Bob Sprankle, Cheryl Oakes and Alice Barr actually met “live” in Second Life for their latest Seedlings Podcast! I found Bob’s comment that it perceptually felt different to be synchronously talking over Skype, but physically and visibly sitting in the same virtual location with Cheryl and Alice to be intriguing. We’ve heard people say “perception is reality” for many years, but here is tangible proof in the context of second life.
Brian Grenier asked me via Skype IM this evening what I think of SL for education, and my response was that it is full of possiblities– but the environment is still very “adult” and “bleeding edge.” I agree with those who are observing we haven’t even begun to imagine what could be done in learning environments like SL in the future. Just as today we are meeting in virtual rooms and buildings that may look quite similar to the physical places we gather to learn and have conversations, we should remember that the first motion pictures filmed with Thomas Edison’s moving picture camera were stage plays. It’s challenging to think out of the box, and the out-of-the-box thinking when it comes to SL has barely begun. The thinking about teaching and learning in SL (as well as other virtual, immersive environments) is progressing faster than I can keep up, however, and the following sites as well as conferences provide great opportunities to learn more about SL.
The Greater Houston Education Collaboration hosted a presentation on April 27th titled “Education in Second Life” by Mr. Chris Duke. That event is available online as an archived VBrick webvideo. On a Macintosh computer, you will want to view this with the free FireFox web browser, for some reason the video doesn’t seem to play within Safari.
The Muve Forward blog and wiki sites are Chris’ creations, documenting his journey of discovery in SL. His wiki links to SimTeach’s listing of Institutions and Organizations in SL, which is a pretty long list! The Google Group “Professional Educators and Trainers of Second Life” is described as:
A group of real life educators and trainers dedicated to issues concerning education and training in Second Life specifically, but also in other multi-user virtual environments. More than a mailing list or wiki, this group seeks real educational solutions to education in a virtual world.
Last, the Second Life International Best Practices in Education Conference is coming to a screen near you on May 25, 2007. Are we far enough into the educational uses of SL to have “best practices?” I’m not sure, but I’m guessing we’ll find out at the conference!
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