Hi Beverly, Okay so.. I am still reeling from the hyper-awareness / revelation I had as a result of 'hooking up' essentially all HMS and you have put forward from your disscussion here and from what I gleaned from the HMS video channel and website...
Today, during an Easter gathernig we held at our home, I was relating this awareness from "COMPLEXITY" and the chaos associated with global inter-connected-ness... As this is a rabbit hole we are only now realizing we are assuredly free-falling through. Putting this together, as I had confided with you I had been surmizing that the global conflict and strife associated with today's foreign and domestic turbulence is more than likely rationalized (by me or so I thought) from everyone being connected all at once, where we all had never been connected before. Your work with HMS divulging and expressing this very sentiment caused me to re-focus with keen acuity, that this theory has more than merit... It is validated and is a moving target with a conscience all its' own.
Three of my guests are professional's with PhD's and M.D's. (I am a lowly M.A.T.. LOL)... My Mother is the Ph.D & DSW, Columbia University my other guest is a Chiropractor Practicioner who specializes in psychological causality for stress related issue's and offer's cognitive therapy as an effective approach toward healing. The attention given to this conversation I led with these two was intense. They both immediately "Got it", the "complexity" and the chaos assimilated with information overload and the immersion of connectivity as a global awareness. The primitive brain was immediately discussed, flight or fight response being triggered from constant immersive awareness and the fact that there is not an "off switch" anywhere in sight from the stimulus which causes this primitive brain response was also discussed at great length.
Needless to say there are two more very interested professional's that would like to seek more information on your work with HMS.. Looking forward to your book in August.
I am an educator, I have a Masters' Degree and certification to teach in NYS, I have three years classroom experience, I am an an adult career changer at 47, I am a gamer and have been actively involved In-World with SL for 5 years. I have clearly made very clear 'investment's' in my school district to forward the movement for immersive technologies into Public K-12 Secondary instruction (as disclosed in this string). I have very close reference access to Doctoral mentoring from my mother and other's in the "clan" I run with such as my former Mentor from my M.A.T. Degree studies program Dr. Avonne Alzate, SUNY (Ret.) who is now a "free agent" with time on her hands and whom which is also a 'gamer'!... How can I/we become involved in what seems to be a burgeoning industry with chaos and complexity of it's own (I.E. Public K-12 Education)???
I see agencies and individual's receiving grants like free flowing water and I know some (many) of this grant money is feeding watered down hypothetical research (I am brutal and some suggest a filter, often.. lol). Seriously, I want to provide meaningful application with actual students in authentic real-world teaching and learning classrooms where we can apply what we have been doing in-world from enough time in terms of years of trial and error.. to roll out in a classroom environemnt that is accredited and recognized as authentic Middle and/or Secondary Education.
I have a belief that I can and will find (eventually) that 'someone' or that they may find me, and that this Virtual Teaching position for me and the data and research that SHOULD come from or with it would also be part and parcel of the teaching position / scenario I seek to find.
I know that in terms of risk from student's being placed in 'high risk' from a tentatively experimental teaching and learning environment is minimal and low. I have high confidence of this because without asking for permission, I have applied it with some already in small ways (informally /voluntarily, with no impact on grade), through active aprticipation, consisiting of a few sessions in SL on open science builds. The venue and platform afforded as being a genuine "teaching environment" as perceived from these student's was all they needed to know.. They met me 70% of the way, I merely showed up, facilitated and guided while i taught. They engaged. listened, retained and sought... The "motivated learner" therefor, is what I was looking to facilitate..
Vygotsky surmizes in theory that a motivated learner will become a Self-Regulated learner.. Pushing toward (ZPD) Zone of Proximinal Dimension (or to the wall..), is the ultimate of best practices for having high expectations from learner's in this way. I get that, we get that... This was the outcome. The platform many of what Generation "Millennial" is salivating for is what we are "Playing in" now...
Please keep me / this in mind if you might run across such an opportunty for a great "Laboratory". I would think that there are enough "drop out's" seeking credit recovery or "School Refuser's" than one could shake a stick at (in the U.S. alone), to assemble a class from. I am NYS certtified Secondary Earth Science (and soon Living Environement: 5-9 / 7-12), I believe my involvement could only occur in the state I am certified in however. I also know that NY Gov. Cuomo along with NYC Mayor Bloomberg is very keen on shaking things up in Education and is looking for "accountability" and "Innovation" in NYS / NYC schools.. Could be Win/Win with the right alignment... I could easily find and recruit many other tech savvy certified teacher's here in NYS to ramp up or scale up should the need arise.
The future is bright.. I count on that. I just don't know how much longer or from where the innevitable "landing place" for what seems so Niche a request (for me) today, will become an actualized reality.. Alas. As We know THIS is what IS neccesary for US to get out of our own way and to get on with getting down to awakening nothing short of the next generation and the entire country / world to mesh with chaotic learning systems and embrace the complexity as if to say:
"Take me as far and as fast as I desire, free me of the confinement of traditional learning.. or to accept that the information jet stream exists, much of it is sweeping age old cultures, norms and industries' as well as paradigms off its' feet. Everything we've come to know is in flux... I want to be part of a connected world and I need to be shown how to best manage and safely, productively tether to this awesome chaotic and COMPLEX evolutionary event..."
Whew...
Jack