Part two was comprised of the following questions:
1. My Expectations and Requests for CED 552 - to learn more about building and working with note cards in greater detail. In the first Second Life class, we did a tremendous amount of building and learned how to use note cards. I would like to learn how to implement both in education to provide a more meaningful experience for the user. On a separate note, I think that learning about using holodecks and pandorabots will be useful additions to my overall learning experience in Second Life.
2. My Introduction to SLED and ISTE Listservs - After viewing these listservs, I believe that there is a benefit for current and future teachers in using these lists as a way to keep up to date on the happenings in Second Life. There is also the benefit of utilizing these listservs as a resource for problem solving and collaboration amongst teachers.
3. Linden Blogs - I explored three blogs, "Tips & Tricks," "Tools & Technology" and "Inworld." The first blog offered tips on taking good snapshots and on spring cleaning inventory in Second Life. In the second blog, I read about "mesh" and about the different viewers that have been released in Second Life. The third blog featured "flickr pics of the day." Several of these had links below the pictures for the user to go to the place in the picture and I thought that was pretty cool. There was also a great article entitled, "Gratitude Guest Blogger: Phoenixa Sol" and it was about a woman who had been hit by a drunk driver, was paralyzed in real life and how she was able to use Second Life so that she could dance again.
4. Engaging with Second Life - Real education in a virtual world is definitely an idea that will take time for all to embrace. There are many barriers for everyone to have the ability in trying Second Life with the greatest being cost and the ability at having access. There is also a huge learning curve and there are those that refuse to embrace change. I think that the idea of education in a virtual setting is still in the early stages, and only time will tell before everyone will see if this will become a way of life or a distant memory. The greatest benefit of Second Life is the ability to connect students and teachers from all over the world in collaborating for the greater good, which is educating students.
5. My Explorations - I read five articles and commented on them as follows:
- "Bringing Literature to Second Life" - http://ramapoislands.edublogs.org/2010/01/07/bringing-literature-to-second-life/. I enjoy literature and wanted to explore how literature is being implemented in Second Life. I liked that the teacher kept a journal of her experience. It is an excellent way to anticipate and trouble-shoot problems that may occur while accessing and working in Second Life. In the article, it was noted that students do not like to read and this really made sense to me because my youngest son doesn't like to read. I can see how this may improve by having him experience reading in a virtual environment. I also liked how the teacher prepared her students for Second Life by having them read a book in real life, which prepared them for creating their own individual characters in Second Life.
- "The Stamp Collecting Round-Up" - http://stampcollectingroundup.blogspot.com/2010/03/american-philatelic-society-embaces.html. I chose this site as I like to collect stamps but haven't collected any in a number of years. I liked the idea of being able to go into a virtual environment to view different kinds of stamps as compared to flipping through a catalog of stamps in real life. I'll have to explore this further to see if I can utilize a virtual environment as a way to renew my interest in stamp collecting.
- "Second Life Pandorabots" - http://pandorabot.blogspot.com/. I chose this article as a way to get accustomed to pandorabots as I know that this is one of the items that we will be exploring further in this class. I thought that it was a great idea to have free and inexpensive AO's and dances for teachers to utilize in a classroom setting. This article also discussed the creation, training, editing properties, and how to publish a BOT to obtain a BOT ID.
- "How to Build in Second Life" - http://www.uncp.edu/home/acurtis/NewMedia/SecondLife/HowToBuildinSecondLife.html. I chose this article to gain a better understanding into building in Second Life. I learned that light can be emitted from objects, which I wish I would have known about when I built a lighthouse in the first Second Life class. In that class, I ended up using a square that was yellow to represent light. I also learned how to make a window in a wall, which I definitely could have used in my "Fall Festival" project in the first Second Life class.
- "Learning to Teach in Second Life" - http://learnignfromsocialworlds.wordpress.com/learning-to-teach-in-second-life/. This article reenforced the idea of an enhanced learning experience and good social environment for education in Second Life. I was surprised that students with a previous gaming background didn't appear to appreciate Second Life anymore than a newbie. Perhaps this is due to having the element of fast paced action where Second Life is more laid back? I learned that in addition to text boxes, there are speech bubbles that can be utilized when an avatar speaks. Since these bubbles display over an avatars head, this might be a good way to stop confusion as to who is saying what when more than one person is typing. As a matter of fact, maybe a person should put their initials before their response when typing in a text box so that everyone will know which conversation applies to them and which ones do not?
7. I Wonder About - At present, I really do not have any questions as we have only just begun this class. I am looking forward to learning about additional tools that can be implemented in Second Life for educational purposes.
