Transcript of the Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable: July 2, 2026
Topic: Open Forum
Photo by Sheila Yoshikawa
[12:02] Sheila Yoshikawa: Hi everyone, and welcome to the Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable in association with the Virtual Worlds Education Consortium.
[12:02] Sheila Yoshikawa: VWER meets on Thursdays at 12 noon SLT for an hour, in the UK 8pm, 3pm EST.
[12:02] Sheila Yoshikawa: VWER is a forum to educate and inform the community about issues that are important and relevant to education in virtual worlds.
[12:02] Sheila Yoshikawa: This is a public meeting, so we will be keeping and publishing a transcript. The transcripts can be found at https://vwer.info/ .
[12:02] Sheila Yoshikawa: The VWER continues to develop a community of educators from around the world. Please join the VWER group here in SL.
[12:02] Sheila Yoshikawa: If you are on Facebook please join our group there http://www.facebook.com/groups/159154226946/
[12:02] Sheila Yoshikawa: The topic for this week’s meeting will be:
[12:02] Sheila Yoshikawa: Open Forum.
Bring any topic or question concerned with virtual worlds education.
[12:03] Sheila Yoshikawa: The discussion will be in text chat.
[12:03] Sheila Yoshikawa: Before that let’s start as we normally do and introduce ourselves, in text chat.
[12:03] Sheila Yoshikawa: type in as much or little as you want to introduce yourselves
[12:03] Dex Euromat: Dex Euromat (SL) / MEng. Dominik Undak (RL). Co-creator and consultant in Academia Electronica Urban Dream (224,40,22)
Creator and Owner of Poland History House
Website: https://plhisthouseinsl.squarespace.com/ SLURL: Madhupak (202,130,65)
Fireside with Polish at VWEC – Sunday, Noon PT/SLT
Born and living in Poland, Graduated from AGH Science and Technology University, Krakow.
Contact via e-mail dexgaseclife@gmail.com or FB: https://www.facebook.com/dominik.undak
[12:03] Beth Ghostraven: I’m a retired teacher-librarian in RL and owner of Ghostraven Professional Attire and GPA Dinkies, classic clothing for educators in SL (http://bethghostraven.com ). I’ve been an unofficial liaison between education groups in SL (AKA Spam Queen) since around 2012. I’ll be taking photos to publish with the transcript; if you have any objection, please IM me.
[12:04] Gann McGann: hi I’m Gann – Mark IRL at Durham in the UK – just starting up a social exchange programme between Durham and the Normal University Beijing in a social virtual world
[12:04] Valibrarian Gregg: Valerie Hill – Valibrarian – Library/Information Science educator/researcher, Seattle WA https://linktr.ee/Valibrarian I love the VWER group!
[12:04] Gann McGann: not sure why it’s called Normal university – guess they have some abnormal ones ???
[12:04] Breila Jenvieve is Rebecca Lyman, middle school special ed teacher and social historian spending my summer break building Fairhaven, an historically accurate Tudor region in Opensim.
[12:05] Sheila Yoshikawa: I teach and research in the School of Information Journalism and Communication at the University of Sheffield UK and I’m leader of VWER. I blog at https://information-literacy.blogspot.com/ on information literacy and my SL flickr is at https://www.flickr.com/photos/23396182@N00/
[12:05] Breila Jenvieve: Oh they do, Gann, I assure you!
[12:05] G (goldvald.enoch): Isn’t most of them abnormal?
[12:05] G (goldvald.enoch): 🤭
[12:05] Gann McGann: @breila hahah
[12:06] Sheila Yoshikawa: @Gann is it an exchange between staff or students?
[12:06] G (goldvald.enoch) is cussing generously at the chat lag.
[12:06] Beth Ghostraven: Gann, wasn’t a Normal School a name for a teachers’ college in the UK? or maybe the US?
[12:06] Sheila Yoshikawa: I don’t think the UK…
[12:07] Gann McGann: students, well staff at first, we’ll get together a few times then introduce students. The lecturer there wants to do a longterm exchange, which will be great, so often they’re just one-off or short numbers of connections
[12:07] Sheila Yoshikawa: Perhaps our first topic could be “naming conventions of educational institutions in different countries”
[12:07] Gann McGann: @Beth Ghostraven yes that makes sense –
[12:07] G (goldvald.enoch): .
