Participate: Imagining the "IDEAL" digital Learning Community Quest: Second Life TOOL MOOC Forum 1.1.3

1.1.3 IDEAL digital Learning Community Quest: Second Life

http://stemtosteam.blogspot.com/

When imagining an ideal digital learning community, I can’t help but recall some of my former experiences with learning in an immersive digital environment called Second Life.  In my imaginings, the screen is partitioned into 4 sectors:  the main sector for the immediate coursework or immersive experience, and the other three sectors for accessing resources/taking tests, creating content, and interaction with collaborators.  This ideal digital learning community would be extremely low cost, housed in the cloud, and would require very little hardware muscle on the part of the user or participant.

 By teaching and learning in an immersive environment, learners are able to gain information and experience in a way that is comparable or perhaps better than that gained via podcasts, presentations, blogs, or videos.  This experience becomes personal- as does the learning.  All a student would need to gain access is a device that is capable of streaming online content and sending email.  This would take care of all the interactivity demands of participating in this type of DLC.  The technology base would be adapted to compensate for all levels of connectivity.

As described quite succinctly in the article by InformationWeek on Feb 5^th, 2014, Second Life has many issues that worked against its widespread acceptance and use.  Cost and connectivity were two categories of those issues.  The biggest issue to me as a K-12 educator is the safety of my students on such a learning platform.  Digital Citizenship needs to be stressed on any online community.  For further reading, here is a link to InformationWeek article on New Virtual world: http://www.informationweek.com/software/social/second-life-founder-pursues-second-chance/d/d-id/1113670   You may be interested in the first few comments posted on 2/4 and the first comment on 2/5. (These are what I have read at the time of this blog posting.)

There is no substitute for a real life experience such as traveling to volcanoes to study them, but virtual immersion has the potential to fill the gap.  Many applications for immersive technologies are utilized in the US military, medicine, and with commercial aircraft developers.  How wonderful would it be for a K-12 or College or Graduate student to benefit from such an immersive experience.  (There are entire universities located on Second Life.)

Although impossible to replicate the immersive experience via video- here are a few clips from YouTube that show the reader how Second Life works:  (I have included the time required for your convenience)

Breaking the Barriers of Online Education (5 minutes)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElBXqt9N6l0

Learning in Second Life Part 1: Breaking the Second Life Learning Curve (4 minutes) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88Dn0STScWk

Title: Social Learning Theoryin Second Life part 1 (10 minutes)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PAo_TEBeMM

I, for one, am hoping that the Second Chance for Second Life will result in many accessibility improvements and safety features so that K-12 education may fully benefit.