Metaphor Voom watching a film in an empty detention center.
Metaphor Voom (right) with 2 students.
Metaphor Voom inside a holodeck.We are now 4 weeks into the semester and all students in the course have spent time in world. Some students are experiencing the normal challenges of learning the technology and discovering how to move, fly, and other required tasks to gain permission to leave Orientation Island. Each student figures out how to "mouse around" (a term I borrowed from a dear friend of mine, Mike) and find her/his level of comfort in the virtual environment. Getting used to being virtual takes time.
Some students have taken to SL like digital ducks to digital water. I spend many late nights online and in world. I am finding that some of my students do, too. I have met with a couple of students in world late at night and on the weekends in unscheduled sessions. These sessions have taken the form of guided tours. In the first meeting with each of these students I was the tour guide. I showed them a few landmarks I thought were particularly interesting for whatever reason. The subsequent meetings have been ones in which the students have been the tour guides. I like this approach. I am the student. They are showing me what they think is interesting and offer explanations as to why. I suspect this turn of roles--when the tour guide becomes the guided--is a feature of SL as an educational context.
