Weeks 5 & 6

I'm glad I was finally able to join everyone in Second Life this time. Last week when I tried I think I had another glitch problem, which caused me to be late. I was in the middle of trying to look at a map to see where Kent State was and all of a sudden my vision went gray. No matter which way I looked I was looking at a gray wall. I was finally able to get my avatar to look up and I could see a couple people walking by, and I realized I was in some kind of box shaped hole. I tried to fly up to get out of the hole but it was like I was frozen. Well finally the glitch stopped and I was in a different place from where I was orignally standing (when I tried looking at my map). I don't know what happened but I hope that doesn't happen again. This is another issue with Second Life. I realized when I log on to SL, I'm back where I was when I logged off. Now when you play a video game you usually start where you last saved. This way if you experience a glitch you can push the reset button and start from your last save point. Now in SL, what if I couldn't get out of that weird glitch? I guess I would've been stuck in it forever. This wouldn't be good for students who might need to use SL for school. One might think, "Well, just create a new avatar and start over." Well, when I tried deleting a different SL avatar I had, it said something about having to wait a few months before I'd be allowed to create a new one (I think you can only have one avatar per email account). That would be a pain for students if they'd have to set up a new email account just to create a new SL avatar.

I think when it comes to online simulations in education, it would probably be better not to make it mandatory in case students run into technical problems (like the one I experienced). Also, something I noticed during our online discussion, my computer lagged from time to time, which made typing awkward. Also, the audio didn't seem to work very well. I had trouble understanding people sometimes when they spoke. I had my volume turned up all the way, but the quality of the sound wasn't very good. People sounded a bit muffled. Again, it could just be my computer.

Second Life could be useful in education, but it still has issues that need to be fixed.
Okay enough about Second Life for now.

WebQuests! I finally got to see what these are. I've heard of them before in other classes but I never understood what they were even after people would describe them to me. I find them interesting, but I'm not sure I'm crazy about them. I think they can be helpful in elementary and maybe middle school, when students are learning about researching on the Internet. In high school and older, however, I think students would be bored with them. At this point I think it would be better if students learned how to evaluate websites themselves for research purposes. Are students really learning anything if we just give them the sites they need? I don't know. Maybe it depends more on what the assignment is.

As for the WebQuest I made...I like the topic I used, but I'm not sure if I designed the WebQuest in the best way for it. I think I may have started to design it in the form of a lesson, even though WebQuests aren't supposed to be lessons...Well, I'm glad I had this experience because in the future I'll know what people are talking about when they mention WebQuests, and can help find/create them with teachers.

It's my turn to help lead the online discussions for the next two weeks, and I need to create my website design (due Saturday March 7).

Second life, and reflection on the discussions

First, a little rant about Second life.

Earlier this week I decided to set up a SL account so that I could try the online discussion on Wednesday. It took forever just to get my character created because it kept rejecting every avatar name I suggested (I don't like that I have to pick a last name from a list. I think this really limits the name choices). After I finally got my avatar created, I'm sent to the beginner's place to read all these wall panels. I found this frustrating to have to walk in front of every panel just to read it. I personally think it would've been easier to have some kind of manual in front of me on how to do everything. By the time I got my avatar to waddle over to another panel, I would forget what I read earlier on how to perform a certain action, so then I would waste time trying to find that particular panel again. For some reason I can't change my outfit either (when I try to remove something it's still there...I'm not sure how to best explain it though. The clothing item will look like it's "broken" or something. It could be some kind of glitch). So for now I'm stuck in that hideous pink dress. *laughs* I guess I'll just have to keep playing with it. I'll make another attempt to try and come to the online discussion next week. Seeing how it's going so far, maybe I better try to find the discussion place early in case I have trouble getting there. And I haven't tried flying yet... I wonder if anyone else is struggling with SL too (or started out with similar difficulties). Maybe I'm just making it harder than what it is.

For the last two weeks the discussions were on lifelong learning and Web 2.0. Overall, it seems we believe that Web 2.0 is an advancement from Web 1.0, allowing us to participate/contribute more rather than just reading what's been posted. With lifelong learning, we continue to learn in order to keep up with advances. It was interesting to learn who created the World Wide Web too (Sir Tim Berners-Lee). I was always curious who came up with it. I didn't realize the Web was created in 1990. I thought it was created in the mid to late 90's.

My next task for this class is to to do my WebQuest for next Saturday.