March 1 Post: Avatars

Let me begin by saying that I had a ton of fun making avatars this week. I really enjoyed http://www.gizmoz.com/, but I decided to upload a different avatar that I made, from http://www.simpsonsmovie.com/main.html.



Moving on. The readings for this week were very informative. I have very little experience with avatars, aside from seeing Dwight Schrute’s Second Life character on my favorite show, The Office. I remember that episode vividly, and I remember thinking that the technology was pretty cool. Before the readings, I had not considered that avatars could be used for educational purposes. Boy, was I wrong. I can absolutely see the benefit of using avatars, particularly in an online class. Sometimes, online classes can feel a little bit isolating and alienating, since students miss out on actually interacting with classmates (unless online chats, for example, are required). Even when classmate interaction is facilitated through chats, that visual element sometimes remains missing, and the visual element is a factor that students find important. For example, my blog buddy and I added each other as friends on Facebook last week, and I now feel like I know her a bit better. We have chatted online for quite a few weeks, but I now feel like I have an even fuller picture. Avatars can serve an even more personalized purpose than images alone, and they can be even more effective in this regard. I think that they have the potential to revolutionize online classes (and other classes, for that matter), but I think that most people are still fairly unfamiliar with the whole avatar issue.

In my experience, students are very engaged and excited about avatars. I overheard someone in one of my classes discussing an experience in which she showed an avatar of herself to her own students and had the avatar explain the daily writing prompt. She said that the students were completely blown away. As a result of her efforts, the students were engaged in the activity. The readings for this week seem to suggest a similar pattern. Even if avatars are not as useful as students would hope, as was the case with the eFolio avatar, they nevertheless spur student curiosity and involvement with the class. I have taken the same class (from the study) in which we had to create an eFolio, and believe me, that project was incredibly confusing. I certainly understand the rationale for creating an avatar to field student questions for EDHD 5007.

At this point, the whole “avatar abuse” thing should probably be addressed. Maybe I am too liberal for my own good, but I simply don’t think that it is that huge of an issue. This is a new technology that, as I said above, thrives on student curiosity. Of course they are going to push the boundaries of the technology—actually, I would be disappointed if they weren’t interested in the capabilities of the technology. If sexuality is a natural part of “human” life, doesn’t it make sense that students would be interested to find out if the non-human avatar was programmed to respond in an equally human-like fashion? Though I wouldn’t type inappropriate comments to an avatar in a school setting, I would nevertheless be curious to find out how an avatar would respond to such…dare I say it…probing questions? I think it just comes with the territory. The study gave a bunch of students anonymous access to an attractive computer “tutor” without consequences. I would have been more surprised if the inappropriate comments did not occur. In my opinion, the same goes for the group of high school students discussed in the readings. Demographically, should we be shocked that high school boys like to test boundaries and are interested in attractive females, or that their minds aren’t always the purest? I think not.

I am not suggesting that abuse to women is not a serious issue. But there is a significant distinction that must be made—these avatars may appear to be life-like but they are definitely NOT real humans, and I think that the “dirty talk” that the avatars face has much more to do with technological curiosity than anything else. I don’t think we should expect that people pay avatars the same level of respect as an actual human—in the end, why does it matter? Nobody gets hurt. I don’t think that this mistreatment of avatars should deter avatar use, primarily because they offer so many great benefits. According to Veletsianos et al., “pedagogical agents can (a) increase motivation, (b) increase perceptions of comfort, (c) stimulate learning, (d) enhance information and communication flow, (e) fulfill personal connection to learning, and (f) enhance problem solving processes” (293). Though not every student will benefit from the use of pedagogical agents, I feel that they are a great tool that can enhance learning. If teachers or professors are really worried about “avatar abuse,” then they always have the option of creating a gender-neutral avatar (although I would bet that students will still be curious enough to find new ways to push boundaries).

I think that the anonymity of comments in both of the readings for this week is another monumental factor. If you want to curb inappropriate comments fielded by avatars, simply track the comments back to the students. Problem solved. I know that this would deter the majority of students from “testing the waters” in this way. The readings remind us that “the Internet lowers human inhibitions…especially when anonymity is involved” (294).

So my thoughts boil down to the fact that I am definitely an advocate of avatar use in the classroom. Though there are some downsides such as avatar abuse according to some, the pros outweigh the cons, in my opinion. In fact, if the teacher is planning on creating an avatar of him/herself, I think that a great way to decrease “avatar abuse” would be to have students create avatars of themselves. If they are involved with the process to a greater extent, perhaps they will be more aware of the capabilities of the technology, thus curbing many of the risqué comments that are simply meant to test the limits of this technology. If the students are involved in the process of creating avatars for a class, then media literacy and engagement will be increased anyway, which should be an important goal for any teacher.