[12:07] Beth Ghostraven: https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Normal_school
A normal school or normal college trains teachers in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum. Other names include teacher training colleges or teachers’ colleges.
[12:07] Marly (marly.milena): Niela Miller- Please go to lulu.com (Bookstore) to find the wonderful little book about my creative life called The Symbolic Bridge, written by our next facilitator of VWEC Experiential Workshops this coming Monday at 10am SLT. You should have gotten a notice about it. If not, contact Sofia Sakura, my collaborator/administrator.
[12:07] Beth Ghostraven: Hi Marly!
[12:08] Nance Clowes: HI. I’m nance. i work for firestorm, and Builders Brewery. I run the fun rides and amusement parks of sl group also. This week I helped with a proposal that would get educationals onto the default SL search menu. https://feedback.secondlife.com/web-features/p/requested-second-life-search-category-for-non-profit-education-charity-regions with 226 supporting votes so far and quite a few influencer and sl leaders commenting upon
[12:08] Valibrarian Gregg: good topic! As in “elementary school” here in the US is usually kindergarten-5th grade (5-10 year olds approximately)
[12:08] Sheila Yoshikawa: yes @Marly that workshop on Monday should be great,
[12:08] Gann McGann: @Beth Ghostraven ooh just looked it up, that’s what it means in china – ahah – ive learnt something v useful here already
[12:09] Gann McGann: and i;ve scrolled back to see you looked it up first : – D
[12:09] Sheila Yoshikawa: @Nance yes definitely worth publicising that, I upvoted it
[12:09] Breila Jenvieve: And yet, I know pretty much zero normal k-12 teachers…
[12:09] Gann McGann: hahah
[12:09] Sheila Yoshikawa: lol
[12:09] Beth Ghostraven: Nance, I upvoted that too – good idea
[12:09] Marly (marly.milena): I just left a comment and suggested they jazz up the description to entice new ysers.
[12:09] Marly (marly.milena): users
[12:10] Beth Ghostraven: Breila, yes, I’m scanning the article for WHY
[12:10] Breila Jenvieve: Good luck
[12:10] Join Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable by clicking this link
Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable
[12:10] Lethal Rinq: Well I guess I’ll go next. I’m Lethal for the last 25 years I have been an academic librarian at Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas. I saw this meeting in my chat box so I thought I’d stop by.
[12:11] Beth Ghostraven: found it Etymology
The term normal school originated in the early 17th century from the French école normale.[5] The French concept of an école normale was to provide a model school with model classrooms to teach model teaching practices to its student teachers, and thereby to set the norm for the profession of teaching.[6]
[12:11] Breila Jenvieve: Welcome Lethal
[12:11] Sheila Yoshikawa: Just to reiterate, you can propose any topic or question concerned with virtual worlds education.
[12:11] Beth Ghostraven: that’s awesome, Lethal! Librarians RULE!!!
[12:11] Sheila Yoshikawa: I mean, anyone here can
[12:11] Marly (marly.milena): Welcome Lethal (NOT! I hope….lol)
[12:11] Breila Jenvieve: That’s interesting @Beth Ghostraven
[12:12] Gann McGann: ah then Zhao is planning on using a social virtual world as a model of a normal teaching scenario, that’s cool
[12:12] Gann McGann: i’m on board with that
[12:12] Breila Jenvieve: I almost went to school at SFA… still may, who knows?
[12:12] Sheila Yoshikawa: yes @Beth I’ve learnt something too! Though I think I knew that French term, I’d never connected it up
[12:12] Lethal Rinq: I went to university at ISU at Normal IL
[12:12] Beth Ghostraven: was it normal there, Lethal?
[12:13] Breila Jenvieve: One of my best friends went to ISU… abnormal Tim from Normal.
[12:13] Beth Ghostraven: Then again, I’m not sure i would recognize normal if it hit me in the face, lol
[12:13] Sheila Yoshikawa: Where are SFA and ISU?
[12:13] Marly (marly.milena): I went to a highly creative and experimental work-study college that is still going….Antioch
[12:13] Breila Jenvieve: SFA is Stephen F. Austin in Texas.
