An Idea

I'm sitting here in the fishbowl working on my flash game for IASC 1P30. It's going well; I'm in the home stretch, but I'm having a bit of trouble with some of the Actionscript, so I decided to check the 1P30 chat room on Sakai to see if anyone else had experienced the same problem. Reading through the conversation for the last few days, I saw that lots of people (lol, shout out to Kev, Simon, Jess and company) were taking advantage of the chat room to talk over their issues with our instructor, Matt, and help each other out. I find this to be pretty awesome- partially because seeing them talk through their problems is really helping me navigate mine-and partially because, well, could it be more appropriate?

Just yesterday we heard about Matt's appeal for students to share their thoughts on the role the internet has in education. When I first watched the video, I really had to think about it. Initially, I was tempted take the old-school approach and favor the familiar classroom experience, largely due to my frequently frustrating experiences with Brock's online offerings: the slow, horrendously outdated email service; the awkward, unwieldily Sakai; and let's not forget the generally abysmal Brock website, including the Student Portal and course registration site. It's often seemed to me that integrating all of our awesome new technology into our education is a great idea in theory, but that people seem to jump in head first, like a kid tearing the wrapping paper off of an expensive new toy, not reading the instructions but playing with it anyways, and making a big mess in the process. I've been thinking that perhaps we're so keen to wield all of the amazing potential of New Media that we don't always take the time to really understand how to make it practical and functional rather than a superfluous display of bells and whistles.

But when I logged onto the chat room and I saw a substantial portion of our class getting together in virtual space to talk homework, ideas, and troubleshooting (and also Booster Juice and space junk, of course), well, it made me reconsider. Instead of sitting alone at home in their jammies smashing their heads against the keyboard in frustration, everyone had the opportunity to connect with their peers and teacher to pool their knowledge and experience together for everyone's benefit. I don't know, maybe I'm just lame, but I thought it was kind of cool to see technology being used so effectively to meet its' users' needs and enhance their learning experience rather than being a hindrance to be battled with and cursed at. It was also kind of cool to see people really engaging with each other and collaborating: a chance to see some of the abstract 'connected intelligence,' H. G. Wells stuff we talk about in class happening right in front of me, in a kind of dichotomy-shaking, gestalt the-whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-the-parts kind of way. But I digress.

This little experience has opened my eyes to the idea that technology really can be used to supplement our learning, and be a very useful tool that allows us to do things we couldn't do otherwise, like have a real-time conversation with our teacher to work through an assignment quickly and conveniently, and with our work right in front of us. I'm reminded of using Google Wave for the second inquiry assignment, and using virtual space to extend our learning beyond what was already available to us in the 'meat world.' We asked ourselves the question 'why bother with new technology? Is it necessary?' And I feel like both Google Wave and this classroom/chatroom are perfect examples of why we should bother exploring these new avenues at all, and answers my personal questions about the role technology should play in our day-to-day lives as human beings. I've reached the conclusion that New Media shouldn't replace old media; e-learning shouldn't replace classroom learning; virtual reality shouldn't eclipse physical reality: they should supplement, augment, facilitate, support! Technology is made by us, and we should make it work for us, not the other way around.

Okay. This post wasn't meant to be nearly this long, but I guess I started a bit of a curiosity snowball with this topic, haha. I'm fascinated. But enough rambling: the original reason I wanted to write this entry was because while I was reading the 1P30 chat log it was obviously working to everyone's advantage, but it did have its limitations. Trying to help someone figure out the minute problems with an intricate Flash project, or trying to explain your Actionscript issues is cumbersome in a purely text-based environment. At one point Simon had to go through the hassle of uploading and posting a screenshot to explain what he meant.

This gave me the idea of expanding what Google has done with the Wave in allowing users to collaborate on a document, and perhaps taking it a step further by injecting it with more multimedia functionality. I have no idea if it's even possible, but imagine if you could log onto a program that allows you to chat and share, but with the added option of being able to show your peers your desktop workspace remotely, like a real-time video screen shot. That would make it so much easier to demonstrate an example for a friend, or show your instructor the exact difficulty you're having so they can help. Or perhaps take it a step further and make it interactive by allowing users to upload and work together on a Flash document, video-editing software, or programming exercise. Imagine doing a group presentation without commuting to meet, and instead joining a Wave to chat and brainstorm ideas, and then actually opening up a Powerpoint document and working on it together, or maybe making a video instead and having each user upload their contributions, link to youTube videos they want to emulate/integrate, and then edit it together in real time with each person contributing according to their own knowledge and skills. The cool game you found on the internet? Open up a shared browser window and play together. That ballin' easter egg you found in Halo 3? Open up a video/sreenshot and share. Or better yet, open up a PC version of the game and show people yourself.

To me, that sounds like the ultimate educational tool. Group projects would be a piece of cake to arrange, teachers could hold web sessions to walk students through new skills with live, interactive examples; or hold question-and-answer sessions; group brainstorms; or even assign online skill tests and practical exams. To me, such an application could consolidate all of the scattered, niche apps we currently use to communicate, share, and learn. But with my luck, such a thing already exists somewhere, and I just wasted an hour not working on my project for nothing :D.