UberNoggin

Pew has done it again. This most recent study shares insights into how teens use the internet, create content, and stay connected. Give it a read.

Mark and I often do a bit of brainstorming on the big dry erase boards in our dining room. Lately, we’ve been churning out research-type questions about virtual worlds. I thought I’d post them to save them from little hands and erasers and perhaps to get some discussion going.

• What is a virtual world? what definition works best to aid research? Is it different than a virtual environment?
• How does the ability to see others’ friends list change our perception of them? How is that perception different in a space where we can’t who someone is friends with?
• How can identity formation mechanics be made interoperable? Should they?
• How is the style/goal of the world or environment tied to expected avatar behavior (ex. Miis with guns?)?
• What are the trust implications of communication in multiple virtual spaces? (ex. Do I trust someone more who I know in SL and on Twitter?)
• Are social networks virtual worlds?
• Identity: does more information = more trust, does more or less choice allow for more succinct identities?
• Are we more or less immersed in spaces where we have more choices in identity formation?
• Does less identity = less immersion?
• Does greater choice in identity formation result in more accurate identity portrayal? more trust worthy identity?
• How would MUVEs and MMORPGs be changed if more SNS mechanics were added to them?
• What influences greater number of friends in an MMORPG/MUVE? mechanics of friendship? purpose or advantage of friendship? personality expression?
• Do SL or FB users have more friends? How does introversion or extroversion influence number of friends in each space?
• Is FB a more powerful social network because it can incorporate multiple identities and connections? Pull info from other spaces?
• Do we “know” people more if we”know” more than one of their online identities? If one of those identities is a SNS rather than a MUVE or MMORPG?
• How do we verify someone’s identity? What info do we need to feel that we know who they are?

These are pretty disorganized but you probably get the drift of where the ideas are going. I haven’t had a chance to think through any one of them to the point of satisfaction but Mark and I have been wrestling with the definition of virtual world because we just don’t feel that the definitions offered by others are prepared to deal with the multitude of spaces that are popping up online. So far we think that a virtual world is one in which:

• the world goes on whether you’re logged in or not; you can’t pause the world
• digital
• hosted remotely
• capacity more multi-user
• users are represented by some kind of avatar, identity that they create (even if it’s text-based or very limited in construction)

What would you add? Would you take anything away?

Geesh! Blogging, among so many other things, has become quite difficult to keep up with. I’m sure many of you can relate. I’m constantly amazed at the folks who can do so much AND find time to write about it. I manage to Twitter quite a bit but I’ve neglected the Noggin for too long. Time to get back to it.

Things I’m working on and will be blogging about:

1. The dissertation!!!! **insert dramatic music here** Yes, it’s alive but the pings from the life support machine had begun to slow a bit. Time to inject some energy back into this baby and get it done.
2. A new book. SL for Dummies is about to come out and I’m working on another book about using Web 2.0 technologies in business and marketing. Should be fun to write. Not sure of a schedule yet. Still ironing out details.
3.  Another blog. I’ve been asked to start a new blog. It’s all on the hush hush at the moment but I’ll be sure to announce it here as soon as things are official. It’s an exciting idea that I’m looking forward to working on.
4. Lots of travel! In January alone I’m going to Akron, Milwaukee, and San Antonio. Phew! Better get those suitcases cleared out from the last trip.
5. Media Sauce island in SL. With the new book coming out I think it’s time to get our island looking ship shape. It’s private right now because we’re still kicking around ideas of how to use it. This is the problem of working with so many creative folks. We all have more ideas than time.

That about covers it for projects currently on my plate but there are so many things on low simmer that I’m sure this year will be every bit as exciting as 2007. It’s been quite the ride this year with a new job, new house, new car (known at the Intellamobile, ha!), kids starting school, books written, three international conferences and over 20 domestic, several book chapters to be published in the next few months…..phew! No wonder I’m tired! I’m very grateful for all the great stuff that happened in 2007, for all the incredible people I’m lucky enough to call friends, and for my amazing family. It’s awesome to be at the end of the year thinking about how next year can be just as awesome rather than thinking “I have to do better.”

Thanks to all of you who read this and I hope that you’re as excited about the possibilities of 2008 as I am. Let’s go kick some butt!

Henry Jenkins’ awesome blog “Confessions of an Aca/Fan” has once again brought up the topic of the digital natives and immigrants initially conceptualized by Marc Prensky (See link here to read Henry’s very thorough post). As I travel around speaking to groups about Web 2.0, Second Life, and other technologies that are changing education, I often get asked about natives and immigrants but I realized, while reading Henry’s post, that I’ve never blogged up my answer to the issue regarding the terms and the shifts the terms are meant to capture. So, since I’ve got laryngitis and had to cancel a talk for today, I thought I’d blog instead.

