In 2008 I received the bi-monthly newsletter which outlined the featured articles in Innovate: Journal of Online Education, an online publication of the Nova Southeastern University's Fischler School of Education and Human Services. The article which captured my imagination was written by Nancy Evans, Thalia M Mulvihill and Nancy J Brooks, entitled Mediating the Tensions of Online Learning with Second Life. There was also a link to a webcast about this article.
If you wish to explore these resources yourself, please click the following links:
- Journal Article (Evans, Mulvihill & Brooks)
- Webcast (Evans, Mulvihill & Brooks)
- Back Issues of Innovate Online
Evans, Mulvihill & Brooks (2008) had a similar frame of reference to my own, so I built up the courage to explore this strange "new world" of Second Life. It took quite a bit to overcome my hesitations in taking the first step, as I did not come from a computer nor a gaming background. In fact the last video games I played were Pac Man and Frogger when they first came out! Although I could see that this virtual world was more than a game, I felt lacking in the skills that a gaming background would have given me for this venture..... but that was soon to change!
So, I typed in the Second Life web page, and ventured into registering for membership. I got half way though this process and got cold feet. It was late at night and too eerie for me. I wondered if I was opening my computer up to risk in this activity and the darkness of the night created shadows in my mind. So I cancelled the process and decided to let sleep regather my energy and courage.
The next day I tried again, this time successfully, and thus embarked on such an amazing journey of exploring a range of creative, beautiful, strange and imaginative sims. I met new people where distance was no barrier and even talked to people in different languages using a translator program. I then started building and tapped into a creative side I could not even imagine I had.
As for the educational world, I met fellow educators from around the globe, attended educational faires, conferences, workshops, panel interviews, and participated in a range of creative simulated learning areas. It was amazing to be sitting in a workshop with people who were physically located in their respective countries. l attended every opportunity I could and rediscovered that childlike energy and enthusiasm for learning. I was once again on that steep learning curve and loving it! It was great experiencing the thrill of learning. So too often as educators we see this enthusiasm for learning in our students, but we can begin to fall into the 'same ole, same ole' routine because we are repeating some subjects. And although we can be creative each year in our delivery, the scope is limited in the required content coverage. So not only did I love exploring this virtual world because of its newness to me, I embraced the access it gave me to a huge range of learning opportunities, whether these were virtual world in focus or just using the virtual world for an international delivery platform of educational concepts unrelated to virtual worlds.
Educational Samples to Follow in the Next Few Posts
The following posts will provide a number of samples of how various educational organisations are using virtual worlds. In particular, we will see picture examples of:
- Educational Faires
- Conferences
- Meetings
- Learning Spaces
- Inworld Tools
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