Category: Uncategorized

Plunge into My VR Office – One Mind-bending Click Away!

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Virtual reality apps have exploded.  Frame.io is a web-based VR platform created by Virbela which is currently in Beta and will be released next year. In addition, augmented reality (AR) has been around for years but is staged to take off in mainstream media for many uses.  We live and work in multiple realities and we juggle multiple communication tools which certainly require metaliteracy.  Click here to visit my VR office Frame.io/valibrarian or (if you have a device nearby) just use a smart camera to access with this QR code.

Note: the default setting is an open microphone.  I need to tell the Frame.io creators that this might be a privacy issue.  I had the tab open on my browser and then left to do work on other tabs.  A couple hours later, I heard a colleague saying, “Hi Val!  Are you there?”  I could not figure out where the voice was coming from until I clicked over to the Frame.io tab. Yikes! That felt weird.

The images in the VR office have links to resources about metaliteracy in metamodern culture, so click away as you wander through both 2D and 3D objects. Metaliteracy is a term, coined by Tom Mackey and Trudi Jacobson, that encompasses the way we juggle many communication tools every day including social media, email, text messages, app notifications, evaluation of online information and much more. If you come visit, you will create an avatar and be able to chat in voice. 

One wall shares a link to the Community Virtual Library Frame.io space, which also is just one click away! My office hours in Second Life at the Community Virtual Library are currently 1-2pm Pacific Time. I will “plunge” into FrameVR and be around if anyone wants to visit. Of course, if you are reading this ten years from now, we may meet elsewhere. Perhaps on Mars!

Brave Teleportation Around the World with the #VWMOOC2020

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Virtual world immersive learning environments provide a “real space” for learning across the globe with a sense of presence beyond webinars or online learning platforms like Canvas or Blackboard.  During the Virtual World MOOC 2020, Dr. Valerie Hill (Valibrarian) of the Community Virtual Library collaborated with Hajime Nichimura (Yan Lauria in virtual worlds).  Yan Lauria, who is located in Japan, has developed a teleportal system that shares simulations for education that are organized by subject.  Each month, Yan shares a tour for Community Virtual Library, and anyone can participate.  These tours are in voice and Valerie types in a chat window to help people follow Yan across the virtual world through teleportation.

Of course, watching this video as avatars teleport to Japan, Africa, France, and Italy is not the same experience as jumping into the virtual space yourself! The video was shot and shared through ZOOM during the Virtual World MOOC.

When one enters these simulated environments, there is a sense of “being there” beyond reading a book about a different culture.  In a virtual world, one controls the camera angles, walking, and interacting through active participation rather than passive viewing.

Together, learners can communicate across space and help each other juggle a variety of technological tools.  This is part of metaliteracy– a new way to view literacy beyond reading and writing.

Virtual Japan
Virtual African Savannah
Virtual Castle in France
Virtual Venice

Visit the narrow streets of Tokyo, a beautiful African Art Gallery, a French cathedral and the gondolas of Venice! One can stop and take a look at the beautiful view from way up at the top of a castle. Visit the Community Virtual Library calendar for more information about “Gateway to Thinking” (the teleportal system created by Hajime Nichimura (Yan Lauria) located in Second Life.

Our world has changed and continues to change, requiring us to develop new literacy skills (metaliteracy). “An exploration of global digital participatory culture spotlights a momentous change in the way we live and perceive our world, the “structure of feeling” evolving from postmodernism into metamodernism and the need to rethink literacy for a new era (Hill, 2020 p. 14)”.

Hill, V. J. (2020). Metamodernism and Changing Literacy: Emerging Research and Opportunities (pp. 1-225). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-7998-3534-9

Quest for a Virtual PLC

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People have always shared ideas and learned in collaborative communities.  But today, especially with the rush to online learning during the Covid19 pandemic, joining a professional learning community (PLC) has become essential for educators to help the next generation of learners.

Choosing the best digital and virtual environments is a daunting task.  There simply is not enough time to explore them all!  But, together, we can be aware of the best applications and best practices for utilizing virtual environments.

An example of a PLC in virtual environments is the CVL Education Network provided by the Community Virtual Library.  Educators hold “office hours” in virtual spaces such as Second Life, Kitely, Opensim, Cybalounge, 3Dwebworlz, AltspaceVR, VirBela and many more. This spreadsheet shares virtual worlds (desktop) and virtual reality (headset) platforms for education with the goal of illustrating high quality virtual learning environments and helping educators become aware of possibilities. Note that there are five sheets to share various ways to connect and build a PLC and contact information to include your virtual office hours. Anyone (educators, artists, musicians, subject specialists, or lifelong learners) can use this spreadsheet to navigate and explore virtual environments.

