It was lucky enough to hear another wicked presentation in class by none other than Dr. Glen Gatin. Dr. Gatin really opened my eyes to the program called Second Life. I kind of heard about Second Life before on the television show The Office. I always thought it was just a game to played kind of like World of War Craft or just another role playing game. He explained that it is more just a game and that students can use this world to explore information and learn more than they every could in the classroom.
It's a great way for students to socially interact with one another when they can't in person and for a lot of northern and remote communities this could be very benificial. It can also serve as a virtual museum for students. They are able to see different worlds and artifacts that they wouldn't be able to see if it wasn't for the virtual world that second life provides. It also covers all the aspects of the Manitoba curriculum: programming for the sciences, communication for the social sciences, and its just good time educational time all around. You can also have discussions and debates in Second Life that your students could participate in. Like it said on the YouTube video schools such as Harvard host live debates, now how cool would it be as a class to sit in on one of those!
Second Life seems like a great educational tool that you can bring into the classroom. Teachers and students will benifit from all it has to offers. Students will also be learning education material without even realizing it.
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It does seem like a pretty unique learning application. I had never heard of it before and still don't really understand all it has to offer us as teachers, but I agree, the virtual replicas/worlds of institutions and organizations in the game would be neat to visit. And I had never thought of the implications for northern and remote communities. It would be a great way to connect with the rest of the world. Good call!
ReplyDeleteDr. Gatin's suggestions for Northern communities definately got me interested and would give the idea two-thumbs up. Using such a program in a ICT classroom would be very interesting. Some of the disadvantages are that players under 18 and those over 18 can't interact with one another, I recall reading on that link Nantais left us. Another is upgrading the computers to support the program, I think I remember Dr. Gatin say. Anyways, be nice to try it out in the near future. Later.
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