capacity to immerse and motivate learners, and the potential to alter a user’s relationship to technology
undertaking effective pedagogic design in virtual worlds involves recognising and then selecting from the various offers of the particular application (from the technical to the theatrical) while bearing in mind the needs of a given educational context
judging any affective aspects of the student experience in real time in Second Life can be difficult. A motionless avatar could mean a student is avidly following a rapid discussion, or that they are confused and alienated. Or that the student has gone to make coffee.
While virtual worlds may invite experimental pedagogy, students’ familiarity with the interface and in-world social practices still need to be considered, as do their expectations of what constitutes learning and teaching.
Virtual worlds have the potential to trouble the roles of teacher, learner and researcher in productive ways. These offers - in addition to their more obvious social, technical and creative potentials - are why educators are right to be interested in virtual worlds.
How is Second Life being used in ways that might counter the fears around Web 2.0?
SL is a synchronous event, set virtually but in real-time, so rather than with other means of communication such as forums, wikis, blogs, 'conversations' are in real-time, and also situated allowing the student to feel they are part of something rather than the remoteness they are actually in. Situated in the sense that you may be sharing your course with a robot of course!note: At the time I wrote this I was still to venture into SL as I was so easily distracted, and SL was a whole new world of distractions. I have since been in, maybe twice. It failed to engage me on so many levels that I can't begin to relate them here. I know people who swear by it, and those that swear at it, so it's horses for courses - It's just not for me.
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