Posts Tagged ‘Metamodernism’

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Class 4: Metaliteracy and Digital Citizenship

February 24, 2025

Everybody arrived at Çağ campus in good time for this week’s class but just as we were about to begin we all lost voice. This seemed to be a problem across Second Life because even though we moved to the VWEC Student Challenge area in the Eduverse the issue persisted. Despite logging out and back in again, turning off the voice preference and turning it on again nobody could get voice working. Eventually we decided to proceed with subtitles. Fortunately, Valibrarian is always well prepared and she had the entire text loaded into SpeakEasy to facilitate this. About twenty minutes later voice suddenly became available again and remained stable for the remaining duration of the class.

If you missed the class or would like to review the presentation you can see a recording of Val’s talk from last year at Class 4: Digital Citizenship and Metaliteracy.

Following the class Val invited us to the Community Virtual Library for a visit and some closing discussion about the how literate or meatliterate we think we are and what it might mean to call ourselves digital citizens. Val spoke of the importance of teaching these concepts to children from an early age to ensure they will be able to navigate this complex space with confidence and in safety. She also referred to AI and mentioned an experiment where she tested the ability of AI to be creative with poetry – Will AI Slaughter the Muse?

Finally, we visited the VWEC Student Challenge building area where the three Teams were shown their building spaces and recommended to take landmarks. Each space is currently surrounded by a translucent cube which delineates the available space for building. It is recommended that these cubes are left in place until the end of project – they can be removed before the final submission. We also noted that once inside your team space your voice cannot be heard outside the boudary. This is useful so that teams of students building together do not disturb each other, but remember if you want to talk to another avatar they will not hear you outside.

Here are direct links to the VWEC Student Challenge 2025 building spaces:
Red Team
Blue Team
Green Team

A quick check-in with the three teams revealed that all had selected the UN SDG they will work on. The next task is to start researching the detail of the SDG and begin to identify an appropriate narrative for the preenetation. The first building class will be held next Saturday by Builder’s Brewery so it is importatnt to attend that. Here is the link to the Landmark in SL.

Finally, we visited the Student Commons which has been provided to give you a break from all the hard work. It features a range of games and toys to play with and have a rest. There are trampolines, a lifesize chess board, pool tables and a range of others to explore while considering your pojectc work.

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Class 4: Metaliteracy and digital citizenship

November 6, 2024
Valibrarian talks about literacy in the digital age and digital citizenship. Photo Barbara Collazo

We were joined by the Turkish students from Çağ University for this week’s class. Valibrarian presented on metaliteracy and digital citizenship introducing us to the topics addressed in her 2020 book book Metamodernism and Changing Literacy: Emerging Research and Opportunities. Following the main presentation we teleported to a ‘dark room’ to learn about the dark side of digital existence. Then, to finish on a bright note Val invited us to the Community Virtual Library for a lively discussion on the issues raised in her talk.

The dark side of the metaverse… Photo Barbara Collazo
The class concluded in the Community Virtual Library with a lively Q&A session. Photo Barbara Collazo

We were joined by PhD reseacher from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte who is looking at education in the metaverse. She invited the students to take part in a focus group to provide data for her research.

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Metaliteracy and the Metaverse

November 2, 2022

This week John made an error about the clock change back from Irish summertime to normal time. Students were asked to come to class one hour later than normal but, in fact you should have been told that class was going to be one hour earlier … so, we missed an excellent presentation by Valibrarian Gregg titled ‘What is Metaliteracy?’ Val is the founder of Community Virtual Libraries and as a librarian and author she has a particular interest in books and literacy. Sitearm recorded the talk which explains the concept of metaliteracy in our metamodernist world in 23 minutes. Val also introduces the concept of digital citizenship. You can see the video below.

What is Metaliteracy? presented by Valibrarian Gregg (viewing time 23 minutes).

Following Val’s talk she brought the class to The Darkroom as a metaphor for the dark side of digital culture. She discusses the dark side of the some of the many useful apps we use daily basis. Once again Sitearm recorded the 6 minute presentation.

The Darkroom, presented by Valibrarian Gregg (viewing time 6 minutes).

Finally, Sitearm and Val debated the nature of the metaverse and attempted to unpack their own operational definitions. Is Second Life a Metaverse? records their debate on the characteristics required in a metaverse. Sitearm’s recording has a viewing time of 16 minutes.

Is Second Life a Metaverse? Sitearm Madonna and Valibrarian Gregg debate definitions of the metaverse (viewing time 16 minutes).

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Class 7: Metaliteracy and Digital Citizenship

March 21, 2022

The complexity of issues around metaliteracy and digital citizenship were revealed by Valibrarian Gregg in her talk at the Community Virtual Library today. The visit began with a tour of the lovely facility which is a rich resource of information, data, references and texts while also being a calm space in which to relax – much like a library in RL in fact.

The Community Virtual Library is a place for calm contemplation, much like any good library in RL.

There was a good turnout of students and in addition to Magua and John we were joined by Sitearm and Wisdom also. After the tour Val brought us to the presentation platform which is rich with images and short texts to support the talk, based on her recent book Metamodernism and Changing Literacy: Emerging Research and Opportunities (2020).

A new addition to the space since our last visit is the Black Room where some of the darkness of the worldwide web and the internet is considered.

Valibrarian introduces the complexity of metamodernism and metaliteracy so that we can realise the impact of the digital age on society.

There was a good discussion around some of the topics raised by the talk, including consideration of the implications for democracy and freedom of thought in the metaverse, particularly if it is controlled by private interests. What impact might this have on a free society?

You can see a video of the lecture from last semester here.

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