[12:13] Sheila Yoshikawa: ah right, should have worked that out lol
[12:13] Breila Jenvieve: They have an online history program that keeps tempting me
[12:14] Marly (marly.milena): It was foundational in shaping my life as was the High School of Music & Art in NYC before it. I am so grateful!
[12:14] Gann McGann: @Sheila Yoshikawa i was just about to type the same ❤
[12:14] Lethal Rinq: WEll the librarians at SFA are great 🙂
[12:14] Beth Ghostraven: ISU is Illinois, US, right?
[12:14] Gann McGann: there’s a danish school that teaches its entire curriculum through LARPs
[12:14] Breila Jenvieve: ISU is Illinois State University where a few of my friends escaped suburban Chicago where I grew up to go to school.
[12:14] Sheila Yoshikawa: I attended the University of Kent (at Canterbury, UK) a VERY long time ago
[12:15] Breila Jenvieve: Gann, SIGN ME UP
[12:15] Lethal Rinq: That’s the place
[12:15] Beth Ghostraven: really, Gann? tell us more?
[12:15] Gann McGann: ooh one of my first research projects was with UKC – telematic dance
[12:15] Sheila Yoshikawa: and then something called the Polytechnic of North London which has got swallowed up in successive mergers and is a bit of some London university now
[12:15] Beth Ghostraven: Having participated in a medieval fantasy LARP for 10 years, I can’t imagine
[12:15] Marly (marly.milena): Can we share what was precious to us re the good educational experiences we had…and whether there is a thread through to SL?
[12:16] Breila Jenvieve: You can learn a lot from RP.
[12:16] Valibrarian Gregg: Interesting theme Marly- the power of learning experiences that shaped us
[12:16] Beth Ghostraven: Breila, yes, it was the fantasy part that’s throwing me, but that’s not mandatory
[12:16] Gann McGann: @Beth Ghostraven https://osterskov.dk/oesterskov-in-english
[12:17] Sheila Yoshikawa: btw I had forgotten LARP was Live action role-playing game, just throwing that in , in case others had too
[12:17] Dex Euromat: @Sheila Yoshikawa the boom for Second Life in Poland was in two directions from in years 2007 – 2012. Around 2008 we had 2 projects for education. but only one continued to current day. At the end of 2012 Entire Polish community was around 5000 people. But then start the decline. Only few people stayed longer. Many places went offline. Next boom was in first year of pandemic, but most people just logged in for lecture and then forgets about SL.
[12:17] Marly (marly.milena): Yay, Val—thanks for supporting that theme
[12:17] Beth Ghostraven: thanks Gann
[12:18] Gann McGann: @Dex Euromat identical pattern in the UK
[12:18] Lethal Rinq: SL didn’t show up till I was out of School but SFA got a SL island for a few years then dropped it. How can we reignite interest in SL at our institutions?
[12:18] Breila Jenvieve: My university experience was pretty pragmatic… My last two years, I went to a local uni in San Antonio, TX that offered night classes and my job was willing to pay for so I could become a teacher.
[12:18] Sheila Yoshikawa: OK I think there are 2 possible threads – one about how different countries’ communities have increased and decreased, another about transformational educational experiences
[12:18] Gann McGann: got my PhD in learning in SL in 2010 for a year everyone wanted to know, and 2 years later no-one did : – D
[12:19] Marly (marly.milena): And Lethal’s question….
[12:19] Breila Jenvieve: Yes, I’ve seen VWEC tackle Lethal’s question quite a bit. That’s Dodge’s mantra.
