{"id":4708,"date":"2015-02-24T22:43:48","date_gmt":"2015-02-24T22:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/?p=4708"},"modified":"2015-02-24T22:43:48","modified_gmt":"2015-02-24T22:43:48","slug":"linden-lab-call-on-educators-to-share-their-success-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/?p=4708","title":{"rendered":"Linden Lab Call On Educators To Share Their Success Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"UWE<\/a><\/p>\n

Linden Lab have issued a blog post in which they ask for Second Life based educators to Share Your Educational Success Stories<\/a>. The post states :<\/p>\n

Are you an educator seeing positive results from using Second Life? We\u2019d love to hear from you! Please join us in this Education Forum thread<\/a>\u00a0to share your answers to the following questions:<\/em><\/p>\n

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    1. What educational organization do you represent?<\/em><\/li>\n
    2. How do you use SL in your educational endeavors?<\/em><\/li>\n
    3. Most importantly, what positive results have you seen from using SL?<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/ol>\n

      From direct conversations, press coverage, and the like, we\u2019ve heard of a number of organizations seeing positive results using Second Life for education, but we\u2019re always eager to hear more and we hope you\u2019ll add your voice to the thread.<\/em><\/p>\n

      Thanks!<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

      There are many educational organisations using Second Life, I’ve covered a few here myself.<\/p>\n

      \"Inside<\/a><\/p>\n

      Education should be important by everyone, even if you don’t consider yourself to be a student at this moment in time. The use of virtual worlds in terms of encouraging lifelong learning, helping those who find traditional educational surroundings difficult, encouraging those who find gamification appealing,\u00a0reaching out to people all over the world and educating educators to utilise virtual world spaces are a small example of some of the concepts that make virtual world learning appealing.<\/p>\n

      \"Deep<\/a><\/p>\n

      There are of course many other reasons as to why education in a virtual world such as Second Life has advantages and hopefully Linden Lab will be able to solicit good feedback regarding compelling use cases.<\/p>\n

      <\/p>\n

      \"Cystic<\/a><\/p>\n

      I’ve personally found it interesting to travel around Second Life and look at how educators are using Second Life. Some of the builds are quite stunning and demonstrate a good understanding of virtual world design.<\/p>\n

      \"DePaul<\/a><\/p>\n

      Others reach out to the wider Second Life community for help in terms of their builds. This represents a good understanding of what makes virtual worlds tick. Outside of a virtual world educational institutions reach out to local communities and business to build links and good relationships. This should work in a very similar fashion within a virtual world, of course, a key difference being that the local community are actually spread all over the world in a virtual world.<\/p>\n

      \"Inside<\/a><\/p>\n

      There are of course challenges to education within a virtual world, the hardware requirements, the glitches, the issue of there not really being an interactive whiteboard solution still, whether or not you should have a dress code. However these issues are far from fatal and many educators embrace Second Life and other virtual worlds with a very strong hug.<\/p>\n

      \"Caledon<\/a><\/p>\n

      However we also should not ignore the important role of independent Second Life educators such as those at Caledon Oxbridge. Resident led organisations who give people a helping hand with Second Life itself play a crucial role, without them, many a Second Life resident and potential student would have logged out of Second Life for good a long time ago.<\/p>\n

      I hope educators respond positively to Linden Lab’s request and I’m also happy to promote educational use of Second Life or other virtual worlds on this blog too.<\/p>\n

      Tweet<\/a>
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