CVL Main Branch is in Second Life

Glimpses of Metamodern Times

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The Community Virtual Library is sharing podcasts, so I am taking the opportunity to share a bit about my book Metamodernism and Changing Literacy. Short audio clips can present various topics about how literacy has changing (and is changing) for all of us. Here’s a quick little introduction…

Metamodernism is a term which I believe captures our cultural moment and helps us understand how literacy has changed. Dr. Gregg Henriques addressed the question “What is Metamodernism?” in his recent blog post in Psychology Today. The journey toward understanding digital culture is complex and fascinating. Stay tuned for more little glimpses into metamodernism through the “lens of literacy” (metaliteracy) with podcasts available on Spotify or other apps.

Living in a Meta World

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Metaliteracy for the metamodern world

How lucky I have been to serve as a librarian and “literacy specialist” during the time when literacy was turned upside down. (Well, there were a few bumpy moments when I didn’t really feel lucky!) I got to witness it personally and globally. I remember a day in the school library, when I had the strangest sensation (somewhere in the early days after the turn of the century) that the floor of the library was shaking. I realized I was experiencing the shift from primarily print materials to digital ones at the close of the Gutenberg Parentheses.

My search for ways to adapt and teach literacy in our postmodern and metamodern times led me to metaliteracy, a term coined by Mackey and Jacobson that provides a structure for the acquisition, production, and sharing of knowledge in collaborative online communities. I have used several other literacy terms (such as transliteracy) over the past few years, but metaliteracy seems to perfectly match our digital-based literacy environment.

I took a break from blogging to write a book on the topic of metaliteracy that should be published this year. My research has led me to the intersection of literacy and our philosophical moment in time– metamodernism. Of course, this proposed name has not yet become widely accepted since it is impossible to understand an era or a place in history at the time it is being lived. Yet, the sense of feeling that times have changed and that postmodernism is over surrounds us all.

Thomas P. Mackey and Trudi E. Jacobson.  Metaliteracy: Reinventing Information Literacy to Empower Learners. Chicago: Neal-Schuman/ALA Editions and London; Facet, 2014. 

The Toppling Hierarchy of Information

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Web 2.o (perhaps an over-used term but a rapidly expanding source of shared information) may include user-generated content, social media, wikinomics, folksonomies and open source software.  For centuries, scholars have treasured the great works created by the most brilliant minds.  Expert authority has been regarded with great esteem by the wise elders. Now that the hierarchy of information has toppled, is respect for human ideas, creativity, and wisdom still valued?

Today, we see a trend toward “information wants to be free.” Note the link to cyberpunks and that idea that hackers are liberators of information which should never be isolated or controlled by a single ideology.  Don’t mistake my intent here to insult hackers or cyberpunks.  Some of the individuals I follow in my personal leraning network may fall into that category!

The core philosophical standards of my training as a librarian have encouraged me to balance intellectual freedom with intellectual property.  I hear many people call the Internet the “world’s biggest library” and use the term “Google” as both librarian and search strategy.  Many individuals are unaware of the cost of high quality information in academic databases.  Convenient sources, accessed immediately, are first choice.  Giving credit to the source of information retrieved online is an idea that is archaic in some circles.  Respect for intellectual property is the concern of stuffy old academics from the dark ages.  A science teacher can use a youtube video created by a 6th grader to teach magnetism, so who needs an expert?

Why I do I care?  Why am I taking the time to write this blog?

Standing among the rubble, having witnessed the toppling of the hierarchy of information, my concern is that human beings will no longer have a quest for deep understanding.  I think I am beginning to understand The Shallows by Nicholas Carr.

Who am I to write about this?  I am no authority!  I am an example of the problem I address, adding to the “sea of chaos” by writing a user-generated blog.  Spouting off my meager ramblings for the world to read (knowing that the likelihood is extremely small because the average time spent on a webpage according Nicholas Carr is only 18 seconds), I often feel unqualified to share my thoughts online.  I remind myself that I should be willing to serve as a “brave guinnea pig” in this new era because there is no going back to life before the net.

The only redeeming value I can see in this post, is that fact that I am revising a draft that I started two years ago ( August 2009).  I saw my unfinished post titled “The Toppling Hierarchy of Information” and was compelled to revise.  Oh, the power of that word- revision (to see again).

Free Blog (at a price)

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So it turns out edublogs now allows “contentlink” ads to appear within my free educational blog.  I have investigated the possibility of ridding my blog of these annoying ads.  Now I read that in order to have an “ad-free” blog, I must pay an annual subscription.  It is difficult for a reader to distinguish my intentional links from these random advertisements.  I suppose this is another example of constantly changing technology.  As an educator, one can spend many hours learning a new technology tool which ends up becoming useless, unnecessary, or suddenly obsolete.  There is still one benefit, however, because each new learning experience provides skills that make the next one just a bit easier.

The secret to digital happiness is getting comfortable with change.