The VWBPE MOOC (Massively Open Online Course) is a “afterglow space” or “work out room” for out- of-conference REFLECTION and “muscle strengthening.”
REFLECTION is a “best practice” IN EDUCATION. Get your teaching muscles buffed! J
Upon reflection, educators may find they experience some of the same frustrations that students face (not enough time to fully process important data). This is especially true after conferences where learning/ideas begin to form, but need time to develop into PRACTICE.
- Educators may be at different stages in their adoption of virtual world related pedagogy and activities.
.
- We may have different skill levels. We may resist change/adoption due to fear more than any other factor.
- VWBPE REPRESENTS A GROUP OF EDUCATORS WHO EMBRACE TECHNOLOGY AND ARE NOT AFRAID TO USE IT!
Zinsser notes that educators’ writing and other skills are not like recipes from a cookbook. How much more so in virtual world education!
How can reflection shed light on and clarify the process of virtual world best practices adoption?
For educators: This would be an easy job if there were no LEARNING involved!
- Can we do this better within virtual environments? For one thing, our Kinesthetic activities in classrooms AND online environmental options within learning management systems are limited: problematic because this group is the second largest group of learners.
- “Your body will remember this lesson” (or your avatar as you move it, LOL). Obviously there are benefits In World for visual and auditory learners as well.
- “We tend to assume that others learn in the same way that we do and are sometimes mystified when explanations or approaches that make perfect sense to us do not click with others. But not everyone absorbs and retains information in the same way, and different students respond to different …strategies” (Ryan and Zimmerelli 55)
True, effective education is not for the faint of heart. Reflection represents “healthy” adoption of best practices IN WORLD and “OUT.”
Join us to reflect purposefully within the MOOC!
MOOC 
March 17th, 2012 at 11:00 pm
As a publisher, I feel as if I’m standing in the shadows behind the teacher, who is actually face to face with students. I’ve been doing paper editions of literary classics, now converting some to ebooks.
But what is my mission to be accomplished? I have doubts about the traditional justification for literature. Currently, I’m operating on the premise that literature cannot be delivered as information (to be stored or tested), but as pieces to brush up against and compare with one’s own life experience or expectations so that there is the possibility of widening and deepening one’s own possibilities of life choices; in other words, to become a better, perhaps more worldly wise, person.
However, I see a leap from the intensely narrow skill of scanning words on a page to the exclusion of other sensory input, in order to creating an imaginary scenario in one’s mind — to the 3D rounded full experience of roleplaying difficult or ambiguous situations, coping often with the help of others to resolve obstacles. Which case results in a better person? Which is more relevant for later life experience?
And, for me, what should a “book” or story look like, and can it be publishable or portable?
March 18th, 2012 at 12:48 pm
[…] About MOOC as a reflective SPACE (vwmooc.wordpress.com) […]
March 25th, 2012 at 11:35 am
[…] About MOOC as a reflective SPACE (vwmooc.wordpress.com) […]