SECOND LIFE MOOC 2016- Higher education in Virtual Worlds

Second  Life
April 2016 has marked my first learning about  Second  Life. Second Life is very popular abroad and among  educators. I am new to  SL.  Thanks to this  MOOC I have learnt a lot about  SL. Here is the presentation by the tutors which was  released to  present the course. I did most of the activities in my free time by watching the recorded sessions. First of all  I had to enter the world of  SL:  I registered online and  created my avatar. Later I could follow some webinars and learn about  SL , virtual worlds, and  education .



The programme is online : https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SHsoYS6KW2vQDRIq-nA16mTYlRYHlB3V_22WM4wWwTw/edit?usp=sharing

Before starting writing about this  experience I wanted to check online about   SL  and I  found some blogs and wikis about   SL:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Second_Life_Education

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Second_Life_Education/Resources


Reflecting online .......................

3rd  April 2016      THE JOURNEY HAS  STARTED 


REFLECTING ON THE WEBINAR BY   Nancy L. Zingrone, PhD

aka Maggie Larimore in SL

"HIGHER  EDUCATION IN VIRTUAL WORLDS"

I could not be online when they started the SMOOC16 but the presentation by Nancie L.Zingrone was a " must see" so I checked online and I was able to follow most of the events which were uploaded on  the internet thanks to the great tool which is   Youtube and also WizIq platform.
It was a great introduction to the internet and virtual worlds: something I had not been aware of . I should know more about it as education is undergoing many changes.

Key ideas underlined by the speaker: virtual worlds can offer great opportunities for collaborative working , this is similar to what happens when we work online with modern technology.
Second Life started in the USA in American universities and it helped students work, learn together as there are many groups on SL. The presenter focussed on the main advantages:

What fascinated me when I watched the recording was the great idea of having an international community where learning can happen at any time and from anywhere.
Of course, there are disadvantages: technology, language barriers but...............on the whole it is a great  opportunity as people can choose when and how to work. Educators and  learners are offered a great " environment" where learning can happen!

After watching the video I had a lot of  questions, first of all I wanted to learn more about SL and how virtual worlds can help me as an educator.

I googled  SL and  found some  interesting things about language learning.  This is an  interesting video about language teaching which I think is worth seeing.....

I will now  get into " SL" and I will try to enter this  new  world................................    A lot of  new things  I need to know about............to  work in a different  way.
My next step was to get into SL and see how avatars live, work, collaborate and also learn.