My experience in Second Life

on a dolphin

dancing

lying on the beach

on a jet ski




It was the first time I used Second Life and I found it a bit hard at first downloading it. I wanted to change my screen name and I couldn’t sign in again because there is a restriction of only one account per user. This is good of course, (eliminates deceives) but I couldn’t find a way to change my name. After downloading it I got the message that my computer’s system memory, the graphic card and the spu do not meet the minimum requirements needed. I’ve made a lot of efforts trying to navigate around because my screen was getting ‘frozen’ and I had to sing up again and again.

I found my self in a sea and I couldn’t go anywhere so I flew.:) then it moved me to a place ( somewhere in Korea I think) and there I’ve tried to make my avatar look a bit better. I can’t say I managed to do that.

My first stop was Paris and I got annoyed because I couldn’t find the Eiffel Tower. So I’ve tried to go in different destinations but I got really excited when I reached Hawaii Maui. I found it strange that I needed an invitation to get in. It was a private island so I stand there without knowing what to do. A minute later a girl invited me to join the group and we talked for a bit. I told her that I was a new to this thing and she helped me moving around sending me helpful notes to get started. She even sent me new clothes to wear. I got impressed because she was using a translator to talk to me. She wrote something in her language and appeared to me in English(!). I moved around the island and I got amazed by how beautiful they made it. It was ‘real’, I could actually do things there, like surfing, lying in a sun bed, swimming with dolphins, jet ski and dance alone or with other people. They all welcome me to the island but noone asked me where I come from or any other personal details. I really spend a lot time investigating the island and I got presents. (new clothes, haircuts etc).

After a few minutes playing around it reminded my ‘The sims’ the simulation game I used to play when I was younger but this time my avatar could actually move in a 3-d dimension and talk like I want it to talk and do whatever I like without getting hungry or feeling tired (like in sims). And I could move in ‘real’ or existed towns and places. That’s when I started talking to people I had to remind myself that the avatar is actually a person and not a machine controller.

I can’t say that Second Life can be used effectively for education purposes because it has so many distractions. I mean, when I found this island I spend a lot of time walking around without even realizing it. I don’t know if Second Life has a lot of opportunities to support education because I am a new user but what I can say is that it gives you opportunities that you may never have in real life. You can see how some places look like even if you never go there.
I personally believe that it may destruct students for doing an educational activity there because it has so many fun things to do. It’s like putting a book and a Play Station in front of a boy. He may have his book open but his hands will be in the remotes. A more mature student may have the ability to distinguish fun and learning but a primary school student probably don’t. But I have to use it more to have a clear opinion because I think there are many applications that I don’t know yet…

Geospatial Activities

The most obvious course that geospatial activities can be used is geography. Interactive maps attract student’s interest in geography and I believe it helps the students who don’t like geography to really enjoying the course. Weak students can benefit from it, also.

I think that a geospatial activity(searching in google map) may be effective for teaching English as a second language to primary students. What I mean is an activity like: “search and find cities which start with the letter B” or “name as many cities as you can which sound the same but are written differently. This way students can be engaged in the learning procedure and learn geography while learning spelling and grammar.

My home town

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Facebook and Groups

Even though I already had an account on Facebook I have to admit that I rarely use it. I’ve initially created it because a friend wanted me to look some pictures. My friends are somehow addictive with Facebook, but they still didn’t pursue me to use it regularly. What I afraid most is the whole privacy story, who has access to our profiles and how can effect our future lives. ( a girl lost her job because she said something in her Facebook account- was in the news recently).

Searching for groups was quite interesting. I searched for a lot of things that I find relevant to me.

I’m interested about the use of blogs in education. So I was glad to find a group which is called : “Shift Happens: The Movement to Bring Education Into the 21st Century's Wall”, Which is a rather catching title. The group has 947 members. In the description of the group it says: “How many of us have ever seen a class on effective web searching? How many of our teachers even know what blogs are? How many times have we been told that Wikipedia is not a source, because "anyone can edit it"? I found it very relevant to our class and our discussions so I joined this group. In this group there are students as well as teachers and I guess everyone who has an interest on emerging technologies. I am interested in blogs and how we can use them as an educational tool so I made a question regarding this. And in a few hours somebody replied. I was excited to see that because I never thought that I would have an answer to this question from a group in the internet. There are no many posts even there a lot of people in the group but they all talk about innovative ways for teaching.

The other group that I joined is called “Konstantinos Kavafis” who is one of my favourite poets. This group has 7,619 fans and to my surprise there are many people who are not Greeks. In the discussion board you don’t see a ‘dialog’ but people write verses from their favourite poem. I found this quite nice because you can see that poetry spreads out through internet and maybe this will affect students to be more interested in poetry and literature.

I guess Facebook can be an educational tool as well as entertaining. This of course depends of the user and his needs and interests. It has aspects that can be exploited for educational purposes. The important thing is for people to know that…

Hello, my name is Georgia Savva and I am from Cyprus. I am 23 years old and I did my bachelor degree in Crete, a beautiful island in Greece, in Greek Literature. I chose the dtce course because i believe it will help me to broaden my knowledge regarding education and find more effective ways for teaching.
I enjoy reading good books and poetry and this is one of the reasons I decided to be a literature teacher.
Also, I like watching well directed movies and that's why I find myself lucky for working in a tv station in Cyprus for while.
Lastly, I love traveling and England gives me good chances for escaping in new places.
So, i guess there's a reason for everything!