Tired of language teaching in real life? Perhaps Second Life brings new potential to online learning. I won't know until I figure out how to get the flippin' thing started...
I came across the following interview between Nik Peachey and Graham Stanley while recently perusing the Ve-blog from Miguel Mendoza. Nik is asking Graham about some of the ways Second Life is being used for language learning groups, and while quite dated now in blogosphere terms (I think this interview happened mid-2009), it is an interesting topic to follow.
As I said - interesting stuff. Assuming of course that you know what Second Life is and know how to use it, and have students who know (or can learn) how to use it.
I first tried to get into the Second Life thing a bit over two years ago, at the urging of a teacher colleague of mine based in Europe. After 90 minutes of extremely frustrating fiddling and downloading and re-booting my computer, the spectacular results of this precious investment of my time consisted of a cloudy grey screen and that sense of nervousness you get knowing your computer is going to crash at any moment.
That was it for me. I was already way past my 15 minute rule when it comes to online language learning programs or applications. If it takes me personally more than 15 minutes to get going and at least understand the basics of a program, it's not going to work with my online students without some serious help files and explanations and painstakingly detailed instructions on a screencast. That's time neither I nor my online students have - unless the application has some absolutely awesome potential.
So, as I consider perhaps giving Second Life another shot, the questions remain:
1. Just how hard is it and how much time investment is involved in getting started with Second Life?
2. Does it really have seriously outstanding language learning potential compared to what we can already access through simpler, easier to access and use applications like video conferencing?
Second Life appears to be a real buzz word for language teaching and learning on the European scene, but does it actually live up to glowing endorsement of what is (relatively speaking) still only a handful of educators - all of whom appear to have quite advanced experience with technology?
Second-lifers out there may be able to shed some light on this, but I'm particularly interested in hearing about the experiences of teachers who have recently taken up Second Life and are actively using it with their students (or aren't, for whatever reason).
Interested to hear your thoughts!
:-)
