second life

I had my ICT presentation on Friday on HotPotatoes. Amazingly, there weren't any questions. Maybe the presentation was too boring that my classmates fell asleep. Ha. Anyways, even as my group was preparing the presentation, I noticed a few flaws of our project.

1. Our project seemed as though it could be done without HotPotatoes. For example, for the second lesson plan on Biology, students could come up with the Mix and Match even without HotPotatoes and the work might have been done more efficiently through traditional methods.
   
   
2. HotPotatoes is a simple ICT tool and it would be more applicable for teachers to use while generating worksheets. For example, teachers can use it to generate crossword puzzles or cloze passage using HotPotatoes. To use it as a student-centered learning activity would be a challenging task compared to other ICT tools such as Photostory, Youtube, Skype etc.

For now, I guess my group would have to come up with a lesson plan that would require technology, and ie. without the tool used, the lesson plan might not be that effective. Most importantly, like what Dr. Ashley have mentioned, the focus is on the lesson plan. Something that I've been trying to remind myself from the start of this module is that I should not be using technology-integrated tools for the sake of using it. Rather, the ICT tools would be used if it engages the students, helps them to be more creative, or aids the lesson in any ways.

After the presentation, we had a short introduction of Second Life and a hands-on activity. When i read the "7 Things You Should Know About Second Life", it was mentioned that SL is the largest virtual world. It allows users to speak to one another and basically, SL is a virtual world that reflects the real world. Users can engage themselves in educational, recreational, socializing, entertaining purposes and more. The only difference is that users are able to do things in SL that they might not otherwise do it in a real-life situation. There are a few advantages and disadvantages that I gathered from SL in the first session.

Advantages:

1. SL allows one to explore places such as the gene laboratory (or something like that?) that allows users to enter into the world of genome to explore. This is impossible in the real world where we cannot possibly enter a cell. Also, this may be engaging for the students as they venture through SL.
   
   
2. Educational learning can also take place for example exploring the volcano areas or tsunami areas. We would not be able to do that in real-life but SL provides a medium where we're able to do so.
   
   
3. SL also teaches users to work effectively in a group by allowing them to experiment with behaviours that they might be too reluctant or shy to try in the real world (as stated in the reading). This is beneficial to the users as it might allow them to open up more seeing how others might react to a certain behaviour that they might not try. It helps to improve their interactions skills if used appropriately.
   
   
4. SL is fun as it allows one to teleport to other places instantly. It also allows one to change their genders and to fit different attires.
   
   
5. SL allows people to conduct surveys, for example. what kind of music would affect shopping behaviour.
   

Second Life has its disadvantages as well. This includes:

1. People are not bound by the rules and norms of society. In the virtual world, it is okay to engage in unethical issues in real life for example child pornography and gambling.
   
   
2. Users might not be able to differentiate the difference between a virtual world and real-life world anymore. They might be caught up in a world of fantasy and continue to live in there.
   
   
3. There is an illusion of anonymity in SL. As a result, cyberbullying might occur? waha.
   
   
4. Users may be overly addicted and spend large portion of their time online.

I don't deny that SL is would be beneficial in futurebecause it allows users to interact in a virtual world like how they would in real-life situations. Also, in classroom settings, it allows us to explore various issues that we would not be able to explore in real-life. However, for now, I'm still uncomfortable with such advanced technology. Maybe there really should be re-professionalizing of teachers taking place. I might be one of the teachers who are not open to technology. lol. Hopefully one day someone would be able to demonstrate to me clearly the usefulness of using SL. I'm looking forward to Classroom of the Future though. ha. Wondering what it's like.

Playing SL during classtime was fun especially when all of us were busy trying to change the appearance of our avatars. However, due to a short time span, I havent been able to explore much of it and understand it. Furthermore, it's not free and expensive! ha. Hopefully there's another opportunity to try out SL again.

In class, Dr. Ashley also summarized game-based learning. One of the things that I took home was that as teachers, we should try to link the various subjects together. For example, in the McDonald game, we can link how ecology can link to business management? haha. It's quite vague in my mind now but I remembered clearly him mentioning about this point. I agree that subjects are linked together for example that of geography and ecology. I used to have alot of common topics with my geography major friend, seeing how what we've learnt come together to form a big picture.

This week would be e-learning again! haha.Will learn more about COTF and integrating technology in the 21st century! (: