Second Life!

Second Life! Second Life seems like a very addicting, fun and engaging social networking environment, but I still don't see the practicality of including it into the classroom. Using Second Life outside of the classroom is great, because students will practice their vocabulary and discourse skills, but in the classroom the program requires too much trial and error and we don't have that much time to spend. Even with a step-by-step process outlined in a handout slows the students down because technology isn't all about following directions, but exploring on one's own, and Second Life is a little complicated for exploring in the classroom because it soon becomes very time consuming just to do simple tasks such as writing a "note" or even "teleporting"--if the computer is acting up.

I do see the benefits of Second Life as a tool to practice conversation in electronic form. I especially like the possibility of using Skype, something that enables students to speak in real-time. The activity is also very fun and engaging and allows students to interact in a different world, which may help lower the affective filter. In the meantime, students will no doubt hone their conversational skills and retain vocabulary in their longterm memory as the activities bring more meaning to them.

I already see quite a few problems. SL demands a lot from its user because of how intricate it is. I encountered problems that bogged me down, problems as simple as webpage loading errors and my avatar freezing up on me, and simply getting overrun by the other occupants in the game. So to assign a project for the students using SL could be difficult, especially if I expect them to finish, because of the possible problems I just mentioned.