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Individual Reflections
Reflections of a Second Life
by Gus Valencia
It’s no mystery that the cost of building and maintaining educational institutions has risen at an incredible rate. Colleges and universities have countered this by offering more and more online courses. The delivery of these courses can vary great as I have learned. Our team decided to investigate one of these possible deliveries of educational services, Second Life. A virtual world developed by Linden Lab where islands are resident-created. I visited several universities in Second Life. Our group even had virtual coffee at the Texas Technical State College Second Life library. I must admit I am a bit of a resent technology immigrant. My use of technology just five years ago was using my computer as a word processor. I was never much of a video game player either. Nor did I text or instant message. I do use email and now have a better command of a larger range of software products. So as I stepped into this virtual world for the first time, I could not see all of its educational benefits. I created my avatar, a three dimensional representation of me, and bravely entered. At first I had some technical difficulties, but after reading and discussing these issues with my group thing got a lot better. I then completed the online tutorials and I learned how to walk, talk and final fly. I must admit that this world is very time consuming. I now belong to a virtual group and I have the ability to even teleport other users. After spending some time in Second Life I could finally see its application in education. As a meeting place that is as close to real life as we can have online. Students can enter a lecture rooms with other students and participate. Teachers can have group discussions and students or teachers can do Power-Point and video presentations.
I did not start in this group but they have been more than accommodating. Email communications worked very well within our group. We set meeting times and forwarded any information we found through our individual research. Jessica Sanchez has been by far the most helpful to the group. She developed our Wiki site and is very knowledgeable in all things technical. At the beginning our group met on a regular basis via Wimba team 3 room. Most of the members were present and we archived our meetings for those who could not attend. The meeting that I learned the most was when we met in Second Life. With Jessica as our tour guide, we finally put our new skills to use. Before we knew it we had spent over 2 hours visiting many sites. Then, we had a period when it was harder for us to meet as a group. During this time two team members had family members who were hospitalized while others caught bad colds. During this time communicating via email was our best option. But for the past two weeks we have been able to meet synchronously, although it took us having to reschedule about three times. This was probably our biggest problem, as individual schedules made it difficult to meet in our team Wimba room. But over all the experience has been very valuable. Being able to meet as a group over the internet while in the comfort of home has been awesome. Not to mention the cost of gas!
Reflections of a Virtual World
by Vanessa Rincones
The virtual world has always been interesting to me. Although I never took the time to sit and research the many wonders of this world, I must say, after this semester I have a new outlook on it. One world in particular, known as Second Life will always ring clear in my mind. This is the virtual world that my group decided to research for our collaborative project. I will be the first to admit, I thought Second Life was a type of software. As I researched I quickly realized there was the potential this world held. My first attempt to establish an account went sour and I grew very frustrated. The second time seemed to work, but as luck would have it, nothing was working. The third time, I bravely sent a cry for help and Jessica saved the day. Once I established the account, I created my own avatar, which I completley enjoyed doing. I took a deep breathe and jumped into the world of the unknown. At first glimpse it appeared to be a video game, but that could not be further from the truth. I stood in this island as other avatars flew, walked, and pushed by me wondering how to do what they were doing. I was overwhelmed and decided to sign off. The second time around, was a much better experience for me. I actually learned to fly and visited TSTC's island in Second Life. It is amazing to see the recreation of the campus, including a little cafe where you can drink coffee. It was then that I realized the real benefit behind Second Life. This world has the potential to create a wealth of meaningful learning experiences.
My group has been such a blessing to me. I have not had the best semester. I have experienced two deaths in my immediate family, and a brand new position at work, all of which have created a great deal of stress on me both physically and emotionally. However, through it all, my group has maintained their patience with me. This is first collaborative project I have worked on via online communication and I believe it has been very successful. I do credit Jessica Sanchez for her expertise in the world of technology. She has been an asset to the group and brings a wealth of knowledge and information each time we meet. We did experience some scheduling difficulites, but regardless everyone maintained their committment to the group. We always archived our meetings in Wimba room 3 and Gus was excellent at following up with emails. I have enjoyed this experinence and look forward to taking other online courses and working with awesome people such as these.
