[Yr7-10it] Twittering

[Costello, Rob R]

> Its worth looking at how successful applications like World of
Warcraft,
> Myspace and Facebook have facilitated the building of virtual
communities.
> It seems they use social standing and social connectedness as their
basic
> currency.

Scratch is another interesting example. The web forum and project
sharing are a big part of its success 

No doubt there are other interesting introductory programming
environments with visual interface  ....but the web2 / online community
aspect of scratch seems to have made a big difference 

The fact that you can observe, download someone elses project, see how
it works, modify, upload your own ....has no doubt helped build a sense
of learning beyond the F1 key  (the user guides are good there though...
I needed them to get started) 

I suspect there always need to be expert advice at some level...my gut
feeling is a lot of kids prefer some face to face examples to get
started on scratch  ...and yet my 7 year old doesn't need much help, if
any, to master a complex computer game  

(we are genuinely collaborating on problem solving when we play a wii
adventure game together - can't be many forums that would put us at the
same level ...help is inbuilt into the game itself) 




> -----Original Message-----
> From: yr7-10it-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:yr7-10it-
> bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of forster at ozonline.com.au
> Sent: Saturday, 27 June 2009 11:50 AM
> To: yr7-10it at edulists.com.au
> Subject: Re: Re: [Yr7-10it] Twittering
> 
> Paul
> 
> > > They don't even think to look up help (F1 is unheard of!).
> >
> > I'm actually not sure that this is saying: are they particularly
> > rudimentary computer users, or are they un-motivated learners ... or
is
> > there something else happening?
> 
> I think its something else. F1 help does not present the information
in a
> way that is appropriate for their learning needs. You could put
> instructions about how to make rain on F1 and it would go unnoticed
for
> years, but show one student in a class how to make rain and in 10
minutes,
> half of the class will have rain, by sneakernet and email.
> 
> > IRC would
> > require installation of one relatively simple, free, piece of
software;
> > again, no cost/waste issue.
> 
> IRC doesn't even need software, there are web based clients like
Mibbit.
> But its not worth worrying too much about IRC, kids have demonstrated
that
> they use SMS, forums, Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, MSN instant messenger
etc
> when it suits their needs.
> 
> I suspect its more about creating a community than the technology
itself.
> Kids prefer to learn socially rather than by their own independant
> research. If kids were already engaged with a virtual community, you
would
> see the "sneakernet" type learning happen spontaneously.
> 
> I suspect that there would be a high overhead in building a strong
virtual
> community in terms of the childish and inappropriate chat you would
have
> to allow in order to build a community. Bullying issues too.
> 
> Its worth looking at how successful applications like World of
Warcraft,
> Myspace and Facebook have facilitated the building of virtual
communities.
> It seems they use social standing and social connectedness as their
basic
> currency.
> 
> Tony
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