Ah.... following on from my thoughts and how to nail down the benefits or value of Second Life as an elearning environment (or have pedagogical worth), I have arrived at the pithy question of Christensens concept of Disruptive Technologies....
As far as I can gather this is a concept or reality where a new technological innovation presents change or benefit that effectively makes redundant old processes; akin to replacing old coal gas with north sea gas, or the Fax machine with email attachments....
However there are some innovations that have been less disruptive than initially thought as the return on investment questions the initial worth. Supersonic flight springs to mind as does Nuclear Energy when compared to conventional power generation.
When I consider VR AR or simulated learning environments I wonder whether their less than utopian access plus the cost of build and exclusivity of use can be compared to the Concord.....
I need to investigate further... as the caveat is that the word affordable is often mentioned in the same sentence as Disruptive Technologies..... Ho Hum #2
3 comments:
Interesting idea Mike
Osmosis and exchange of ideas through natural redundancy and obsolescence...?
You keep coming back to the exclusivity of Second Life, but as the viewer is free and open source and runs on most PCs/mac and Linux machine (I know not yours) I don't see how it is any more exclusive than a web site. You do have the inconvenience of downloading the viewer, but it doesn't stop any community from using it. It isnt a big or complicated installation job. The users can use many of the facilities for no cost - communicating - accessing objects others have built. Users can even build in Sandboxes and on the beta grid without buying land. Its also very easy - much easier and cheaper than on the web - to sell products and services. Land can be rented for a week at a time unlike buying space on web servers.
I look at it as a very cheap resource for both educators and students. This is much cheaper than Adobe products like Flash, Maya, even cheaper than Office! We wouldn't say PowerPoint is an exclusive platform.
Im not being deliberately obstructive with regards to SL, I think that alot of immersive MMORPRG (are they still called this?) environments are not "real enough" or instant or have access or instant "tangibilty"
The ergonomic experience is such that it is a necessity to have to go native to gain value.. and that is perhaps where the exclusivity rests...
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