Reflections of Project 3 and Second Life
by Carla McLain
Virtual education is becoming an option more college and universities are considering and offering. My virtual education knowledge expanded based on research for this project. The research included virtual education with emphasizes on Second Life. This virtual learning environment provides an opportunity for learning similar to a face-to-face classroom. The current applications of this program are amazing and who knows what the future will bring. My first experience with Second Life happened this semester with this project. I had no idea a virtual learning environment like this existed. Even though I have not been able to experience Second Life first hand due to technology problems, I look forward to working with this exciting program in the future.
The group consisted of Jessica Sanchez, Vanessa Rincones, Gus Valencia, Joe Pedraza, and Carla McLain. The group worked well over the course of this project. This was my first experience with a collaborative project in an online course. The group tried its best to schedule meetings so all members could meet. The archived meetings took place in the Team 3 room in Wimba. Gus emailed the minutes of the meetings and outlined important dates and upcoming meetings. Email between meetings for questions, ideas, and exchanging information provided additional communication. Jessica’s knowledge of Second Life and development of the Wiki helped guide me through this new adventure. Second Life was a new encounter for me even though it was frustrating. To this day, I am still unable to experience what Second Life has to offer. When I try to enter Second Life, I receive the blue screen. I have updated my memory and graphics card to no avail. My group has been supportive through this experience and has offered suggestions. I hope, one day, I will be able to experience first hand the benefits Second Life offers and I anticipate the day I can finish a project without receiving the blue screen. This semester challenged me academically and personally. I worked with a caring group that helped me when my personal life was adding emotions, stress, and uncertainties.
Reflections of Collaborative Group Project & Second Life
by Jessica Sanchez
I have been on second life for about a year, jumping in and out of it, not really going too in-depth. Taking this class and working with my group has helped me see deeper into Second Life and it’s implications in education. It is common for me to hear from some faculty how they do not see Second Life as useful for them or that it shouldn’t be a medium for education. Funny enough, I imagine the same things were said about using the internet or learning management systems to teach their courses online. The one thing I do not like hearing from some faculty is that the people hear in the valley are not ready for it. It really angers me when they talk down about our students stating they lack skill and ability. If we do not open doors for our students, providing them access to technologies, even if it has to be within the University so that they can be exposed, will limit their future prospects. Second Life can provide such a great diversity in educational aspects.
I really enjoyed taking part in a collaborative group. You know, this was the first time I ever got my hands wet in using wiki’s. I love it. I even found a way to do away with the right menu and not pay for full rights. I can see it being applied to class group work in elementary perhaps 5th grade on up to higher education. It is so easy to use; you do not need to know code and it will allow students to engage in developing the site and making it their own- allowing young minds to be creative. I am now pushing it to our staff to promote to our instructors as another application for collaborative group efforts or even individual group efforts that need to present their work.
It was a pleasure to work with Clarla, Gus, Joe and Vanessa. I had fun demonstrating the in-world site. We met via Wimba, and communicated through the internet as well. Gus kept minutes and reminded us of dates for upcoming meetings. It is my endeavor to keep updating this wiki with more information so that it can be a resource to educators interested in teaching or working in Second Life. It was a great experience to have and learn from.
Reflections of EDTC 6320.81/Group Project/Second Life
by Joe Pedraza
I have to say that this class has opened my eyes to a whole new other side of technology that I was not familiar with. I come primarily from a world of unix operating systems and programming languages like Informix 4GL. EDTC 6320.81 has exposed me to new technologies that I was unfamiliar with. I was first blown away with WIMBA. It was awesome to have everyone log into WIMBA to meet for class. It was literally a virtual classroom which was then divided into smaller virtual classrooms. It made classroom discussions very simple.
The group project was another great experience. I really did not think it was going to work but I was wrong. We took advantage of the WIMBA meeting room and used it for our group collaboration meetings. I missed some meetings but I was able to listen to the archive and catch up with the group. I think I am lucky that I landed in this group because it has exposed me to Second Life. I have to give credit to Jessica for choosing the topic. I have to say that at first I really did not think it applied to our class. I saw SL merely as some sort of internet chat room where people go and waste their lifes away. Boy was I wrong. I have discovered that second life is a great tool in education. It can be used to have group meetings and discussions and to share information.
Last, I would like to thank all my group members especially Jessica. Jessica is the guru of second life and of anything she sets her mind on. I would also like to thank Dr. Butler for her dedication to technology.
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