second life.

the previous lesson has given a second chance to second life. My first experience with SL was bad. For e-learning week, we did not have a F2F tutorial but instead has it in SL. so what did we do? forum discussion. Firstly, we have other platforms for discussion. And it certainly did not help that it was quite unstable and I crashed out a more than once in an hour, and was ejected from my 'class' and ended up somewhere foreign. Basically, I swore of SL.

I am glad that Dr. Tan's class allowed me to see the other affordances of SL. After the initial orientation, my group decided to go to the Great Wall and we were surprised to see how detailed it was. I think that made me realize that maybe, SL could be a great tool in History class (:
Creating a new place would take time and money of course, and I doubt I will go into that. But I hope to be able to find more sites which can be used for 'experiential learning'. It can be a virtual fieldtrip, and we can get students to do activities similar to those we'd do in a real one. Sounds good eh?

One drawback is the possible limitations of the Teen Grid. I have yet to explore this but some have highlighted that the limited environment of the Teen Grid hinders its educational potential. [http://thejournal.com/Articles/2009/01/01/A-Second-Life-For-Educators.aspx?Page=1]

A virtual fieldtrip will provide for more meaningful learning than using SL as an LMS. Neither do I see the benefit of using SL as a virtual 'classroom' where discussions can take place. As I experienced, having a class discuss issues online in real time can get very messy. Imagine chatting with 40 others in one window. Things will move on too fast and students will probably get frustrated having to scroll up again and again to read the discussion thread.

I also like the idea of having a role play in SL. As highlighted in the video, students can find clothes appropriate to any period/country. This will make their role play more interesting and authentic. Students can record their role play, and teachers can assess them after class. This allows the whole class to be active participants in the role play. Often, to save time role plays are short or allows only some of the students to act. SL can allow all students the opportunity to play a character as all groups can be role playing simultaneously in SL.