It was the first time I played World of Warcraft, it was fun to play with 3D environment. These games are so fascinating and addictive that any one who gets involved spends hours in front of the computer devising strategies to break a formation and so on. There is no formal learning imparted for these games though the player can definitely access the help box to maneuver. Many of these games are learnt only by trial and error and hence there is no school which teaches you how to play. The cognitive aspect of these games is on the very high side as self understanding makes a player successful. The tutorial suggests that such games do impart lot of cognitive skills to the players and bring out abilities in them.

Learning can be facilitated in the form of easy to difficult strategies, understanding and exploring unknown paths and trying to drop new ideas .this may lead to failures initially and strategies may be overcome but persistent tries would definitely prove successful. The plans and topography studies used here if learner would make study of geography easy and the same concepts are taught in school.

Learning could be impeded here by lack of downloading this game which is kind of difficult that encounters users and players. The paradigm of learning that best suits this system would be the assimilation of cooperative and consistent team work. This learning emphasizes that self learning and team work are the best ways to achieve progress. Individual outcomes are no doubt stressed but the group efforts and team work in building up a module of action is definitely more rewarding that individual efforts. In WoW the fact finding is self tutored. This is a very important concept of learning. This is called the self assessment where one has to create his own skill sets. This is best taught through the WoW.

There is no planned curriculum and every action is event driven. The better aspect of the game has to be self intended and through moral science books. Code of player conduct, ethical play and the others values have to self generated so values automatically get imbibed. There is a code of conduct for every game. This in practice is the study of values. The societal values in the form of code of conduct are imbibed and social conversations are intellectually designed so as to further progress. if a person needs to get interested in learning the best way would be to introduce him to the WoW .He would be prompted to make his own game with help from others and then would get along to designing his own structure and path of the characters. This would help him in making his own area if interest and his game would show case his natural capabilities. But the questions are still rise in my mind, how we can create a suitable formal learning in this 3D environment?  Do you see the gap between designer of this game and educator in order to design World of Warcraft to be formal learning?

I have done a lot of reading in the subject of synchronous communication and asynchronous communication learning, and i have found that without this two modes of communication, learning cannot happen in online learning environment.  Using this two modes in online learning environment can demonstrate that learners can interact with instructor, content, and other learner. Also I think that these two modes of communication can promote interactive learning. In terms of collaborative learning style, synchronous communication and asynchronous communication can be used as tools to facilitate learning between students, instructors, and content. For instance, students and instructors can use synchronous communication in real-time chat, so those instructors can singh some project for students to work as a group work. However, students can work with asynchronous communication in discussion board as group work in order to discuss their project. Robert’s articles have stated that using asynchronous communication learning can make learning vary collaborative. Also, in the article that i have posted, Black (2005)have stated that asynchronous discussion board provides the interaction between students amongst students, and with instructor, in different time. This communication makes students to be social with learning environment, students can share their experiences with other students; therefore, they can construct their knowledge. Students socially can interact with learning environment by using synchronous communication and asynchronous communication learning which can be seen in different learning online systems such as WebCT, Blackboard, Moodle, and so on.

 Black, A. (2005). The use of asynchronous discussion: Creating a text of talk. Contemporary Issuesin Technology and Teacher Education, 5(1), 5-24.

Social constructivism means that the student joins a knowledge-generating community and in collaboration with others solves real problems as part of their study. In a social constructivist environment, the teacher will himself be  facilitator to his students, as the generic skills of collaboration, problem solving and creating new knowledge are important goals by themselves.

Second Life which is form of online social networking group  immerses users into a 3-D virtual world where the student himself  is able to create virtual objects and view simulations and exhibits, visit replications of real or imaginary places, play games, communicate with others, obtain jobs and make a virtual 3D group. Communication is through the instant messaging system to all members in the group. White boards can be used effectively for presentations. Second Life allows for many evaluation opportunities such as discussions, observations, and project-based creations.  Teachers can observe students acting out situations, participating in class, and giving presentations. Teachers can ask students to reflect upon their Second Life experiences (simulations, exhibits, interactions, etc.).  Teachers could provide students feedback by instant messaging or using an outside tool.  This type of learning environment would be supportive of the social constructivist and relativist pedagogies.  The objectivist could use Second Life to have students attend class lectures, view exhibits, and experience simulations, but they are not able to evaluate students with tests and quizzes solely using the Second Life environment.  However, teachers can post quizzes/tests in Second Life by using the Sloodle software; this is however an improvement on tapped in. I feel that the greatest obstacle here would be the technological know how as the users need to be educated on the various tools available. Every concept of second life is useful provided users know how to search. The learning environment allows for free community chatting interface. It is not a very useful learning platform for children though it presents very many challenges for the mature learners. Everything can be conceived through an avatar. Navigation into the virtual world would seriously disturb the learning environment. It is still an advanced technology and would take sometime for educators and students to get used to the simulations and 3d effects of second life. 

Tapped In is a virtual campus which provides online learning environment. The system is powered by a text chat tool that is very effectively used for social learning; this tool allows copy paste and other projections for a chat section. Each user and his group are provided with a chat tool, whiteboard, forum, and shared spaces for files .these can further be designed into folders. This is a very useful tool for general study but a very poor tool for objectivist as there is no linear delivery of learning patterns, any assessment tools, tests and quizzes. This can prove exciting only if the teacher makes something different with the limited virtual space given to him. The communication and information exchange and social support can be through synchronous and asynchronous medium .the absence of knowledge management is visibly seen. Since no outside interaction is possible I feel that tapped in suffers from serious limitations in the form of content and context. But It may sound very well as an excellent learning environment beyond conception and is true to the technological advancements of social networking, it cannot satisfy all aspects of a true learning platform.educatiors find this platform to be a great source of learning and developing their professional skills. Tapped In provides free online distance education programs for educators thereby allowing them also to learn the latest tools of education. It is a very useful and a good source of online learning for those who are members and are used to such learning outcomes. Traditionally this suffers from serious language barriers being one of them.

http://www.gse.harvard.edu/~dedech/502/Anderson.pdf