Second Life as an Educational Resource
Yes, I know I have really bashed on the game, thanks to the image of the game presented by Jane. It still doesn't appeal to me, but I have to create a lesson plan for Monday's class, based upon elements of the game.
As my semester-long theme doesn't translate well into this virtual world, I came up with an idea based on work I did in last semester's Spanish class. Basically, I wanted to have students walk the Camino de Santiago de Compestela in the Galician region of Spain.
I'd thought I'd found enough content to make this work and use both English and Spanish from my PowerPoint presentation in a lesson plan geared towards third year Spanish students. Alas, what I thought I'd found was really a group, not a location. Back to square one.
Then I was thinking I'd bring students on an architectural tour of a Spanish architect (also part of a presentation I'd done), but that also was a bust. Next, the lightbulb went off that I should have students look at the works of Salvador Dalí in their museum settings.
I can find most of the works I'd wanted to include, but none are in el Museo Dalí in St. Petersburg or Teatro y Museo Dalí in Figueres, Spain. Well, they could be there, but I'm not finding either location in Second Life and have no clue how to go about finding them.
Then, there's the matter of how the heck to bookmark the ones that I *did* find.
Oh well, the instructor has made it clear she doesn't expect us to turn in top notch work in a virtual world that takes a long time to learn to navigate. I just wish the virtual world we're working in had these resources so that I could create that first lesson plan. I think it'd be really cool to have students make the same pilgrimage and learn from the experience-without the blisters.
As my semester-long theme doesn't translate well into this virtual world, I came up with an idea based on work I did in last semester's Spanish class. Basically, I wanted to have students walk the Camino de Santiago de Compestela in the Galician region of Spain.
I'd thought I'd found enough content to make this work and use both English and Spanish from my PowerPoint presentation in a lesson plan geared towards third year Spanish students. Alas, what I thought I'd found was really a group, not a location. Back to square one.
Then I was thinking I'd bring students on an architectural tour of a Spanish architect (also part of a presentation I'd done), but that also was a bust. Next, the lightbulb went off that I should have students look at the works of Salvador Dalí in their museum settings.
I can find most of the works I'd wanted to include, but none are in el Museo Dalí in St. Petersburg or Teatro y Museo Dalí in Figueres, Spain. Well, they could be there, but I'm not finding either location in Second Life and have no clue how to go about finding them.
Then, there's the matter of how the heck to bookmark the ones that I *did* find.
Oh well, the instructor has made it clear she doesn't expect us to turn in top notch work in a virtual world that takes a long time to learn to navigate. I just wish the virtual world we're working in had these resources so that I could create that first lesson plan. I think it'd be really cool to have students make the same pilgrimage and learn from the experience-without the blisters.
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