Kristin Scott

I’ve been hard at work (when I’m not watching CNN and inauguration activities) trying to get my digital ethnographic assignments completed for my Cyberculture class. So far, the class wiki is coming along nicely, but I’ve gotten a lot of assistance from some very helpful folks, particularly from the SLED (Second Life Educators) list.

I’ve also got a new avatar. I was getting tired of my old one, and I also wanted one that was more specifically defined within an educational context. So Professor Neox is my new SL name. Iggy O. (Ignatius Onomatopoeia) also did a nice little write-up in his blog, In a Strange Land, about my class. So - I’m excited to get the semester started!

One thing I would like to do, however, either for this class or one in the near future, is find a way to do some collaborative work (i.e. having students from my class and another create projects together, have an in-world seminar/discussion with another class, or find a way of pairing up students from across the globe in a project or assignment). Since I’m working from a cultural studies perspective, I think bringing students together from various backgrounds - from different places of the globe - could have some real educational benefits. I know that I have benefited greatly from discussions with faculty around the globe, many of whom have different educational and pedagogical perspectives that I otherwise would not have been exposed to. I imagine some of the problems, of course, might be in working around time zones and separate course goals, but I think almost any set of classes could work together and benefit from the collaborative process - even if for just one assignment. I’m thinking, for example, about what kind of project a marketing class could complete with a cybercultures class or how students from a course on political economy could work together on a project with students from a course on gender.

This is one of the things I liked most about Columbia College Chicago, where I previously taught. With the wealth of creative skills and abilities available there, so many collaborations were possible - and just as I left, departments and students from across the curriculum were just starting to realize this collaborative potential. I’d like to see this happen more in Second Life. I think the faculty have been great about sharing ideas; I’d like to see how we can bring students together more, as well.