Refining Questions

• Do adult learners in 3D virtual environments have the characteristics and expectations of adult learners as described in Andragogy?
• Are Andragogical characteristics and expectations applicable in learning within a 3D virtual environment?
  

Good resource for ethnographies

Found a good resource for ethnographies from University of Pennsylvania. Check it out!

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/anthro/anthro/cpiamethods

Also a good one on constructivism and ethnography.

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/library_trends/v055/55.1williamson.html

Note to self

I've narrowed down the three methods I plan to use for my study. Therefore, I need to remember to either purchase a Mac Laptop and buy Screenflow or find a decent screen capture software for my PC.

Meeting today with Peter at Starbucks

Dear blog,

Just met with my boss Peter today and here are some notes from our meeting.

First of all, we decided to push back the decision of who to award the contract to to June 25th, 2010. I informed Peter that Wagner James Au may have some recommendations of other designers that he knows of that would build and design for our island for the price that we wanted. Peter also wanted me to email the bids from the previous designers we are looking at plus the links to designers' portfolios. I also have to give Peter the name of one of the designer's businesses to see if we are able to send a PO to her without it raising any concerns to the people in charge of the grant.

On a side note, I also have to get Peter the number of attendees for the two COE recruitment events we held inworld. Peter also mentioned that he needed help on 2 workshops at Punahou, July 9th, 8 AM-9:20, 10:30-12noon where we will teach high school teachers about Second Life.

After discussing the development of the SL island, I talked about my article for AECT with Peter. I basically want to use the CAL model of Adult Learning Theory for my paper. However, I need to find out how to overlap it with Sherry Turkle's theory. Is there any overlap? Read Turkle and integrate the two and see if I can salvage my questions.

Also, I'll probably focus my research on just students who are taking classes in regards to the identity (characteristics part) and then focus on faculty for the learning part. In other words, do faculty take these characteristics into consideration when designing instruction for virtual environments. Also are there any instruments used to test CAL model? Surveys, etc... I need to look at the Personal and Situation characteristics of the SL student user. I need to ask Faculty what characteristics affect their desgin for instruction in SL? Is there a correlation between personal characteristics and situational characteristics? And how does the CAL model affect the design for learning within the MUVE?

I need to then review this then with Ellen and see if I have to redo the comps or not. If I have to do my comps again, I might consider designed based research instead. Possibly 2 iterations if I do it.

CAL model

Dear blog,

I met with one of my advisers yesterday and I would have to say that it went quite well. When I talked to him, I stated that I wanted to use K.P. Cross' Characteristics of Adult Learners (CAL) model as a theoretical framework. He said that the model is relatively new and he was not sure that it had been used in much research. However, if I am able to demonstrate that other researchers have extensively used it since it's creation in 1981. Then, I could possibly use it for my study. My adviser suggested that I use the "Social Science Citation Index" from 1982 and ask Susan Johnson, the education librarian at Hamilton.

If I do not find a lot of research regarding that model, he suggested using a similar model by Albert Bandura that goes a little like this environment --> behavior --> personality, but in a triangle looking format instead.

He also suggested that I look at the bigger picture of my study (what I am trying to find out --> how to effectively design a Second Life learning environment where University of Hawaii students and faculty can learn in) and how it connects to my dissertation (how the identity of UH students and faculty affect their learning).

Furthermore, he suggested that I mention the limitations of my study in regards to the type of education and economic status of the population I am look at.

I did change one my research questions as well. This time, #1 is "What do the affordances in Second Life provide to MUVE users?" I believe. I need to double check on that.

Finally, he states that I need to create a hypothesis in a sense. In other words, I predict that UH MUVE users are mainly local from various ethnic backgrounds within Hawaii, are both male and female, and are diverse regarding their ages from 18-50. Also that there is a 50/50 split of faculty verses students who use Second Life from UH. However, I am not sure of that, and I would like to test that out.

That's it from yesterday. I didn't work on my dissertation today, but I will tomorrow.

Aloha,
Rebecca

What I need to do for the summer

• I need to Google "Online learning and virtual identity"
• Look at the 605 list Peter gave me regarding which journal I should publish in.
• Choose journal I want to publish in.
• Consider IEEE transactions
• Come up with a theoretical framework (paragraph what the theory is about how the theory is linked with the research questions (what is, what should be, how to propose to bridge the gap and the reserach questions).
• See how the journals are theoretically driven
• Consider how much time do I spend on my dissertation? spend about a consistent amount of time on the dissertation, e.go, Monday-Friday 2 hours a day on dissertation --> Goals, or 4 hours a day - dissertation and 4 hours a day - GA job

Second Life island timeline

Dear blog,

I apologize for not writing for awhile. Don't know where the time flies. Anyway, here's what I need to do for my GA job.

1. May 10th -Create a proposal for the new COE island and send it to Peter.
2. May 17th - Finalize proposal (with island sketches, explanation, and timeline) and send it out to the 3 potential builders. Ask for quote by June 1st.
   
3. June 5 - Award contract to chosen builder.
4. Mid June to mid July - Builder works on College of Education island
5. End of August - Get approval from SL COE advisory board
6. September - Debut the new College of Education island.

Hope I can get it all done! My mom will be visiting me in the meantime. Plus, I need to get my proposal done. Sigh.

Aloha,
Rebecca