and justice for all: using artificial environments to create community and teach diversity

And Justice For All: Using Artificial Environments to Create Community

and Teach Diversity

A.J. Kelton

Laura Nicosia

Leslie Wilson

Traditional Problems in the Relationship Between College of Education and Arts and Sciences in

Teacher Education

• Faculty have problems working outside of their academic units/departments

• Philosophical differences between branches of the university

• A&S faculty not understanding or embracing their mission with future teachers

• A&S faculty not feeling or being rewarded for work with future teachers

• A lack of common ground between A&S and CoE to share with future teachers

Consequences and Challenges for Future Teachers as a Result of the Friction

Between the CoE and A&S• Can future teachers equally trust their professors?• Can future teachers share information learned in one

discipline/setting with faculty in other settings?• Will future teachers blend their knowledge in

constructive manners during student teaching? • How do future teachers determine which models &

philosophies to embrace during and after student teaching?

• How do future teachers determine what is sound pedagogy?

• What should future teachers do to maximize what they have learned in both settings?

What can arts and science faculty do to better prepare future

teachers?

• Reduce friction between themselves and CoE colleagues

• Work in networks with CoE Colleagues

• Create a reward structure for work with future teachers

• Embrace new ideas of teaching and learning

Finding Common Ground

• Use the Agenda as a bridge to foster a common ideology for CoE and A&S faculty

• Employ a strategy that can satisfy the needs of both groups

• Select a strategy that can fulfill the Agenda and the needs of future students

Democracy and Diversityas a bridge

• Our goal is to create culturally responsive teachers

• Our goal is create a diverse population of teachers

• Our goal is to develop educated citizens in a democracy

• Our goal is to unify educators across disciplines

Goals

• Create a democratic classroom• Give each student a voice• Allow students to work collaboratively in

unique settings• Have students embrace difference• Teach students how to work in

numerous environments

How Can Technologies Enhance Democracy and Diversity?

• Second Life

• Facebook

• Ning

• Twitter

Ning

• With Ning you can: Upload profile pictures or avatars Upload videos, documents or urls Start & moderate discussion forums Create groups Create FAQ pages Post & monitor blogs Invite members

Using Ning to Foster Democratic ThoughtsLaura’s Story

• I have created, used & participated in several Ning sites: Sue Nobles, a secondary school teacher, & I piloted this site, where MSU students joined Virginia high school students and corresponded with them about their writings and journal entries.

• During Spring ’09 I piloted Ning in my Methods classes—calling it “virtual fieldwork” My Methods classes were paired with 2 English classes at a public high school in Fredericksburg,VA. They read the students’ writings (blogs, discussion forums & mini-essays) and left feed-back. They asked critical thinking questions and provoked the secondary students to dig deeper for their responses. They communicated with the classroom teacher—asking her questions and suggesting resources for her to use.

Collaborative Work that Fosters Democracy

• My students read the HS students’ discussions• The teacher established these directions: MSU students

responded:• Each of her students received dozens of readings with

constructive comments and suggestions: Look at all the responses! How often can an individual instructor respond with this kind of frequency and depth?

• My undergraduate student responded to the student’s forum comment about Desdemona’s characterization.

• MSU students offered “real time” responses One of my graduate students responded with this thoughtful and constructive posting

• The classroom teacher writes to my students

Broader Application

• Center of Pedagogy develops multiple Ning sites for Teacher Education, MSUNER, Leadership Associates, and on-going research through the ADP Center

• Center of Pedagogy invites A&S faculty to join the Ning site

CoP Ning Community

Second Life

• POOF! Now It’s a... Teaching Lab• POOF! Now It’s a... Amphitheater• POOF! Now It’s a... NOAA Demonstration• POOF! Now It’s a... Conference Setting• POOF! Now It’s a... [Insert Setting Here]

Second Life Provides

Guided Inquiry, where experience is central to learning

Scaffolding of in-world prior experiences through seeking, sieving and synthesizing experiences

Decentralization of the class, where knowledge is created across a community rather than delivered from an individual

In The Process, We …

Share and exchange resources, cultural knowledge, stories and experiences

Engage in social exploration using a multiplicity of perspectives and points of view

Apply critical thinking and problem-solving in context and in process

Unlearn assumptions about communities and the “Other”

However

While Second Life captures the imagination of individuals who wish to create new lives free from societal and physical limitations of ethnicity, gender, geography, sexual orientation or status; it still manifests aspects of society (American, capitalist, gendered) from which it sprung and therefore is more reflective than transcendent” (Jones, 2005)

Embracing Diversity and Creating Democracy with Second Life

A.J.’s Story

• Avatars as an expression of individuality

• Changing notions of gender

• Creating open learning spaces within an educational setting

• Giving power to students to explore and mature outside of the confines of the classroom

Broader Application

• CHSS faculty use CHSS Island in numerous classes

• AJ gives presentations of CHSS Island & SL to administrators

• The MSU library joins the CHSS Island• The ADP Center staff joins the CHSS Island

Community• AJ builds CEHS Island and the colleges are

connected

Facebook & Twitter

Should Facebook and Twitter get all the attention? – Daily American Facebook Users (all ages) – 30 million – Daily American E-mail Users (just adults) - 130.5 million • That’s 60% of adult Internet users checking e-mail on typical day, within 30% staying offline so only 10% who go online don’t check their e-mail that day)

Sources: Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics E-mail users: Pew Internet and American Life Surveys – http://pewinternet.org Twitter: http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cs/2009/06/new_twitter_research_men_follo.html e-democracy.org

(Steven Clift, E-Democracy.Org)

Facebook Pages

Facebook

• Provides social networking in the public domain

• Allows everyone to create their own personal and public spaces

• Is available to a wide audience

• Can be a complimentary or primary tool

Twitter

• Can be used to address specific topics or used to address general topics

• Encourages users to “follow” others

• Offers quick and inexpensive transfer of information

• Can have a small or large audience

Broader Applications

• Twitter can be used to give voice to the silent• Twitter provides instant surveys• Twitter can be used by phone or computer

democratizing the number of users• Twitter can be opened up to the greater

community leading to real democratic conversations

Other Technologies

Wiki

Slideshare

Blogging

DimDim

Pageflakes

Epsilen

Me Globe

Live Polling

Questions?

Thanks For Coming

Wilsonl@mail.montclair.eduNicosiala@mail.montclair.eduKeltona@mail.montclair.edu