Teaching in online virtual spaces can be a balancing act. We are here because we want to find an effective and inclusive way to teach our subject, but we also have to spend time teaching the technology itself to facilitate student participation. This dual effort can sometimes be demanding, but we must remind ourselves that virtual worlds are part of a new literacy that can provide access to a wider community; we owe it to our students to be sure they are comfortable with it..
Not everyone understands what we’re doing. We need to explain to our colleagues that we are not just teaching in a “game;” we are allowing our students, particularly distance students, the benefit of meeting and working collaboratively in creative and immersive 3D spaces.
This site is intended as a repository for information on teaching in Second Life, OpenSim, and other platforms. If you have information that you would like to contribute, please contact elliebrewster at gmail.com. A discussion of my feminist teaching in virtual worlds can be found in my chapter on Second Life in Feminist Cyberspaces: Pedagogies in Transition (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2012)
scorchkat
This is a great blog, I’m so excited to have found it! I’ll be teaching an online WGST course in the fall and am looking into using Second Life for some of the sections. I look forward to reading more about your accomplishments with it.
Ellie Brewster
It’s a big step the first time you try it. If you’d like to get together in-world and talk about it, just let me know, I have lots of teaching tools I can share.
I’m teaching online this fall as well, but a higher level class, so I won’t be using SL this time. I may have them come in for field trips, though.
Good luck with it!