[12:20] Valibrarian Gregg: me too Gann- earned my PhD in 2012 just as interest was waning! Lethal… that question has come up repeatedly over the years and led to the Virtual Worlds Education Consortium “pooling our efforts”
[12:20] Sheila Yoshikawa: Agree with Gann, I was invited to talk and workshop for a few years (including in Prague and Germany) and then in about 2011-12 it just dropped out of fashion
[12:20] Gann McGann: lots of people dismiss the gartner hype cycle, but my experience of SL exactly matches that, just that by the time of the “slope of enlightenment” most people had jumped ship
[12:20] Valibrarian Gregg: Educators now are definitely more connected here and we are working on directories to help people find each other and high quality simulations
[12:21] Valibrarian Gregg: SO true Gann! I spent time in the “Trough of Disillusionment!” lol
[12:21] Beth Ghostraven: me too, VAl
[12:21] Marly (marly.milena): IN the old days, I had people lined up both out there and in here who wanted to do workshops. That has fallen off quite a bit but VWEChas provided a gateway now to many different opportunities
[12:21] Valibrarian Gregg: and made it through lol
[12:21] Sheila Yoshikawa: yes @Val I agree about progress, there were a lot of projects and initiatives in that first flourishing but not connected across communities
[12:21] Beth Ghostraven: whoops we lost G
[12:22] Gann McGann: i’m in the trough regarding RL – but maybe there’s a slope of enlightenment coming there too ❤
[12:22] Beth Ghostraven: lol Gann
[12:22] Valibrarian Gregg: hahaha the RL hype cycle!
[12:22] Gann McGann: hahah
[12:22] Sheila Yoshikawa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle
[12:22] Beth Ghostraven: yeah, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be
[12:22] Gann McGann: thanks @Sheila Yoshikawa
[12:23] Beth Ghostraven: but in some ways it’s better!
[12:23] Dex Euromat: We had few cross country hybrid conferences in SL, which at the time were quite unusual. As people were either coming into RL space or doing the lecture via SL.
[12:23] Breila Jenvieve: We’re so thoroughly hyped in AI now, it’s making quite a bit of whitenoise out there.
[12:23] Valibrarian Gregg: Virtual Worlds were a big deal on the Gartner site and then slipped off because people thought VR and AI were the big ones
[12:23] Marly (marly.milena): Considering the larger environment we (all the people of the world, really, but especially visible in the US) are living in, the desire for relief and distraction is enormous. I am wondering if people will discover SL as a way to enter a different sort of reality
[12:23] Gann McGann: yes – it’s difficult getting any interest in any project that’s not about AI
[12:24] Valibrarian Gregg: and difficult for it not to pop up in any discussion or presentation!
[12:24] Breila Jenvieve: The thing about VWs that AI can’t really do is to create and foster communities.
[12:24] Sheila Yoshikawa: yes and in the Horizon Reports virtual worlds popped up as the next trend periodically and then would fade again, and now it’s all AI hype
[12:24] Gann McGann: @Valibrarian Gregg Gartner predicted that by 2012 everyone would have an avatar. they quietly deleted that webpage soon after
[12:24] Skipper Abel: I saw in the news that AI had been banned in Norwegian primary schools
[12:24] Valibrarian Gregg: yes- and as avatars – we are humans not bots (even though we sometimes look like it)
[12:24] Gann McGann: well i think 70% of people – but lots
[12:25] Marly (marly.milena): I just read a novel called Annie Bot. Has anyone read it? It is not just AI on screens any more.
[12:25] Lethal Rinq: Well how can AI and SL relate to each other.
[12:25] Sheila Yoshikawa: @Marly no I haven’t
[12:25] Gann McGann: it’s like them trying to ban social media for children here – you just end up with disadvantaged kids being further disadvantaged by not having the skills to interact with technology
[12:26] Gann McGann: it’s fundamentally flawed reasoning
[12:26] Sheila Yoshikawa: @Lethal well people are using AI to enable bots to do language practice, answer questions about exhibits etc
[12:26] Sheila Yoshikawa: in SL
[12:26] Lethal Rinq: That’s good
[12:26] Beth Ghostraven: So far it seems relatively easy to avoid using AI in SL, whereas in RL and online it seems inescapable
[12:26] Breila Jenvieve: I agree, Gann… we need to teach kids to use it, not just ban it. But I think there’s a bit of laziness involved in those bans… just don’t want to deal with it.
[12:26] Gann McGann: @Lethal Rinq i think having embodied agents functioning alongside avatars could go some way to integrate the two technologies
[12:27] Valibrarian Gregg: https://www.amazon.com/Annie-Bot-Washington-Science-Fiction/dp/0063312700/
[12:27] Nance Clowes: AI is just modern encyclopedia britanica that can also apply what it knows to a few things
[12:27] Sheila Yoshikawa: @Beth yes it’s interesting that you can come into a virtual world to escape toxic tech!
