Intellagirl at SLEDcc on "Setting Realistic (Yet Powerful) Expectations for Teaching in Virtual Worlds"

Intellagirl Tulley of Indiana University gave a really interesting keynote address this afternoon where she presented a framework for thinking about how to make our Second Life educational projects more effective.  She borrowed a structure from the Clay Shirky book Here Comes Everybody called “Promise / Tool / Bargain”:

• The Promise: that is what mkes us want to use a particular system
• The Tool: what tool is being used to make that happen
• The Bargain: I will do this part, and you will do your part and together we’ll fulfill the promise

According to Intellagirl, in Second Life, we run into problems when one part of this learning structure breaks down.  “Innovation fails when the bargain breaks down.”  So we need to be attentive to what we are promising, the limitations of the tool, and whether or not the students buy-in to the bargain.

My favorite Intellagirl quote:

“Why are you recreating your real life campus in SL and expecting people to just show up?  What are you promising?  Why would I show up at a recreation of

a brick-and-mortar building when I could just visit the real thing?”

Great stuff!