CarrieLynn, Good luck with your presentation. There is a wealthy of literature out there, including peer reviewed journals that have a nice variety of articles. You can also find countless videos on YouTube and slide decks on SlideShare from folks who have done similar presentation. I know all of mine are opensource, I know a lot of other folks post their that way as well (meaning, feel free to download). I think one of the greatest benefits of using virtual worlds, whether it be Second Life, OpenSim, or one of the others virtual worlds out there now, is the ability to do things that we cannot do, or do easily, in the actual world. One example is sending language learning students to a sim that is run by people who speak the target language, and having them converse in either text or voice with native speakers who live in the target language country. That is something that can be done, via travel abroad, but its not easy or cheap. It can be arranged via web conference, but there is a spontaneity to doing it in a virtual world and less scheduling headaches. Another examples would be to build a replicate of the human heart (which has been done in Second Life, although I'm not sure if it still exists) and then take a walk through the replica. One more example might be hazmat training, which would be expensive and dangerous. Just some thoughts. best, aj On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 4:58 PM, CarrieLynn Reinhard <ijedi7@yahoo.com>wrote:
I'm putting together a presentation for my university next week on the use of virtual worlds as virtual classrooms. One thing I want to touch upon are the drawbacks and benefits of using Second Life for teaching. I have the following, and I would like to know if you think there are others I should discuss.
Benefits: audio visual & kinetic learning styles, collaboration, anonymity encourages experimentation, geographics no longer restrict participation, new ways to experience old knowledge.
Drawbacks: interface learning curve, anonymity encourages disengagement, technological divides and issues, reduction of socializing, applicability of knowledge gained.
CarrieLynn D. Reinhard, PhD Dominican University _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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-- ----- AJ Kelton Director of Emerging Instructional Technology College of Humanities and Social Sciences - Montclair State University Doctoral Student Educational Communication and Technology - New York University ---------- http://eld.montclair.edu Twitter: @ELDConf <http://twitter.com/ELDConf> Hashtag: #ELD12 ---------- http://www.ajkelton.net Twitter: @aj_kelton <http://twitter.com/aj_kelton>