[12:27] Marly (marly.milena): I have read and seen a number of movies where the human-humanoid interface is prominent and becomes the norm. (Shudder)
[12:27] Gann McGann: @Breila Jenvieve and appealing to the lowest common denominator of the electorate to harvest votes
[12:27] Gann McGann: just uploaded a podcast on that very subject today
[12:27] Breila Jenvieve: AI is a nice tool for designing my virtual region in Opensim. It helps me organize and visualize things.
[12:28] Valibrarian Gregg: It can simulate emotion @Nance and Encyclopedia Britannica could not
[12:28] Breila Jenvieve: Banning things, whether AI or tech or books, is easier than engaging with it.
[12:28] Gann McGann: oh @Breila Jenvieve that’s a fascinating use, i’ll have to find out more about that
[12:28] Sheila Yoshikawa: @Breila so are you using AI images or text or both?
[12:28] Beth Ghostraven: While I agree that AI has some amazingly helpful possibilities, I try to avoid it whenever possible because of its negative environmental impact, especially where I live
[12:28] Nance Clowes: 1980s musicians tried to ban synthesizers since it would put them out of work. How’d that go
[12:29] Marly (marly.milena): Aha, and here we are onto AI encore!
[12:29] Breila Jenvieve: Mostly, I’m using AI to say, for example, I need to visually see this dying trade from 1557, what would it look like if it had these things.
[12:29] Beth Ghostraven: Marly, yes groans
[12:29] Breila Jenvieve: Once I see it, I can build it.
[12:29] Gann McGann: @Nance Clowes the barrons weren’t even allowed to call their music “music” on their soundtracks in the 50s
[12:29] Marly (marly.milena): See my latest video at VWEC )Preserving the Ability to Create from Scratch)
[12:29] Gann McGann: louis and bebe barron i mean
[12:30] Nance Clowes: bebe barron should have married bb king
[12:30] Gann McGann: oh yes, i loved your session on demonstrating the difference @Marly (marly.milena)
[12:30] Gann McGann: @Nance Clowes hahah, and imagine the music theyd have made
[12:31] Breila Jenvieve: Some would contend that using AI allows people who couldn’t normally create with music, or were very limited, put together entire albums worth of material.
[12:32] Sheila Yoshikawa: I found it depressing when a UK government person with some responsibility for education said that AI was great for chores like lesson planning and marking – I mean they are a fundamental part of teaching, you don’t have much left if AI is planning the lessons and doing the assessment
[12:32] Valibrarian Gregg: Have you heard Kip’s SL music from an AI singer he calls Prim Man? IM me if you want a link 😉
[12:32] Marly (marly.milena): I am going to have people over (RL) for a songwriting workshop and underline the recognition of it as a process with many components and if you just get AI to do it for you, you cheat all your sensory apparatus. Same with drawing
[12:32] Valibrarian Gregg: I sort of find that people get offended by AI creating what THEY are passionate about and not offended if it creates something they do not want to do
[12:32] Nance Clowes: education’s goal isn’t to secure more educators, its to educate
[12:33] Breila Jenvieve: Well said, Nance
[12:33] Sheila Yoshikawa: and I suppose in TEACHING (thinking of @Marly’s question about memorable learning experiences) it has been in having new ideas about designing teaching and learning that I get a lot of satisfaction and interest
[12:33] Breila Jenvieve: And AI does a rather mediocre, perhaps awful, job of designing lessons.
[12:33] Nance Clowes: if AI-VWER can have better meetings that produce better results than us here now, so be it. fair. but it wont
[12:33] Gann McGann: or writing — why not want to do it because it’s enjoyable to do it? there’s a great poem about that https://poets.org/poem/student-who-used-ai-write-paper
[12:34] Marly (marly.milena): And, Sheila, you have had to contend with the limitations an institution places on you in going “outside the box”. that is so unfortunate!
