Virtual worlds

Truong-White & McLean's article on the use of digital storytelling to support a sense of modern citizenship is a feel-good story about the use new technologies to promote a worthy cause.  While reading this article, I couldn’t help but realize that new technologies that have a primary purpose other than promoting modern citizenship can effectively be utilized for that manner.  The use of virtual reality came readily to mind.

Virtual worlds have the power to eliminate borders while providing a sense of global citizenship.  The environments created in virtual worlds are often of a unique nature and can provide a sense of community.  The following are aspects of virtual worlds that I believe can those individuals wishing to live more engaged, and more effectively in today's democracies:

Anonymity:  The ability to remain anonymous can protect citizens of virtual worlds from judgments and stereotypes.

Unique Spaces:  The interaction of individuals from around the globe can take place in a neutral, unique setting.  This can allow for the promotion of multicultural and multinational appreciation and appreciation without the need for a .

Virtual Global Travel:  For individuals who do not wish to meet in a neutral virtual environment, the ability to travel to a virtual representation of an actual nation state is readily available.  Individuals can become familiar with the history, culture, landscape and architecture of an area without leaving their place of residence.

Virtual reality has to the potential to play a vital role in the development of global citizenship and digital democracies.  However, it must be promoted and utilized to take effect, especially within learning environments.  Doing so will provide society with a valuable learning tool.

Open Access, Copyrights, and Agendas

The issue of intellectual property/copyright and providing free/open access to cultural/intellectual resources in today's digitally rich environment seems to be following me around for the past month or so.  From work settings to casual lunch conversations, everyone seems to have an opinion on this subject.  Most of the individuals I have discussed this topic with have formed well-constructed and insightful opinions, but few have done so objectively.

Educators tend to lean towards open access for the sake of their students and academia, but can easily change their stance when they become owners of intellectual property.  Creators of content tend to favor copyright enforcement, but I assume they would momentarily drop this stance for the time needed to access that bit of information that isn’t coming their way gratis.  My point is that everyone has their own agenda, and that agenda needs to be guided by laws or freedoms that best suit those agendas, but what about the agenda of the other half?  This may sound a lot like politics, but at least in politics we believe that our views are beneficial for the greater good.  Intellectual property and open access are very different.  No one believes that intellectual property will benefit everyone any more than anyone believes open access will benefit everyone.

I probably shouldn’t categorize all educators and content creators into one pool.  There are some individuals who have their footing in both areas and have made choices that have adverse effects.  One such individual is Thomas Krichel, a former professor of mine from my time at LIU.  Professor Krichel is best known for creating the RePEc digital library for economics in the 1990s “which as of today holds over 362,000 items of interest, 261,000 of which are available online (Morrison, 2006).”  As a content creator, Professor Krichel has written and co-written many working papers which are open-accessible.  Krichel has decided to forgo any monetary and/or professional benefits of being published for the betterment of open information sharing.

I am by no means attempting to glorify Professor Krichel.  I simply mean to indicate an over-lapping area in this debate, of which there are quite a few.  The readings from this module have made me more aware of this.  It is these very overlapping areas in which we should attempt to work collectively.

Morrison, Heather. (2006, February 13). Thomas Krichel: a man with ideas, and drive! Retrieved from http://oalibrarian.blogspot.com/2006/02/thomas-krichel-man-with-ideas-and.html