Sutthinan’s Blog
Just another WordPress.com weblogArchive for April 26, 2009
Second Life as a Learning context
I have heard about Second life several years ago; however, I have not have a chance to play with it. What I have known about Second Life before is that it is a virtual game, we have to create avatar in order to play a game. Moreover, not only big companies, such as IBM, libraries but also universities have bought the land in Second Life. There are research on Second Life related to information behavior also.
Due to the activity of this week, I do have a great chance to know more about Second Life. I spent about one hour for creating avatar and read the instruction, such as how to move, how to fly, and how to talk. I found the land of people who have similar native language, including bank, university, and tourist attraction places. However, I am very newbie, I could make 1 friend and explored several lands. I wonder why I did not meet other people on each land. I think I have to spend more time to play in Second Life.
To me, Second Life can be an effective learning context because it can improve learning and cognition because not only does it provide entertainment, but also it helps to practice several skills. For example, the learners can improve problem-solving skills and communication skills. Second Life helps to increase the students’ motivation. The tools to communication in Second Life can use as tools to communicate with classmates and instructor for online courses, resulting in a virtual classroom. Consequently, interaction, collaboration, and rapport between the instructor and students increases. Moreover, students can create mental images from the lesson. However, several things need to be considered, such as how to create effective lesson plan, how to teach the students to use Second Life, the time and budget, the ethical issues, and digital divide.
Second Life can hurt learning or cognition also. Due to the fact that Second Life can be harm for children in many ways, using Second Life as a learning context might cause the same way. Perception, identity and time in the virtual are concerns. Second Life might not help learning if the purpose of the lesson or the learners is not learning.