[12:34] Nance Clowes: and ai is bad at making lessons, because it learned its modeling from people who made poor lessons
[12:34] Beth Ghostraven: VWER is not meant to produce anything
[12:34] Sheila Yoshikawa: @Nance in a newsletter about inquiry learning that I get – it talked about AI being good about designing “busy work” – activities that make the students LOOK engaged and busy but not necessarily learning
[12:34] Nance Clowes: aghh. all my schooling was entirely busy work, which was made pre-AI
[12:34] Gann McGann: though when i was studying philosophy i did use AI to convert the texts into language i could understand I wouldn’t have wanted to use it to write my essays
[12:34] Valibrarian Gregg: and you cannot be a good teacher with someone learning! ( another human)
[12:35] Beth Ghostraven: @Val I don’t understand that statement
[12:35] Beth Ghostraven: did you mean “without” instead of with?
[12:36] Marly (marly.milena): Gann, are there limits in what you are able to do with creative ed for teachers? (Set by your institution)
[12:36] Valibrarian Gregg: yes TYPO ALERT lol “without someone learning”
[12:36] Valibrarian Gregg: and now I love typos because it shows I am human LOL
[12:36] Lethal Rinq: I think that the quality of what is produced with AI depends more on the skill of the creator than the AI agent itself. Just like you can create a great search string for Google or just type in some words and hope for the best.
[12:36] Gann McGann: @Marly (marly.milena) yes
[12:36] Beth Ghostraven: Val, thanks :o)
[12:36] Gann McGann: and also YES!!!!
[12:36] Breila Jenvieve: What Lethal said!!
[12:37] Gann McGann: like we have to have a certain amount of testing, which is the antithesis of creativity
[12:37] Beth Ghostraven: Lethal, that makes sense, but only within the limits of what AI can do at all
[12:37] Marly (marly.milena): Is there any way to challenge that with rational arguments? (Sheila and Gann re limitations)
[12:37] Sheila Yoshikawa: @Beth re VWER not aiming to produce anything – I’d agree we don’t have any outputs (gaah) but perhaps sometimes outcomes if people learn something, or feel stimulated, or more relaxed or (anything else positive feeling)
[12:37] Gann McGann: no – you need rational arguments AND enough power to have people listen to you
[12:37] Breila Jenvieve: I guess education needs to grow beyond the pursuit of the certificate somehow.
[12:38] Gann McGann: @Breila Jenvieve 100%
[12:38] Marly (marly.milena): At Antioch, we demonstrated what we learned by teaching or, in my case, putting on a whole theater production!
[12:38] Beth Ghostraven: @Sheila I meant we don’t produce papers or writings, beyond the transcript – it’s not like we’re making something – kind of like education in general is not about making something (widgets etc)
[12:39] Breila Jenvieve: That’s why I celebrate technologies like AI. Maybe it will force us out of that trap of education as paper-chasing.
[12:39] Gann McGann: but certificates means points and points mean prizes — the best jobs go to the highest grades so students compete to get them, instead of learning the stuff that’s actually useful
[12:39] Marly (marly.milena): I had to demonstrate, not only an understanding of the play, but how to do set design, lighting, coaching, music, etc
[12:39] Gann McGann: or fun
[12:39] Gann McGann: or worthwhile
[12:39] Sheila Yoshikawa: @Marly @Gann you need a whole reconstruction of the education system, as in England the school (K12) system is focused on training the students to perform well in tests, and then the students themselves come to university often demanding that we university teachers should also teach them to the test
[12:39] Sheila Yoshikawa: so it is not just management
[12:40] Gann McGann: yep the largest opposition to good teaching is the students
[12:40] Marly (marly.milena): Ach, disgusting, Sheila!
[12:40] Sheila Yoshikawa: @Beth, yes, agree
[12:40] Nance Clowes: i dont think its the students. its the students parents
[12:40] Gann McGann: because it’s unfamiliar to them, so it moves them out of their comfort zone
[12:40] Nance Clowes: “how did my daughter get a 54%! that can’t be right. change things
[12:41] Marly (marly.milena): Maybe the parents need to be invited in to have a different kind of learning experience!
