I found a new resource for teachers. After reading this impressive list, any teacher would be crazy not to want to use this as a teaching tool in their classroom.
Here are the highlights:
- It’s a medium many students are very familiar with despite the obvious disapproval of parents.
- It’s a world of fantasy where students use their imaginations to draw themselves into the action.
- Students learn to interpret a distinct language and dialogue. Social interaction and understanding body language is also extremely important.
- This resource is also highly differentiated. It caters to students’ needs, preferences, and interests.
- This resource is already a major part of society. Your students practically live and breathe is, so you may as well take advantage and use it in your classroom.
Do you want to know what this incredible resource is? After reading all the attributes listed above, did you think this was about using video games in the classroom? If so, then you were dead wrong. I was describing pornography.
Looked at in the right light, anything can become an instrument of instruction. But that doesn’t mean it’s meant to be used as one. I thought about this while reading an article this morning from The Guardian, titled “Why playing in the virtual world has an awful lot to teach children.” It speaks highly of students interacting in a virtual environment and learning skills similar to those in the real world. Does this sound like an oxymoron to anyone else?
Why would I simulate a real world encounter when they can experience the real thing first-hand? Obviously, I’m not referring to opportunities like virtual field trips and Skype conferencing. I talking about the pedagogy of sticking a group of students in a computer lab and then holding a discussion with them using something like Second Life. This just doesn’t make sense to me.
I wouldn’t suggest showing a film illustrating tantric sex to introduce a phys ed unit on yoga, and I wouldn’t recommend to a science teacher that he/she show Ron Jeremy clips to spark discussion on Darwin’s natural selection and survival of the fittest. Why would I ever think to use a virtual world to encourage students to interact with each other?!
Just because the shoe fits, doesn't mean it's ever meant to be worn.
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It's interesting to hear a dissenting voice on this. Thanks for posting!
I have a broad disagreement with your premise, but I think it focuses around this line:
"Why would I simulate a real world encounter when they can experience the real thing first-hand?"
You're right in noting that a "discussion group" in SL isn't inherently more valuable than something in-class. That said, SL (or any networked space) discussions obviously offer a number of opportunities that can't be reproduced without tech.
So look for those areas. MMO's offer really fascinating mini-economies, where students can make real choices as full actors, with far more consequences than a classroom Monopoly simulation or the like. When you dismiss using virtual spaces for student interactions, I think you miss the personas kids can inhabit in those world an be significantly different than who they are in class. From simple backchanneling, globally expansive conversations through social media, to long-term character development in persistent worlds, there are multitude of things available through those resources that have no match in a traditional classroom.
I'll up your shoe metaphor - there's things you can do in cleats, and things you can do in heels, that aren't possibly in sneakers. But it's be silly for those to be your only footwear.
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