Sl discussion opportunity with Judy O’Connell – May 29. Assessment post 4.
Second Life offered the most challenging exploration of social media. My first impressions, recorded on Slideshare ‘New beginnings: phip Irelund meets Second Life’, corrected version blogged Sunday June 6, (based on posts March 29, April 3, 4, 6, 7, 25) concur closely with Ilene Frank and Dane Hollows (2010); like Frank (2008) “I found the whole concept … completely puzzling”.
I still lack proficiency and remain to be convinced that it is the best tool for real time collaboration blog March 27). Certainly Second Life can cater for any number of participants and can provide any environment imagined, but participation can be awkward and learning inhibited by time zone, technological difficulties, ‘practice’ time available and lack of purpose. As most educational (and social) events are organised by European, British and American institutions, they occur at unsuitable times in Australia. Learning Second Life requires determination, flexibility and willingness to abandon inhibitions with real-life identity. Second Life is not intuitive; it provides an excellent example of information literacy in action, but frequent frustration, ‘isolation’ and an element of ‘danger’ can impact poorly on learning. Assistance and sandbox areas are available ‘in-world’, educational institutions offer safety zones, but scaffolding would make learning more efficient.
Second Life has wonderful potential for historical re-enactment and role-play, for language, literacy and general education (Davies, 2010; Minocha, 2009; blog May 29), for virtual exhibitions and simulated scientific exploration of unfriendly environments, for experimenting with technologies and enhancing professional skills and abilities through role-play, and simply for socialising and having fun (blog April 11). Second Life offers a very diverse environment, again controlled by peer pressure and reporting.
I am looking forward to spending more time ‘in-world’ to gain expertise, attend professional events, gain familiarity with virtual libraries and continue exploring outstanding use of technology.
References
Davies, G. (2010). Language learning and social media. ICT for language teachers blog, May 19, 2010. http://ictforlanguageteachers.blogspot.com/2010/05/language-learning-and-social-media.html from EU Project, http://www.elearningeuropa.info/languagelearning
Frank, I. (2008) Librarians in virtual worlds: why get a second life? First Monday,13(8), August 4, 2008.
http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2222/2010
Hollows, d. (2010). Explore a virtual world blog. http://www.exploreavirtualworld.com/
Minocha, S. (2009). JISC final report: a study on the effective use of social software by further and higher education in the UK to support student learning and engagement., from the Open University KnowledgeNetwork. http://kn.open.ac.uk/public/getfile.cfm?documentfileid=14865
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