Educational+Pedagogy

3D virtual worlds like Second Life are now being used by teachers to provide simulation of real life environments and allow students to discover more creative and more realistic ways to improve their skills. //SecondLife// is especially suited to younger learners because they already see the internet as a natural place to learn and play. How you proceed to use VR simulations will depend on your teaching style and your goals and objectives. You should ask yourself what you want your students to be able to do as a result of working with //SecondLife.// For assessments and evaluations, you will need to track the evidence that your students were progressing as they used this simulation.You will need to provide ways for your students to transfer the skills to other meaningful tasks. Both you and your students should become competent in using videos, messaging, screencasting, and experiences to further the education process. Using VR environments should activate background knowledge and improve prediction skills. You and your students should be able to assume different types of roles in //SecondLife.// //Secondlife// provides the space for problem solving and collaboration. Because everyone is different, there will be challenges that can be met by promoting the skills you already have interactively with other travelers.Your classroom is never closed so it can be accessed at any time.

"Technology doesn’t replace the professionalism of an experienced and qualified native speaking teacher, it simply allows us to be more creative" says Howard Vickers, Director of Avatar English. [| (http://www.omniglot.com/language/articles/secondlife.php)] It will take at least 20 hours of practice in //SecondLife// to really become facile and see the potential of working with VR's in education. It would be prudent to get a buddy to learn with. While many teachers are exploring the potential of SL for language learning, it is often a challenge to have a “space” to use for a classroom, meeting place, simulations, or classroom exchange location. //SecondLife// is not always reliable.The Web can be used to implement dialogic and collaborative learning. The goals that we have as teachers are numerous, but we can state broadly that we want students to take an active role in their learning. We also want them to move more comfortably between the academic and personal contexts that frame our education**. (**//[|www.skally.net/eduvr/edu.html])// Today’s students are communicating with mobile devices. We can address curriculum standards and motivate create learning opportunities by allowing students to take a more active role in their learning process. This should include using a virtual development process in a classroom. With advances in visual and interactive technologies such as virtual reality, the process of knowledge construction and meaning making from a //visual// and //auditory// perspective can be more fully explored. By creating their own environments, students can develop their own set of objects, relationships, and behaviors that are meaningful to them, and that can be shared and experienced through full-body interaction ([])

Virtual reality provides students with an opportunity to interact directly with information embodied in a visual (Mones-Hattal & Mandes, 1995; Gigliotti, 1996), potentially 'intelligent' (Rose, 1996) form. Interaction is a critical component to students' knowledge construction, whether in a virtual or traditional educational environment (Byrne, 1996; Psotka, 1995). However, virtual reality provides more than just an opportunity for interaction; it engages the whole body in a manner that is valuable for developing somatic memory (Kraft & Sakofs, 1989; Samuels & Samuels, 1985; Dychtwald, 1977), and provides the participant with an opportunity to perceptually engage with the environment as if they were physically present in the computer-generated 'space' (Hoffman, Hullfish, & Houston, 1994; Zeltzer, 1992). The potential value of this dichotomy has been a point of discussion with virtual reality theorists (Hiem, 1994) and practitioners (Mones-Hattal & Mandes, 1995, Loftin & Kenney, 1995), alike. When developing their own virtual environments, students feel personal power over their learning process, and become engaged in facilitating their own and other's learning (Winn, 1995; Osberg, 1995b). The world-building process required four-steps: planning, design, programming and experiencing (Osberg, 1995a). By developing their own virtual learning environments, students have a great deal of latitude and control over their learning process by participating in the //planning// and //design// phases, rather than coming into the process only during the //experiencing// phase. ([]) Teachers who want their students to be a part of the new technology should be trained and developed in the applications in which their students will follow.



Example of a SecondLife classroom->

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