On Wednesday and Sunday I did virtual pilgrimages as part of the British Literature course I'm taking as an "at large" student in Second Life. You can read more about that at
Eloise's Commonplace Book or at least about my reactions to it as a student.
But I also have some reactions about it as a teacher and SL teacher which I'm going to share here.
One of the things I've noticed working closely with Desi on this course and others is that Desi has a tendency to run the class to a group of educators first, then unleash it on her students. I've never tried this: I tend to dive right in and do and adjust on the fly if needed. This might have something to do with working as a Learning Support Tutor: even when you plan a class 75% of the time the student's turn up and need something else more urgently so you always fly by the seat of the pants. Watching Desi do things this way, several times now, it has become pretty clear to me that she doesn't change much between the two runs of the class, it's more an affirmatory process, but she does listen, consider and tweak things, with good effect each time so far.
The other is about the teaching process in SL. Now, it won't surprise many that I'm in favour of immersive learning in SL and using it's potential. Desi is working that way too - it's one of the things that lets us work together so well. Having recently attended a number of seminars, lecturers as well as Desi's classes I've got to say my opinion is reinforced. Getting the educational content into SL is always the main thing for a teacher. Getting it into SL in a way that uses SL's strengths, immersion, ease of build, transport etc. (or deliberately stopping easy transport for the pilgrimage) and so on might mean thinking about your class and the contents and how to present it, and tackling it from a different direction, but it is so worth doing. Lectures may have a place - although I'm increasingly left wondering why it's not done by distributing class notes etc. - but immersion, discussion, exploration work well in SL and we should be thinking about how to do that as much as possible. Are you here just because it's cool, or are you serious about using it as a teaching tool? It can and does work really well if you engage with it and use its strengths.
