Reading: Teaching in Second Life: One Instructor's Perspective
A virtual world environment, such as Second Life, is a great tool to use for integrating technology into the curriculum regardless of the grade/level of students we are working with in our respective areas.
As an instructor there are going to be unique challenges – remember the first year of teaching – to overcome!
This course, Teaching and Learning in Second Life, has definitely provided an array of teaching strategies within a virtual world and how interaction is and can be encouraged during class sessions. Sarah Robbins (SL: Intellagirl Tully) was amazing in the way she initiated a class dialogue!
It is going to take time in becoming comfortable using Second Life as a delivery tool in the classroom. According to Rebecca Nesson, “At the beginning, there was a certain amount of Second Life culture shock, where people try to get acclimated about how to use the interface.” I completely agree with her statement. Not only are we learning more about using SL as a delivery tool but also for some of us we are still learning more about using the components of SL. Of course, one would think (and hope) the learning never ends!!
As an instructor, I hope to learn how to better manage the chats that occur! During our course, I spend a large amount of time just following the conversations! However, it is wonderful that the chats can be saved and reviewed at a later time!
A point was made in the article about the engagement level of those in the class. Overall, I find that I am so overwhelmed with the Teaching and Learning in Second Life course that I tend to sit back and absorb the chats, presentations, etc. as opposed to being actively involved in the conversations. This is really just the opposite of what I have been like in any other class I have taken throughout the years! Perhaps had I been a user of Second Life for a longer period of time this situation would be different!
Throughout reading the article, I keep thinking about netiquette. What are some of the areas of netiquette we should be addressing when using SL?
Resource: http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2007/05/teaching_in_sec.html
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