Second Life Review

Second Life (http://secondlife.com/) is a virtual world that allows its users to create avatars and travel to destinations all over the world.  The avatars can communicate with each other and interact in the digital world through the Second Life browser.  I recently joined Second Life to see how it might be used in my high school classroom, as well as other educational endeavors.  The Second Life browser was difficult to get the hang of at first, but after venturing out into the virtual world, I quickly was able to teleport to many interesting places.  I was impressed right away with the fact that I could teleport to many historical landmarks and explore.  I could see how this might be useful in history, science, and many other disciplines at school.  Also, I have read articles that talk about lecture halls in Second Life, where students take their avatars and listen to a lecture presented by a guest speaker or their professor.  As a math teacher, I could see the possibility of taking my class to the Great Pyramids to discuss the volume and surface area of a pyramid.  


Even though Second Life has great potential in education,  I feel it is not in an environment  that can be controlled effectively for younger students.  The avatars can approach any other avatar they come across and chat or even talk over their microphones.  While this feature brings about many great opportunities, such as chatting with their professor or a famous scientist, it also brings about the uncertainty of who else students may chat with in this virtual world.  I guess this is true of the Internet in general, but I bring up the point to emphasis that careful planning must be taken in order to ensure students arrive in the educational arena of this virtual world.  


Second Life will surely draw the attention of students and involve them in the learning process.  It has great potential to allow students to interact with people and places that they may never get the chance to experience in the real world.  Students in middle and high schools today have grown up with virtual worlds and technology available to them in an instant throughout the use of computers, tablets, and gaming consoles.  It seems certain that educating these students will have to take place in an arena that they are comfortable with and peaks their interest.  Second Life could be a great technology tool to fill this need.

A tablet for $35?

India is in the process of releasing the Aakash tablet.  This would not be ground-breaking news, if it was not for the price, which is only $35 with a government subsidy, and $60 at retail price.  Chikodi Chima at venturebeat.com states "India, which has a population of nearly 1.2 billion and is home to 40 percent of the world’s poor, has experience paring down high-end technology and making it affordable and accessible.".  Now the tablet will provide many in the country the chance to get connected to the Internet.  It does not have all of the frills of an iPad, but it is built to serve a population where many have never been on a computer.  The Indian government is so committed to the tablet, that they are scheduled to release a second version in April 2012 that is faster and holds more battery life (http://aakashtablet.org/).  This tablet will open up educational opportunities by allowing the users to create documents and spreadsheets, or watch online educational videos.  The free knowledge available on the Internet may now be used by the poor in India to educate and increase their quality of life.  I can picture a small, remote village in India where children gather around with their tablets to learn about the outside world.  This tablet may be a sign of things to come in the future, as technology becomes more affordable and more and more products become available to all people.  This is definitely a step in the right direction for India and their educational system.


Read more about the tablet here.

3D GameLab Initial Thoughts

I am excited about participating in this class due to the 3D GameLab set-up.  I feel that I could use this as a test to see if I can incorporate it into a class that I teach in the future.