[12:41] Beth Ghostraven: @Marly you were very lucky to experience that kind of education – it’s not common, sadly
[12:41] Gann McGann: well that too, but it’s also – “i don’t want to collaborate because i’m helping someone else get good grades”
[12:42] Beth Ghostraven: wow, Gann, that’s sad
[12:42] Gann McGann: but also – academics got to be successful because the education system suited them, so they think a good system is one that works for people like them
[12:42] Gann McGann: it’s a self-replicating meme
[12:42] Nance Clowes: academics are much of the problem
[12:43] Sheila Yoshikawa: @Nance I think at our uni it’s more from the students themselves, but obviously parents and the marketing from the uni influence them
[12:43] Sheila Yoshikawa: lol it seems like everyone is the problem
[12:43] Marly (marly.milena): And now, all of the educational field is contending with political and economic constraints of all sorts (plus AI) which will vastly change what education is for in the future. Ideas about this?
[12:43] Gann McGann: @Beth Ghostraven yep, but that’s only because that’s what they’ve been taught to want out of education, there’s no education about education, no critical pedagogy at any point in their lives
[12:43] Lethal Rinq: Gann, I don’t know about that. I didn’t do well in school till I got to graduate school.
[12:43] Nance Clowes: @sheila, well, this discussion applies different at different levels. grade school is where it starts and fails, then higher education there are better standards but the people who went through grade schooling are not prepared for that
[12:43] Beth Ghostraven: Gann meta-pedagogy :o)
[12:43] Sheila Yoshikawa: I think jettisoning the idea of continuous progress would be a start
[12:44] Breila Jenvieve: Metapedagogy! There’s my word for the day!
[12:44] Marly (marly.milena): Say more, Sheila
[12:45] Gann McGann: @Lethal Rinq yep that can be true at graduate school but so many get filtered away from education by it not meeting their needs before that point. it’s a rare person who has the courage to go back
[12:45] Gann McGann: @Breila Jenvieve @Beth Ghostraven that’s a word for a whole month!!
[12:45] Lethal Rinq: AWww Shucks 🙂
[12:45] Sheila Yoshikawa: @Marly the idea that it’s going to get better and better for each succeeding generation, and that you have to have to have continual change to achieve this. Pragmatically it seems like for some countries/regions, things can’t get “better2 along the same lines as before
[12:46] Gann McGann: @Lethal Rinq ❤
[12:46] Breila Jenvieve: It can’t be the same as before, and that’s exciting (and a wee bit scary) to me.
[12:47] Gann McGann: @Sheila Yoshikawa yep late stage capitalism has to give way to the end of the idea of perpetual growth, we need to educate students to rebuild the world, not use up more of it
[12:47] Sheila Yoshikawa: Just catching up with metapedagogy – what does that mean? and do we have it in sL?
[12:47] Gann McGann: it’s learning about learning @Sheila Yoshikawa
[12:47] Valibrarian Gregg: curriculum is so time consuming- teachers are not expected to teach AI and they have not been trained and there really is no curriculum in place
[12:48] Valibrarian Gregg: another typo!!
[12:48] Breila Jenvieve: A few brave teachers are trying to bring it in, but it’ll take time to work through the paranoia about it.
[12:48] Gann McGann: and it’s unreasonable to expect anyone too, it’s not been around long enough for anyone to figure it out
[12:48] Valibrarian Gregg: they ARE expected to teach AI
[12:48] Valibrarian Gregg: now — not *not
[12:48] Valibrarian Gregg: exactly Gann
[12:48] Marly (marly.milena): However, we don’t actually know,in this transition phase, what is actually called for going forward. But there are pedagogical bottom lines like learning how to do research, how to think rationally, how to empathize, how to develop an ethical and moral ground, how to learn from all experience, not just school…. etc
[12:49] Valibrarian Gregg plans to share a session on that at the upcoming VWMOOC
[12:49] Lethal Rinq: I think that there is a place for librarians to teach AI like we do Information Literacy now.
[12:49] Valibrarian Gregg: my session aligns Neil Postman’s ideas with Pope Leo’s encyclical on AI
[12:49] Gann McGann: the difficulty is also … we’re still figuring out what these subjects are with AI, is there a math(s) curriculum left if AI can derive anything you want it to. No-one is facing the whole existential crisis about what education means now
[12:49] Lethal Rinq: To support the professors as subject specialists
[12:50] Breila Jenvieve: We are incorporating AI into middle school English, teaching it as a tool (rather than just a cheat).
