Reflections #10

I loved the presentation about Second Life, but I am not for sure how much I really like the idea. I can understand that Second Life has various educational uses, but I find the idea to be really scary. Second Life is just a little bit to realistic for me. It is bad enough that we have so many crazy people in the real world, but to provide these "fools" with a virtual world where they can lose their minds is ridiculous. I understand that safety measures have been developed to protect those within Second Life, but this does not prevent them from being victims to crazy people. Second Life is a wonderful excuse for people to lose their identity and become victims of their own unconscious thoughts. At this time I don't know if I would use this as cognitive tool within my class. I will have to learn more about Second Life and its safety policies.

Reflections #9

After reading the article on participatory culture, it was really interesting to see how it correlated with pop culture. The participatory culture is composed of the same component a pop culture- media influences. One of the drawbacks of this participatory culture is the gap that it produces for some of its participants. May the popular culture (participatory culture) is not so popular. What happens to the students who do not have access to this media technology? How do these students compete with privileged students who have access to this knowledge. How do teachers design instruction to meet the needs of all learners without oppressing the already disadvantage learners? These are additional issues we have to consider when discussing participatory culture.