Week 12 Response

1. What is situated learning and how does it differ from learning in the real world?

After reading the text, I’ve found that situated learning exists in both the online world and the offline world (something that wasn’t immediacy clear to me).  Situated learning is basically the concept that how we learn depends on the situation that we are presented with.  It’s theorized that within situated learning there are two different aspects:  learning about and learning to be.  Learning about is basically just getting knowledge about a topic — ideas or practices related tot he topic.  Learning to be is engaging in practices about a topic and absorbing knowledge that way.  The traditional model suggests that we always learn about something then move towards learning to be.  Thomas and Brown argue that online, virtual environments turn this upside down.  I tend to agree with Thomas and Brown that in virtual environments it is often necessary to learn to be first instead of learning about but I do not think this is exclusive to the online world.  There are plenty of things offline that this is also true of.  Driving a car is impossible to learn how to do without actually doing it.  Other people’s horns are there to let you know when you messed up.  Although learning a language can be done via the learning about method, the learning to be method is more effective — immersion programs are gaining a lot of steam because it is easier to learn the language when someone is dropped in a foreign country with no other option than to learn the language.  I have my doubts that the order these two processes occur is an online/offline thing.

2. Is there more to the concept of “retail theater” than the creation of an electronic version of real life?

There is definitely more to the idea of retail theater than just creating an electronic version.  The idea of retail theater is that a retailer is trying to make their operation a destination for the consumer.  Examples might be bookstores having book readings by authors or an electronics store having in-store trainings on how to program that remote.  It is a value added offering that helps to make the consumer go to a retailer for a reason other than price.  This is an issue that online retailers are currently trying to solve.  Most consumers are shopping online because of low prices.  Very few have managed to make that jump to become a “destination.”

3. Are ethical issues faced in Second Life also present in offline society?

From what I can tell, most of the ethical issues that were mentioned in Botterbusch and Talab’s article are things that also happen offline.  People are exploited every day.  People dressing as furries in real life partake in the same “fun” activities as their Second Life brethren.  Theft happens ALL the time.  I think what really scares us isn’t that these things are happening in virtual environments but that we are so naive to think that they wouldn’t.