Our Virtual Self

Some people feel our avatars are not important. But it seems to me people like to create a version of themselves or even multiple ones. I feel they relate better to the avatar and her/his/its’ experiences much better if they have a connection. After being in Second LIfe, when I saw more controlled avatars and environments that several companies are creating, it seemed restrictive and not very creative to me. I did not feel I had the same connection in these environment that I do with my avatar in Second Life.

Jeremy Bailenson from Stanford University and “The Virtual Human Interaction Lab” has been studying the social and psychological effects of transforming avatar behavior and appearance. “This work raises many ethical questions and forces us to articulate what, exactly, we mean by an “honest” representation – and when we actually want it.” (Judith Donath)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Our Virtual Self « Mal Burns Second Arts, posted with vodpod

PBS had more on the “Avatar Effect“

The 9 Visual Rules of Wellness

Beautiful images of our bodies http://www.thevisualmd.com/ and how smoking and junk food effects us.

Alexander Tsiaras and Deekpak Chopra etc. have created these visuals with a continuing series of how our lives effect our bodies. We are finding so many things about the body and brain that effects how we learn, our we interact with others and how great our lives will be. For instance stress erodes the dendrites of our brain and increases water in the brain.

Learning and Knowledge Analytics

Learning Analytics is a MOOC. This course is “an introduction to the growing field of analytics in teaching, learning, training, development, and organizational knowledge”.

Part of the focus in LAK11 is to explore how we can better use data to make sense of complex topics such as:

1. How students interact with social and technological systems, information, and each other
2. Which patterns of activity on the part of the learner produce the best performance (still largely defined by grades)
3. How knowledge is “grown” as individuals interact with others
4. How individual learners develop their conceptual understanding of a topic
5. How teams solve complex problems (stages of development and group formation)
6. The tools and activities that are most effective in solving a particular problem in a particular context
7. How individual learners “eliminate” unneeded or irrelevant ideas and concepts
8. How learners orient themselves in complex environments – wayfinding and social sensemaking

Information in this course if free, even if you do not sign up.

Movie of LSD experiment done by the government.

This was found by Don Lattin who is writing a new book called “The Harvard Psychedelic Club” that is a group biography of British writer Aldous Huxley, philosopher Gerald Heard, and Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. (from Huffington Post)

Glad my college days of experimentation were less controlled.

Gever Tulley – Reimagining Education

Peer-to-peer, self-directed learning though YouTube by learning to play guitar.

Ushahidi – a iphone app for everyone…

Ushahidi is an open source platform for democratizing information, increasing transparency and lowering the barriers for individuals to share their stories.

Get from iTunes.

“Ushahidi”, which means “testimony” in Swahili, was a website that was initially developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008.

For examples of ways we can map events including disasters to help others go to the the Ushahidi blog.

I am taking a class from Howard Rheingold and he just posted this video of his interview with Patrick Meier he did.