Self-Diagnostic exercise

• I am your friend. I don’t work in education. You are talking to me about the idea that we all learn from each other, in all kinds of contexts, and that this can often be richer than more formal classroom based learning. I am sceptical. Tell me about an informal learning experience you have had online in which collaboration was involved, show me a concrete example to help me to see what you mean.

  It is organisation policy to start using electronic means to store knowledge. Unlike a department of education, the organisation I work for, can force it's employees to follow in this line of thought (or can try to, anyway).
  Last year we began developing new web courses to teach the Microsoft Office 2007 software. For the first time, an on-paper syllabus was to be derived from the on-web course. Instructors throughout the country worked together on a centrally stored copy of the web course. Every one of us had access over the web to the authoring tool. We could al write our part of course.
  This way of working together was wonderful, only, we found that the need of communication was tremendous. In the end, mailing was not enough any more and we fell back to the old way of periodically organising meetings.
  

  
  
• We all explore new technologies, some grab our attention more than others, some seem revolutionary, others simply bore us. Tell us about that new tool, or set of tools, you have just discovered that really excites you, talk about the potential it has to change your work. What do you want to do with it?

  Second Life fills up my mind, right now. It makes me all excited to think of a virtual world, peopled with plenty of (real world) individuals in search for what is in this world for them. Nothing new in that, of course, we actually live in a world like that. Nevertheless, new laws are in force in this virtual world and the new communication possibilities are the first to come to my mind. These extra possibilities have an air of magic about them.
  A more realistic view on the matter will probably downsize my great expectations, but finding out what is in second life for us, the teaching class of mankind, is something I want to do. I hope this MUVEnation program will prove to be a good way to find that out.
  

• Do you see yourself as a pioneer? Do you think you are more innovative than others in your organisation? Do you think your organisation is lagging behind? Tell us how you feel about this?

  I do not want to consider myself a pioneer in my organisation. I just want to keep an open mind and not be afraid to try new things. True enough, I do feel excited when trying new things and seeing that they work for me. I can not boast a particular sharp sense of finding out how things work, but with a little patience ...
  Some people in my organisation are definitely lagging behind in "new ways of the world", but I can not blame them. It is common to cling on to the things you know and save your energy for what matters more in your life. Some people have energy to spare, though.
  

my first message ...

Hello there,

My name is Cedric. I work at VDAB (state run unemployment office in Flanders, Belgium). I was trained a commercial engineer. I did a few teaching jobs as a professor economics, bookkeeping, law etc. in secondary school. At VDAB, I develop courses to be distributed over internet to unemployed people in my country. Subject of these courses is anything from office tools to reading building plans, behavioural sciences, languages (I do have colleagues developing, doing the same thing). The big idea is to teach adults so they can get employed (and deepen their skills on the job).

SL is fairly new to me. I’m interested to find out how to communicate skills and (more or less) abstract idea’s to adults. I do not want to start another setting of teacher-pupil-classroom in SL for this: I want to introduce a certian freedom so students can learn at their pace and on their initiative; I want to convince them to keep on (studying and) learning. I would very much like to discuss experiences you all have in this and I can not wait to do some experimenting on my own.