What Chip is doing in SL

[Chip McMillan]

This summer, 2009, I employed a talented and motivated high school senior to build an Aleut barabara in Second Life. I was interested in her learning curve for this activity and how much she might gain from the experience.

I had her document the time she spent; time to learn Second Life from scratch, on her own, time to learn about barabaras, time to create the barabara, and how she felt she benefited from the experience. This PowerPoint describes the experiment and its outcome.

I am also pursuing creation of a virtual UAS campus as an Open Sim to provide distance students at UAS a means of connecting with each other and faculty/staff at UAS.

Would anyone else care to share what they have been doing in Second Life?

Chip McMillan

[Chip McMillan]

Julie, I am thrilled you had a look at it. I am also thrilled you think she might have benefited from it. Maybe I am being too hard on myself and Second Life for trying the experiment. Do you have any student successes you would be willing to share? Benefits accrued by any of your students using SL?

[Julie Fronzuto]

Hi Chip, I beg to differ with your conclusion that SL was not an effective method of learning for this student. She learned an incredible amount of information about her own culture in a way that she would not have been able to in a standard classroom, unless, perhaps they were building models. That kind of learning experience is invaluable in my book!