Second Life
My
today’s post again is related to technology, and virtual environment. It’s about
Second Life. I will be honest and say
that I didn’t like to play games neither in childhood, nor in adolescent. In contrast, the Second Life was something
new and very fascinating for me. Furthermore, I was very amazed and surprised,
when I heard from my professor that we can use the Second Life for educational
purposes. Here I realized how it will be
motivating and engaging for students to learn a target language.
As
a professor Cynthia M. Calongne says, virtual words are simulating were
students can meet online for classes, including lectures, discussions, projects
etc. Moreover, A virtual world class differs
from a traditional course management system, such as Blackboard or Moodle, due
to the three dimensional (3D) graphical setting, the use of avatars to
represent the class participants, and the sense of presence that puts the
learner within the scene (Calogne, 2008 ).
Continuing
my post about Second Life, I would like to mention that virtual world experiences
are fun. The most wonderful feature of the Second Life is that it differs from
traditional class in a way that classes can be held on the beach, in outer
space or in another country. In my opinion, the Second Life is also very essential
for those students who are not very active. So the Second life will motivate
and engage them in the learning process, shifting them from passive learners to
active learners.
We
can see that the Second Life has a lot of advantages, and as a teacher I would
like to see the Second Life as a part of my syllabus and lesson plans. However,
I do think that it would be a little bit difficult to use the Second Life in
Armenian’s schools. The first reason is a lack of technology. Our Schools are
not well equipped for this game. Furthermore, the majority of our teachers belong
to older generation, so here a lack of technological knowledge will come up. In
conclusion, I do believe that using Second Life in the classroom will be beneficial
for both teachers and students.
Sources
Calongne, C.(2008). Educational Frontiers: Learning in a Virtual World. A source: Welch, D.(2008). Virtual Worlds:
Moving Beyond Today.
http://www.google.am/imgres?hl=hy&sa=G&tbo=d&tbm=isch&tbnid=l8ZnoKGxAiJS9M:&imgrefurl=http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussions/How-To-Brighten-Up-YOUR-Secondlife-Dungeon-Tips-Tricks-For-Newbs/td-p/378830&docid=Byf4IiNLq1N2HM&imgurl=https://s3.amazonaws.com/lecs-community-secondlife/12738_Tabel%252Bpicture.jpg&w=1280&h=750&ei=9xq6UMOmDsz54QSd4YHACQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=234&vpy=151&dur=1650&hovh=172&hovw=293&tx=193&ty=108&sig=111153760880240863882&page=2&tbnh=136&tbnw=232&start=18&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:19,s:0,i:132&biw=1366&bih=587
http://www.google.am/imgres?hl=hy&tbo=d&tbm=isch&tbnid=7SGBDUhOH346HM:&imgrefurl=http://www.spacetoday.org/VirtualWorlds/WhatAreThey.html&docid=Kc2JsrP-_yftpM&imgurl=http://www.spacetoday.org/VirtualWorlds/images/SL_image_gallery/SaltBoxFishingCabin.jpg&w=512&h=512&ei=aBy6UMHvFuyN4gTVsoDoDg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=1100&vpy=114&dur=59&hovh=225&hovw=225&tx=156&ty=110&sig=111153760880240863882&page=1&tbnh=145&tbnw=141&start=0&ndsp=19&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:0,i:93&biw=1366&bih=624
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