Reading Papert's "Mindstorms"

I'm finally reading Seymour Papert's Mindstorms from the early 90's. The two main ideas throughout the book are: "It is possible to design computers so that learning to communicate with them can be a natural process," and "Learning to communicate with a computer may change the way other learning takes place." These two ideas have been so ingrained in my thinking since I started teaching with technology I can't wait to see how he talks about them in the book.

Notes on Mayer, Moreno, "Nine Ways to Reduce Cognitive Load in Multimedia Learning"

• "The goal of [their] research is to figure out how to use words and pictures to foster meaningful learning," and the biggest hurdle to doing that successfully is minimizing cognitive overload.
  
• This paper is a summary of the entire Cognitive Science I syllabus. Every paragraph represents at least a paper or chapter. Wow, it's chock-full.
  
• I think my website design avoids the split attention effect and reduces incidental processing by allowing only one section to be open at a time. So while you are looking at the information in one section you aren't distracted by what's going on in another section, like a video or school assignments. This is done with this nice little bit of JavaScript:
  

  collapseprev: true,

• Signaling: tell them how to use the information.

Social Architecture of Cyberspaces

In "Code Version 2.0" Lessig has a great section on virtual world spaces, specifically comparing Second Life and There. The major distinction he points out is that the architects of SL let members be the owners of anything they create; it's their intellectual property. In contrast, the creators of There follow a corporate model and take ownership of anything created in There with the exception of other businesses (Nike, etc.) with a presence in There. There's creators imagined businesses playing a central role in providing assets that individual users would then simply enjoy. Consequently, while There is still here it's fizzling as Second Life continues to grow.

A small but interesting point of comparison is the manner of accessing each. They both have their respective client VW viewers but There also allows you to access your account, including assets, help forums, and shopping, through the corporate Internet Explorer browser and its activeX technology.

Lastly, I wish Lessig would had discussed OpenSim, which I'm working on setting up now for my school. He discusses Open Source somewhat in the abstract in other parts of the book, but it would add an interesting perspective to the virtual world discussion.

Point about Identity in Cyberspace

Reading Lawrence Lessig's "Code Version 2.0." There's a good point about identity on the Internet. "While in real space...anonymity has to be created, in cyberspace anonymity is the given." On the Internet your identity is built from the IP address up. What you add to your IP adds to the picture of your identity. Of course, the main point of the book is that commerce, the law, and government have created an architecture of the Internet that prevents you from accessing many, if not most, spaces without significant creditials that certify who you are.