TEACHING ON SECOND LIFE (PART 1)

I am not going to bore those of you who are not interested in Second Life with post after post about Second Life, but as I gave my first lesson the other day, I will boast about it This is still very new to me, but it has become a passion, and anything which becomes a passion to me I do with ease and enjoyment, so if my lessons can be fun and educational at the same time, so be it!!!If you are a student and are interested in approaching Second Life please contact me for ulterior information (I will give you a FREE orientation lesson to learn the basics) and then you decide whether to continue or not..I will conduct these lessons via Myngle, Aniya’s Profile.

Although there are a lot of educators on Second Life, there are still many who are either unfamiliar with it or who look down on it as some stupid virtual game. Well, I can say that a couple of years ago I turned my nose up at it because I was unaware of how it worked, only now can I see it’s potential. I have turned back the clock and become a learner myself to understand how Second Life works. I was all fingers and thumbs to start with understanding how to use the controls etc., that said in a month I have learnt all the basic steps, I have bought land, a house and will run my private language schools office from there. We have also acquired a beach hut which overlooks the sea, a place for students and teachers alike to hang out, chat and relax.

I would urge all online teachers and any tech savvy educators to give it a go before giving the thumbs down. The mechanism I see is very similar to online teaching, but with the extra visual elements which make Second Life very realistic. Instead of the classical online classroom here we have a virtual world, where you can do almost anything and everything, infact some of the things I’ve tried in Second Life I have never done before in real life.

Students taking Second Life lessons will have to use plenty of conversation skills, backed up with listening (the use of audio makes SL even more realistic) and also reading. They will meet other teachers/students and anyone else who we may meet on our travels. I don’t intend using the Second Life experience sitting in a SL classroom, I really don’t see the point, but getting my students out and about to explore the ‘virtual’ (real) world. This would act out real situations and this is where I believe Second Life’s strong points are, especially for language learning. What we explore would then be followed up by either an online teaching session and some correct terms to use for future outings so to speak.

Another aspect of Second Life is socializing with other teachers Shelly tell us why. I have met several other educators in Second Life thanks to Twitter and especially amongst us ladies have never laughed so much. I visited the Macbeth sim hosted by Barbara Sakamoto which I thought would bore me to tears, quite the opposite in fact, it was a very interesting expedition, and this could be a great way of waking up younger and lazier students, I think I was one of those years ago ha ha…

Below you can see what happens when you play around in Macbeth….You lose your head!!!

So what are you all waiting for? There are lots of other weird and wonderful places to visit in Second Life. If you want to give Second Life a second chance I will be holding my real life Birthday Bash on there at the end of the month, if you are curious enough to try, please let me know and I will show you around before the event. Hope to see you all soon.

This post is dedicated to those teachers I have already met on Second Life, those who have helped me along the way and those who have become friends, if you are asking, I’ve met her, then you know I’m talking about you!

Source Second Life Myngle Twitter

To be continued…