The Trough

My first reaction to Second Life was “get a first life first”. Now I believe it definitely has a place in the school library and teacher’s armoury of teaching tools. Of course, Second Life itself is off limits. It is only supposed to be accessed by people over the age of 18. A major problem is that it is accessed by those under 18. Schools will most likely block access to it since a large part of the content is sex-related. To get an idea of this, check out YouTube.  It should be noted, however,  that many universities and colleges are using Second Life to deliver online curriculum. This, too, can be investigated on YouTube and at http://sleducation.wikispaces.com/educationaluses.

Thankfully, there is a Teen Second Life (http://teen.secondlife.com/) and some schools in America  are doing some exciting things within it. I have only found a few Australian school with a Second Life presence. See http://www.skoolaborate.com/participating-schools.html. You can read about one of them at http://heyjude.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/virtual-learning-and-teen-second-life-project/

One of the gurus for the use of Teen Second Life in schools is Peggy Sheehy at Suffern Middle School in New York. As quoted at http://web.mac.com/peggysheehy/MetaVersEd_/SLJournal.html,  ”to achieve teacher buy-in, Sheehy has moved quickly to establish relevancy to the curriculum. A social studies class examining immigration, for example, is building a virtual Ellis Island, complete with the Statue of Liberty and Lower East Side tenements. And when a math teacher approached Sheehy, asking for help with his geometry unit, she proposed a “geo gallery” of 3-D rays, angles, and other concepts, all rendered by students. “Imagine walking around an intersecting line,” says Sheehy. A “wellness” class at Suffern in particular lends itself to a virtual exercise. “How much can you learn about body image if you can go in and create your own physique?” ponders Sheehy. “Think about the introspection [it will inspire in kids]. I might choose to be a different gender, a different race.”

Ramapo! Suffern Middle School, Library, Teen Second Life is a video of the SL program at Suffern Middle School. You should look at the full description of the video to get a better idea of what the video contains. Also see Peggy Sheehy speak about the program at Metanomics : kids as builders.

Peggy Sheehy’s site should be seen at http://web.mac.com/peggysheehy/MetaVersEd_/Welcome.html.