SLCC Friday Morning

The first day (Friday) is all about education in SL (SLED/SLEDcc). Pathfinder Linden and Claudia Linden gave the keynote speaker talking about how the education community was one of the first to adopt Second Life way back in the Alpha dark days.

First session I attended was about using games for education. Be a group for Ohio University. The games are designed to allow students to learn pretty much by playing the games rather than feeling like they are participating in a “learning session”. For instance, one of the games is a mystery game but the questions that the student answers to solve the mystery help the students learn the different between observation and inference.

The games are designed to provide a formal learning environment even as they present the game feel. For instance, in-world chat is logged to make sure the student stay on task rather than being distracted by other facets of Second Life. Prizes are offered for successfully winning the game (learning the lesson).

The games allow the teacher to customize the questions and some facets of the game via a web interface. Much of the student interface is well designed HUDs which the student attaches as they start the session.

The fruit fly game was impressive, leading students through the feel of doing an experiment in a lab. Rather than just showing slides of information, or even showing virtual fruit flies, the student is treated to a lab where they can sit at a lab bench, “do” and experiment, and then answer lab questions about the experiment results. The lab has several benches to allow multiple students to each have their own independent session in the lab. While the students are doing the experiments, the teacher can actually walk around the room seeing what the students are doing and helping out those who are stuck.

The student can set up their own experiments where they create fruit flies by selecting form a series of dominant and recessive traits. They actually see two small jars of the fruit flies they created. They can then move them to breeding bottles. At the end of experiments, the flies are “knocked out” and put in a Petri dish where the student can very interactively count the resulting attributes of the offspring flies, down to zooming in to see eye color.

--dd-