This web based program is all Norwegian, developed here in Bergen by amongst others, Caspar and the Media Center at HiB. I said I’m not ecstatic yet, but that is mostly because I’ve been so stressed about the whole thing. As usual. Have a feeling though, that this might be quite interesting. Especially considering I’m so lucky being able to get “inside information”, knowing one of the developers and all. Yeah, yeah.

Last week I felt a spark of inspiration, some purpose in what I’m doing, but I fear it is too late. But if nothing else I will hopefully be able to give some ideas for improvement for coming classes. Conceited and arrogant? I hope not. Anyhow, last week we agreed upon working on the wiki Jill set up for us. Excellent idea, I thought, and my plan was to edit the page about Laurillard’s text on categorizing media for learning technology. As usual life screws up my plans, and I found out that it was too much work and too little time left.

So, Julian Dibbel’s “Rape in Cyberspace”, that I could do. I thought so, anyway. Full of guilt I felt I at least had to do something. Good girl, you know. Wikipedia was also helpful, and yesterday I edited the page on our wiki. But it’s then I realize that I’m the only one that has done anything at all! Well, until just now, that is – by sorting all pages by date it’s easy to follow the progress on the wiki (or simply check your mail – the PBwiki Changebot will notify of any changes), and an hour ago this page was edited. Couldn’t tell by whom though, but I have a hunch. I’ll have to find out tomorrow, just to satisfy my curiosity….

This semester started of as rocky as all previous has, a fact that has made me realize that this is how it is. But on top of my frustrations even inspiration lacked, although these last two weeks has made things clearer again. Well, at least more fun. First we had a guest from Vassar College, USA. Jeffrey Schneider introduced us to the MOO he has been a part of developing, and which they use in German-English studies at Vassar. It’s called MOOssiggang, and the “story” takes place in Eastern Germany, post war, at the time of the Stasi’s. This was quite interesting, but I didn’t really get the hang of it, mostly because I spent too much time in getting to know the space, instead of interacting. Which is a fact worth noticing. If you use a MOO for learning, I guess it’s important to make sure every type of “player” is taken into consideration.

This week we have continued with one of the MOO’s developed by our own University. The intention was, I guess, to let us get to know how the programme works a little, before we discussed certain aspects of it. This discussion should be especially with Julian Dibbell’s : “A Rape in Cyberspace” in mind.

The questions were obviously more related to ICT and Learning, but as always I drift off, and try to undstand it all on a more basic level. Who are we? No, seriously. Reading Dibbel’s article really triggers a lot of ideas in me, but I noticed that some of the students I discussed it with didn’t find it “believable”. They seemed to have a clear distinction between any online activities and and real life. “That’s not me”, they said. But I don’t agree, everything you do in any setting always involves your mind working (even if it doesn’t always seems so…), and I don’t think our physical brains has the same distinctions as our “thinking minds”.

Why not turn things around, and see if people are starting to behave and interact differently to other in real life? Give you an example why I firmly believe we’re absolutely affected by computer interactions:

A couple of years ago I played one of the Tombraider games in more or less one setting. Fun, but kind of exausting. Anyway, desperately in need for some fresh air I went into the woods to pick mushrooms. That is usually one of the most relaxing things you can do. I walked for a while, rather absent-minded, when there suddenly was a cliff right in front of me. First reaction -

jump five metres, skimmy to right and raise to the next level!

I could actually feel it in my body that I could do it, but in my mind I knew I wasn’t Lara Croft.