Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
The topic of identity and values in education is controversial for a number of
reasons. One has been that it is not easy to define what needs to be learned and
how to evaluate the learning experience. A narrow definition of research ques-
tions and methods is hard to achieve, not to mention clear measures of success
and failure. Thus the goal of this study was to show a range of fruitful possibil-
ities with virtual environments such as Zora. However, this work only provided
a window into children's thinking about identity and values and many questions
are still unanswered: will the young people that participated in this experience
carry their explorations of identity and values into the rest of their lives? Will
the learning transfer to other contexts? How does the online experience com-
pare with face-to-face only workshops? These questions are hard to answer and
will require a different methodological approach.
(7)
Access environment
. The decision to use Zora in the context of an immer-
sive summer workshop held at a university lab, instead of in a classroom or
with all of the participants logging in from home was based on a reality. Zora
makes special demands on time and technological infrastructure that were not
always available in schools and homes in a reliable way back in 1999, when the
workshop was held. As computers become cheaper and bandwidth for network
became bigger, this problem was solved and other case studies reported in this
chapter took on some of these new challenges. In the experience described in
this case study, all the participants met face-to-face at least twice, and most of
them were physically copresent when logged in. When difficult issues of socio-
dynamics arose online, it was common for kids to go off-line to resolve them.
What is the right balance between online and off-line activities? What kinds
of issues require face-to-face interaction? Did the learners continue the kinds
of conversations about controversial issues that they initiated online once they
were face-to-face?
(8)
Institutional context of usage
. During the experience reported in this case study,
the institutional context was given by the university lab that housed the Zora
summer camp. Thus, the rules and policies were set up by researches to easily
accommodate the research agenda and the needs of the project. For example,
on an occasion the children chose to create a stripping bar. This originated as a
result of one of the kids finding an online cartoon character that when clicked
on would strip. Although there were no body parts exposed, the gesture of the
character was clear at conveying the idea of stripping. The stripping issue kept
being discussed all along the Zora summer camp, maybe due to the fact that
kids were in the teens, an age in which talking about sex is particularly appeal-
ing. However, the stripping bar was never created and stripping was outlawed
by decision of the Zora community members. The process of discussing this
issue had a clear educational value, but the outcome might have turned out dif-
ferent. Since the institutional context was the university lab, researchers had the
freedom to let this issue evolve so it could be solved by the children themselves,
as opposed by an outside power structure or policy. This might not be the case
in different institutional contexts.
