Sometimes I read an article and have to check the date, then check it again. This was the case this evening when I was reading about Indiana University Northwest University Professors Taking Classrooms Into the Virtual World. The reason I needed to check the date was due to some of the terminology in the article:
On the surface, Second Life appears to be nothing more than a gamer’s paradise, but educators say it is also what’s next in distance learning.
The article really was published on December 13th 2012, even though that sort of talk sounds like something I may have read in December 2006, then there’s this:
As with any new technology, Second Life brings inherent technical challenges and a steep learning curve.
…. mm yes Second Life has a steep learning curve but not many people would call it new technology in 2012. However the article is interesting to read, it talks of good use cases for Second Life in terms of collaboration between students in a distance learning environment and how well it worked, Dorothy Ige, Ph.D., Professor of Communication is quoted as saying:
Since this is the first time trying the Second Life approach, I was not sure that students could bond interpersonally at a distance through technology,” Ige said. “I was pleasantly surprised that they not only bonded, but took interpersonal communication to another level.
Distance learning is an area where Second Life can work well and it’s good to see educators still making good use of Second Life, even if the article does seem to be old in terms of seeing Second Life as a refreshing way forward, the use cases cited are good ones. The article is full of good examples, such as this:
Olivia Merifield of Michigan City, one of Ige’s students, admitted that she was a bit apprehensive about the concept at first but said that, after working out some of the technical glitches, she now understands the benefits.
Because I’m taking mostly online courses, I haven’t had a lot of interaction with classmates,” Merifield said. “With this, we had scheduled meetings, so you would go into Second Life and we would sit there and we would talk, and we would go through the discussions we needed to have and we would work on our projects together. So it wasn’t like you are waiting on an email from someone in your group to proceed further. You could get the things done that you needed to get done. It was really like you were there working with your group which made it a lot easier.
I’ve personally not done much distance learning in Second Life, I have been to a class with NCI and that was distance learning, we tend to mainly think of distance learning meaning officially recognised schools, colleges or universities, but plenty of distance learning takes place day in, day out in Second Life, be it with an officially recognised school or internal inworld organisations such asNCI or Builders Brewery and Second Life is most definitely capable of delivering in this area.
I have done collaboration with an Open University course outside of Second Life and it lacked a certain richness, which I believe Second Life can deliver, so I can understand why educators see the benefits. Certainly from the linked article, it seems that IU Northwest have been happy so far, with Dorothy Ige saying she would use Second Life again.
Evalyn Gossett, MSN, RN, Clinical Assistant Professor of Nursing has also been using Second Life, after receiving a grant a grant to teach in Second Life. Evalyn used a clinical setting for her senior nursing students and is involved in a collaboration between Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI) and Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) in Scotland. … again I have to check the date of this article, it doesn’t sound new at all, but honestly, the article is dated December 13th 2012! Anyway Evalyn’s use of Second Life involves roleplaying scenarios for Doctors and Nurses and even manages to find volunteers not associated with the university to roleplay patients!
Anyway, whether or not it sounds like old news, it is an example of good use cases for Second Life, now all we need is the implementation of an inworld interactive whiteboard and we’ll be cooking on gas!
“bond interpersonally at a distance through technology” Snort!
Behave yourself! 😉