[12:50] Beth Ghostraven: Lethal, yes, like librarians taught Google searches etc
[12:50] Lethal Rinq: Exactly Beth
[12:50] Sheila Yoshikawa: @Val yes I already cited that encyclical, although I am not really a religious person I found a lot of value in the encyclical
[12:51] Valibrarian Gregg: yes! I am not Catholic either….it is about humanity
[12:51] Gann McGann: @Marly (marly.milena) totally TOTALLY – when you take away the importance of the ability to process information, it’s those qualities that are humans’ USP – we should be leaning into that more in our education
[12:51] Beth Ghostraven: AI is kind of where Wikipedia was a while back – use it as a starting point, but don’t cite it
[12:51] Marly (marly.milena): Do you all agree or disagree with my basic process curriculum leaving out specific academic subjects?
[12:51] Dex Euromat: have to go. see you around
[12:51] Valibrarian Gregg: bye Dex
[12:51] Valibrarian Gregg: ooh I need to go as well as I have a session….great discussion all
[12:51] Valibrarian Gregg: see you next week
[12:51] Beth Ghostraven: tc Val
[12:51] Breila Jenvieve: TC Val
[12:52] Marly (marly.milena): Oh, synchronicity, Gann. We were typing at the same time.
[12:52] Gann McGann: hah ❤
[12:52] Gann McGann: but to answer your question – i a gree
[12:52] Lethal Rinq: Actually we are getting ready to implement an AI tool in our library the harvests material from the academic literature and not just scrape the web.
[12:52] Gann McGann: @Beth Ghostraven yep as an assistive technology, not a replacement technology
[12:53] Breila Jenvieve: I could use that, Letha!
[12:53] Lethal Rinq: It is now become a pathway to the primary source materials and not just a newfangled Wikipedia.
[12:53] Breila Jenvieve: Yes, Gann, that’s what we’re doing at our school.
[12:54] Gann McGann: as long as our new AI overlords are OK with that :- D
[12:54] Breila Jenvieve: Heh
[12:55] Marly (marly.milena): We also need more feedback from The People as to what has been helpful and useful and what feels shady and diminishing of our own abilities
[12:55] Sheila Yoshikawa: I have used Inquiry Based Learning (with the students posing and answering the questions) which is in line with what @Marly you said, but it needs to permeate the whole education programme
[12:55] Gann McGann: and then there’s issues with the resources needed to implement and assess it
[12:56] Breila Jenvieve: Yes, Sheila, that kind of student agency is an important step.
[12:56] Beth Ghostraven: @Sheila I’ve been saying for decades that teaching students how to ask good questions is crucial, at all ages
[12:56] Sheila Yoshikawa: AND as was said about half an hour ago – we ended up talking about AI! lol
[12:56] Breila Jenvieve: Yes yes yes
[12:56] Marly (marly.milena): Exhausting and exhilarating discussion. I need a cuppa
[12:56] Beth Ghostraven: Marly, I’m with ya :o)
[12:56] Sheila Yoshikawa: @Beth yes
[12:56] Breila Jenvieve: We always swing to AI, don’t we?
[12:56] Sheila Yoshikawa: OK
[12:56] Sheila Yoshikawa: thanks everyone for the discussion
[12:56] Marly (marly.milena): Let’s not let it own us!!!!
[12:57] Breila Jenvieve: Yes, this was a good chat today!
[12:57] Lethal Rinq: thanks for the invite.
[12:57] Sheila Yoshikawa: we are better than the bots!
[12:57] Sheila Yoshikawa: lol
[12:57] Gann McGann: and @Beth Ghostraven and teaching teachers how to ask good questions is also crucial
[12:57] Marly (marly.milena): Come back again, Lethal
[12:57] Beth Ghostraven: Gann yes
[12:57] Sheila Yoshikawa: Next week is a visit to the SL birthday exhibition
[12:57] Gann McGann: nice
[12:57] Skipper Abel: Really enjoyed the discussion today everyone thanks a lot, bye for now Skipper
[12:57] Gann McGann: ah sheila – could you stay for a few mins to chat about VWMOOC
[12:58] Sheila Yoshikawa: yes
[12:58] Gann McGann: :- D
[12:58] Breila Jenvieve: Have a great day everyone!
[12:58] Gann McGann: you too
VWER Meeting Transcripts by Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at http://vwer.info.
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