Socializing

A few people commented about Neopets after seeing my presentation and were wondering what educational value this site has and how it relates to communities and learning. First, Neopets DOES have many education aspects that I've thought could be used in the classroom. There are math games, writing contests and a stock market! You can own a shop and keep track of inventory and profits. You can have a bank account and calculate your interest. You can play a game like the common "Lemonade Stand" where you have to buy materials and furnish a store to try and make a profit. (Even I have yet to master that game). There are numerous opportunities for writing/drawing/cartooning and learning html and designing skills! Even though my guild is primarily social, we DO work on projects and help eachother (tutor, if you will or form apprenticeships) with things on the site. The site also offers things called PLOTS that have complex puzzles you must solve. One of these recent plots involved Astronomy! They almost always have complex math problems and logic problems. So, I would definately say the site has some good educational challenges for young players...and they often stump the adults too!

Online Collaboration

I just finished my first "online group" project, and I would definately say it was more challenging that if it had been totally in a face to face classroom. We felt compelled to meet in person because we were short on time and this was completely new to all of us in addition to the technologies we were using that were new to us. Not only did we communicate via email and an online meeting, but we met in person for a few hours to discuss our project and then we also met in person when we were presenting online. I do not feel we could have put the project together in only a week without meeting face to face. I know that online collaboration is definately possible because of the work I've done with my online Neopets guild and because my father works from home and primarily collaborates with his team via online and phone meetings. I think that time plays a major factor. If we had 3 weeks to put our project together and were more familiar with the technology and subject matter perhaps we would not have felt compelled to meet in person. Also, there is a matter of trust. It is more difficult to depend on other group members and put your trust in them when you do not know eachother and havn't even conversed online much. Overall, I felt our project went ok (The Exemplar project) but was not as socially satisfying as I've found group work in the past.

Community~Shared History?

Just wanted to comment on one little thing that 's been nagging me. On page 7 of Barab's book, Lave and Wenger talk about a community having "a significant history, a common cultural and historical heritage"...I don't think that is true for online communities. YES you need to have some common ground, something in common with eachother. But in my guild, we are mostly women. Most of us are under the age of 40 and either mothers or college students. We are all adults. We all love Neopets, the site where our guild is at. We share a few common values like respect, kindness and generosity. And that is what has gelled us together and made us a community. We are from different COUNTRIES and continents, but we still have much in common. A significant historical heritage is not necesarrily true for us, but we ARE a community.

Secondly, I thought class yesterday was very interesting! I thought our first, totally ONLINE class was a challenge. I think discussions were good, we had a GREAT moderator in Kelly...but the problem is that everything takes LONGER to get through...so it is definately more time-consuming doing it that way. But I still thought it was fruitful:) I feel like we are getting to know eachother a bit better and that is also helping us communicate in this way more efficiently.

Story About A Tree

Wow. When I read the story about a tree about that online gaming community it sounded JUST like my Neopets family! I immediately went to the guild and told my guildmates to google that article. It is not difficult for any of use to see how we really DO make this more than a game by the friendships we have formed. And because of the restrictions of the Neopets site (because it is geared towards kids and is therefore trying to be a safe environment) many of my guild memebers have exchanged MySpace addresses and we can share photos and our daily blogs there...we can also chat about more personal topics on MySpace than we could on Neopets like religion etc. However, our connections through MySpace have greatly enriched our guild! It really helps connect you with eachother when you can put a picture/face to a username. We know about eachother's families, jobs, hobbies, habits and more! YES, we DO talk about the game a lot, but that is not the biggest part of our guild. The biggest part of our community is sharing our daily lives with eachother and being there for eachother. For example, one of our members just got laid off yesterday! She was totally shocked and posted a simple message about it. Many members proceeded to not only post messages of encouragement and support to her on the guild board, but also sent her personal emails with encouragement and sent her gifts! (neo-gifts as in pixels that are only worth neopoints...but make a difference in the game). THIS is just ONE of many instances where we reached beyond the game to try and impact someone's real life in a real way! I was a very proud guild leader at that moment!