James at Lloud

I was recently asked for a copy of my master’s degree work which was actually a bit of a surprise.  That work seems so long ago (2006) but in reflection it has been a major milestone in my learning technology journey.  Ever since that work I have been searching for opportunities to apply the concepts discovered and how I could connect those to an occupation.  I am still searching for that connection.  Like many other activities that become passion, the risk of ‘quitting my job day’ is a confounding limitation.

To share the work, I am posting both the thesis paper and the related master’s exam paper that I wrote.  The project was conducted to better understand concepts of learning in virtual worlds and was specifically written about the onboarding experience in Second Life.  

Just a little explanation is needed to provide context for the character of the project.  The work was conducted at the University of Wisconsin Graduate School in Madison, in the School of Education and specializing in the Education Technology program.  The faculty at that time was very much informed by a postmodernist perspective that was examining the fallacy of the ‘objective observer’ and placing emphasis on the personal and experiential influence of the researcher on the researched.

I believe that because of those influences the tone of writing is, as my advising professor Michael Thomas noted, ‘a bit chatty.’  In the final analysis I find that the work is not academically rigorous but as a chronicle and reflection on a specific time and a juncture of cultural transition corresponding to the Gartner Hype Cycle that was very much part of the Second Life phenomenon.

Here then are the links to the documents, posted in .pdf format.

JamesLloyd.masters.paper.APA.pdf

JamesLloyd.masters.exam.final.pdf