When Linden Lab ditched the education discount a few years back a few people felt that education in Second Life was dead. However it wasn’t and has been given a boost in the not too distant past by the return of the education discount and Linden Lab showing a more proactive role in promoting education within Second Life.

This is exemplified by Linden Lab’s blog post : Introduction to Second Life for Educators – a Course in Spanish 2nd Edition.

The course is from the University of San Martin de Porres Perú and is aimed at Spanish speaking educators who want to learn how to use Second Life for education purposes. The blog describes the course as :

The Virtual Worlds Project of The University of San Martin de Porres from Perú starts this September 29th the second edition of the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) entitled “Introduction to Second Life for Educators 2nd. Ed.”. The course is free and is designed to train Spanish speaking educators on the use of the virtual world Second Life, and to provide knowledge that allows educators to benefit from its potential, especially in the education field.

The course starts in a few days time on September 29th.

The campus itself is set with a recreation of Machu Picchu as its setting. There are lots of information boards around, albeit, as one would expect, in Spanish.

However this demonstrates one of the core draws of virtual worlds, their global appeal. The way that they can be utilised for distance learning and collaboration is without doubt one of the beauties of the virtual world concept and it’s one Linden Lab are right to promote.

To register for the course you will need to go to the website : https://aprendizaje3d.appspot.com/ISLPE2/preview. As explained in the blog post, this is a free course.

Second Life Para Docentes

El curso MOOC Second Life para docentes, está diseñado para capacitar a educadores de habla hispana en el uso del mundo virtual Second Life, como punto de partida en su interacción en entornos emergentes e innovadores que pueden ser utilizados en favor de la Enseñanza. Esta iniciativa responde a las necesidades de los estudiantes y su nueva forma de aprender y estudiar, así como a su tendencia por el uso cada vez mayor de la tecnología.

Visit in Second Life

Even if this isn’t something that appeals to you it’s worth a visit just to see what they’re doing here and how it’s setup. The course has received some positive feedback and I don’t think you need to be an expert in Spanish to understand that “Excelente!!!” and “Muy bueno el curso. Felicidades!” should be considered as positive feedback.

Another good use case of Second Life and in the long run, virtual worlds.

SLURL : http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Second%20USMP/90/210/24/

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