Presenter: Owen Kelly, Arcada, Helsinki, Finland

As the average speed of connection to the internet grows, and as the average power of the average computer increases, so we move into new means of connection. New means of connection mean new arenas for playing and learning; teaching and flirting; buying and selling; finding happiness and declaring war.

We are on the verge of the mass acceptance of synthetic worlds, which are nothing more than data stored on a server and presented to us in a way that we find enticing enough to use as the basis for collective hallucinations.

Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Problems arise however when the hallucination turns out not to be as shared as we thought. Synthetic worlds are beginning to have this problem, as people realise that not everyone shares their views about why they are there, and indeed what “there” actually is. Some people see “places” like Second Life as new worlds to be settled. Others see them as tools to facilitate communication: Skype with puppets.

This has significant effects for the development of a transformative epedagogy. If people do not share the same hallucination then they will tread on each other’s toes. They will become each other’s griefers. The noise will drown the signal, and no learning will happen.

Yet, closed learning worlds, like gated communities, seem more like an admission of defeat than a bold step forward. At LoW 4 I wish to develop an analysis that will take us beyond this, and enable us to formally abandon teaching in the interests of self-motivated exploratory learning.

Owen Kelly is a lecturer in digital interactive media at Arcada, a university of applied science, in Helsinki, Finland
official: www.arcada.fi
less official: www.owenkelly.net
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