The below clip gives you a short introduction and overview to Second Life:
Wow! Such an amazing place! And I am not being sarcastic! Strangely, the opportunities in this world are real and the educational opportunities are enormous. Students can learn life skills such as planning and budgeting. Imagine taking students to the Louvre to visit the Mona Lisa – they can be taken on a guided tour and interact with each other within the virtual world.
Second Life is a pretty fascinating place which has great benefits when introduced in the classroom. Students can visit museums and attend virtual world classrooms. I tried it the other day and spent most my time designing my avatar. I think you can have your own blue avatar but you need to pay for the advanced features!
ReplyDeleteHi Kate,
ReplyDeleteHow good is Second Life?! I'm trying to hold off getting sucked in when I have so much work to do, but I will definitely be exploring this in a lot more detail. It relates well to a section in the 'Educational Psychology' book by Krause, Bochner, Duchesne & McMaugh on simulations and authentic learning (P431). As you say, lots of educational opportunities.
Kate I couldn't agree more, second life provides enormous educational opportunities. I think one of the great aspects of second life, like social networking sites, they are a portal in which students are able to communicate to one another on a global scale, collaboratively interacting to achieve common goals.
ReplyDeleteHey Kate, I have yet to try second life... one day! And can you make your avatar blue? I would be very disappointed it you couldn't!! I think that in schools, virtual reality activities are a really good idea, provided that they have a strong pedagogical base and that students are still participating in traditional classroom activities.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all the feedback :)
ReplyDeleteJo - I had a read of that section of the textbook and I strongly agree that people learn through direct experience and experimentation and that Second Life really gives students the opportunity for authentic learning.
I found an article titled "Designing game-based learning activities for virtual patients in second life" by Toro-Troconis et al that looks at using avatars in virtual worlds as patients to support the delivery of clinical teaching at the tertiary level. Obviously , we are looking at a very different age group but I was just amazed at how much can be done in a virtual world!