The other thing that I thought was very useful is that you could go anywhere in the world in Second Life without much difficulty. So I thought this would be great if you were a student going away to a new school and you could check out the campus pretty thoroughly before you even go see it in real life. If you are going on a trip to another country..you can sorta see the sights before you actually SEE the sights!
I certainly haven`t seen enough to make me want to use it in the classroom in some way but what my students choose to do on their own time is their business and I`m sure that they could be up to much worse than cruising around on Second Life. There are dangers on there just like in real life so students have to be careful and use good judgement, because even if they are being a good person in their Second Life, that doesn`t mean that everyone on there is doing the same.
So even though my view has slightly changed, I don`t think I`m gonna be changing in my life for a second any time soon.
Dan
Hey Dan, I also thought again about Second Life.... Dr. Gatin coming back and showing us how an avatar goes through this virutal world helped me make a little bit more sense of what Second Life is all about. I am not sure if I am going to use Seconed Life in my classroom. One use of Second Life in the classroom that I think could possibly be more fun for students would be to have them create an avatar and then have them enter and watch either a powerpoint or some other type or presentation.
ReplyDeleteI think that one neat thing is that teachers could take part in professional development sessions without even having to leave their houses.
I think second life would be more of a hassle then a benefit in the classroom. all the "dangers" and the fact that there is a cost involved aren't positives. I agree that it could be good for teachers to use second life for their own purposes, such as a networking tool. I think it would just eat up too much class time to use it effectively.
ReplyDeleteI am not a fan of “Second life” too. So don’t be too harsh on your self for making strong comments. As you say we are not very experienced in using the program to comment about it. I am a person who wants to experience the world by being there. I hate virtual tours. I see your point if some one wants to visit a university you could visit it using “Second Life”. But I personally won’t be satisfied by the experience.
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