now, back at the old hitching post, and thinking about how split I am between two worlds in some ways. I really ended up doing a dual doctorate — in literacy, but also in technology and social theory and while there is significant overlap and I work mostly in the generative space where they intersect, I have gone back to a world of much literacy and it is good to remember the technology world too. These student projects on Second Life are quite good, and they come at learning from the perspective of wanting to integrate an existing technology tool first, instead of beginning with learning or literacy goals. Yet virtual worlds are much the stuff of fun and gaming, and to hook to some of the rich thinking and writing Gus has been doing — does it make sense to co-opt these spaces for learning? In another sense, would I ever try to use myspace for learning in a classroom (other than as an example of the kinds of new literacies students experience and find valuable)?