Second Life: It's an Educational Tool, Not a Game
Presented by Tim Ball, SCOM, Suzy Baker, Psychology; Susan Kruck College of Business; Michael Quinn, College of Business; Sarah Cheverton, Center for Instructional Technology; Christie Liu, Center for Instructional Technology
Location- Taylor 306
Effective teaching in the 21st Century increasingly requires a facility with advanced technology. Marrying discipline competence with cyber-technology will take both faculty and students onto the cutting edge of effective education. Traditional distance education can be inadequate and cumbersome because most of it is asynchronous and text-based. New platforms like Second Life (SL) allow “face-to-face” interaction in a virtual space. In addition, SL fosters student and faculty creativity because it allows users almost unlimited potential to create virtual spaces and objects that can be used in teaching and learning. Our presentation will be divided into two parts. The first part will introduce the audience to Second Life and describe what it is and how it can be used by educators in their courses. The second part of the presentation will demonstrate how SL is being used now in JMU courses and how it can be used in the future.
*Note- The pre-conference and post-conference workshop are the same- just offered at two possible times.