Secondlife

Second life was an interesting experience. I had never been in a virtual world like that and think it is kind of neat all the different things you can do there. At first it was hard for me to move around and figure things out, but once I was on there for a while it became easier. I think that there are a lot of things I would still have to learn if I were to go on and use it again.

Although we were given a few different choices of places to go, my group chose the ICE place and SL Louvre, I didn’t really see the educational value in doing these things unless the lesson was on how to use second life. Which I think the main goal of that class meeting was to learn how to use second life, but I don’t know how to use it in the classroom.

It seems like it would be a huge liability to have your students sign up for a second life account. I’m not sure how, but I am sure there is some way to shelter them while they are at school and using it for educational purposes, but once they have created an avatar what is protecting them once they are at home and log into second life? Maybe I am off base, but I have a feeling that Second Life is more appropriate for college and possibly high school students (but that might be a stretch).

After doing some research I found that there are a lot of areas in SL set up for education and I would like to explore them some more. There seem to be some cool historic places that are set up and some things that look like they would be really great for ELL students. I, however, don’t think it would be an option in my current position for a few reasons: the bandwidth, the security issues when at school and the liability issues outside of school.