Second life gives a three-dimensional look on life through the computer bridging the virtual world with reality. Through the eyes of a 7 year old, second life is “game like” immediately sparking an interest to explore and learn. I explored second life with my friend’s son and he enjoyed the travels that we took. Some of these places that visited included museums and a Mario Bros game which he played. Next our tour took us to explore sharks and underwater wild life at Aquatic Friends, even though this 7 year old does not like to swim he did enjoy second life and exploring the waters dry. We collaborated with the designer of the page and told him how we liked it. Educational second life brings the unimaginable imaginable in a controlled environment this can internet tool can very useful in all levels and areas of education as I experienced first hand with this 2nd grader.
One site I found to give well-organized and useful information was Annotated Bibliography of Second Life at http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~mpepper/slbib#general
This page offers resources to articles on how to utilize Second Life in education, blogs course websites and sites focusing on pedagogy use in Second Life, samples of virtual communities and campuses. As I explored these links my understanding for the usefulness which Second Life offers to contribute to the 21st century learner and classroom.
In support of learning through games, the Federation of American Scientists research suggested that games bring analytical skills, team building, and problem solving on the fly. This information was presented in an article in Edutopia, entitled “The School of Second Life: Education Online” written by Wagner James Au. The support this game environment to enter the classroom is through Second Life. Second Life enables instructors to take advantage of collaboration in large groups and inspire unless creations.
This is a video showing some of the 3D virtual worlds and gives examples of the social collaboration as well.
At the University of Toronto, healthcare program is using Web 2.0 and Second Life for its virtual world to demonstrate health procedures to patients. This new method is proving to make it easier and easing patients anxiety. An image of a mammogram is located at the top of this blog.
Many concerns are raised with using Second Life and I feel that Moodle has been able to solve this issue through controlling users.
Here is an example above.
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