Stigmergy and Online Classes: Sentimentality In Education
Final papers are graded; scantron sheets filled out and turned in; the semester is over. We walk away from our offices for break, looking forward to the work we have to finish before the spring semester starts. Rarely, a student might ask for his/her final paper comments but usually after the questions about grades are done, so is the semester.
However, when we teach in online stigmergic environments the semester doesn’t end quite so cleanly. There are websites filled with student writing, fascinating conversations captured by forums, and IM transcripts to be filed away. Even more, if we teach in virtual environments we may even have student buildings, dorm rooms, etc to decide what to do with.
As each semester ends I’m faced with the decision to reset a Joomla or Drupal site and consistently I wind up beginning yet another sub-domain for the new semester.
http://eng104.intellagirl.com
http://eng104sl.intellagirl.com
and on and on.
This semester I’ve gone beyond feeling that I should preserve valuable student writing right into a sense of sentimentality and downright nostalgia about the work my class has left behind. I stand on Middletown island in Second Life, looking around at dorm rooms, sculptures, a huge campaign center, and even the rotating seating arrangement we used to have our class discussions. I see the stigmergic environment in which, for the last fifteen weeks, my students have taken part in, what I think, is a truly innovative education experience.
Yet, I only have one island and only so much space so I know that to make room for next semester’s students; I have to clear out the space to allow next semester’s students and their innovations rather than forcing them to live in the shadows of last semester’s students.
I’ve joked about naked students, bikini-clad professors, and drinking in class, but this experiences seems like a much more serious consequence of teaching in an immersive virtual environment. And one we should think about.
Meanwhile, I’ll archive as much of the island as I can before I reset it and try to rebuild some spaces in improved ways from what I’ve learned from this semester’s experience.