When I give talks about the digital and education I usually make my case by presenting facts about the Millennial generation and their technology use to justify that educators really need to begin paying attention to the changes that are upon us. I present stats from Pew, Gartner, Forrester, and other research groups to set the stage for the conversation but I have to acknowledge that the numbers really don’t create a full picture of what’s happening. I, after all, am not in the group traditionally termed as “natives” and yet I exhibit all the traits. I am my own proof that the difference between native and immigrant isn’t age related. Acclimation and adoption of technology is not generational. I understand though, how looking back, Prensky might have thought that a new generation was bringing about the change. His terms give us something to scaffold conversation from and, for that, we should be appreciative. But I think we all know that there is more to these technology-adoption shifts than an age group growing up with access to computers.

I narrow the phenomenon, the difference between those who readily adopt and include technology in their lives and those who are hesitant or resistant to technology, down to two causes: 1) exigency and 2) lack of medial hauntings. Let me explain.

Exigency Creates Digital Lives

I do not know how to drive a race car, parachute from a plane, or play piano. These are all skills that I’ve never needed to know or had adequate motivation to learn. Now, if someone told me tomorrow that the plane I’ll be boarding on Friday will have engine trouble and that I’ll need to parachute to safety you can bet I’d be researching it today. I’d have an exigency to learn the new skill. For many people who are termed immigrants, or techno-hesitant, this exigency to adopt a digital lifestyle isn’t there. I learned to use email when I found out that I could communicate with friends who lived far away without incurring phone charges. I learned to create web pages when I realized that I really wanted to have an online presence to use for job applications (and I learned to code HTML in Notepad, thank you very much!). My mother learned to use a computer, and then to blog, when she became basically house bound due to illness and realized that using the internet would allow her to travel virtually and still keep in touch with the outside world. My soon-to-be-mother-in-law (who is in her late 60s) began adopting technology to keep in touch with her children, who are spread from coast to coast. In all cases, there was an exigency. A pressing reason to adopt the skill, to let the technology invade our lives.

Many people we term as “immigrants” are simply folks who didn’t have an exigency to adopt a technology until later than others. Perhaps their career didn’t require it or their social network was very local and face to face. “Natives” are simply people who have a somewhat innate exigency or who have adopted so much that their lives before adoption are a blur of lack of connectedness.

Lack of Medial Hauntings Creates Natives

In an essay in Hawisher and Selfe’s Passions and Pedagogies for the 21^st Century, Sarah J. Sloane writes about a student who has “medial haunting,” conceptions of a new technology based on how an older similar technology worked. If we’re old enough, we all have medial haunting. If you ever used a manual typewriter than moved on to a word processor you can probably remember that you sometimes forgot that the word processor had functions that the typewriter didn’t. If you then bought your first personal computer, you, no doubt , made sure that there was a word processing program installed before exploring the computer’s other functions. When I moved to Office 2007 from Office 2000 I was endlessly frustrated by looking for familiar buttons that were suddenly gone or moved. I was using the new software with a strong medial haunting of the old software. Those of us who are old enough, or fortunate enough, to have had experience with earlier technologies are sometimes limited by their use when we move on to a newer one.

However, the group we call “natives”, today’s kids, are not haunted by earlier similar technologies. Their use of a cell phone is not hindered by their functional assumptions carried over from using a party line at home, for example. They aren’t intimidated by a 16 button console controller because they never played Atari with two buttons and a joystick. They adopt technologies easier because, for lack of a better phrase, they don’t know any better. They have no reason to be afraid of a new tool or to be fearful of a new gadget. I watch my 6 year old triplets pick up gadgets, poke at them, test them, and then use them much faster than I ever would simply because they aren’t afraid of them (probably because they didn’t pay for them, as I remind them when they play with my iPhone).

It’s important, though, to remember that you don’t have to be young to lack medial hauntings. You simply need to be someone who hasn’t had experience with a previous similar technology. And, on the converse, I think we can begin to understand the difficulties created by the digital divide. In addition to access, we must also consider perceptions and fears of technology that inhibit adoption.

Finally, I’d like to note that we should be careful of the assumption that being a native is somehow superior to being an immigrant. Immigrating to technology implies choice, reflection, and a critical approach. Natives, whether to a land or a technology, aren’t often able to fully step outside their culture to see it for what it is. In addition, I think we immigrants need to be careful how we treat the natives. Every time I speak to an educator who is determined to take away cell phones, shut down Wikipedia, or ban Facebook from campus I’m reminded of historical subjugation of natives. We ought to be very careful about imposing our immigrant, and I dare even say Conquistador, attitudes when dealing with native culture. There’s a whole lot we can learn from the natives.