Second Life

Several years ago, GTCC hired DI, our instructor for this course, to come and teach us about Second Life. Quickly, you learn that DI is very passionate about this topic. In two hours, he taught us to create our avatars, move around, interact with others and create basic shapes in a sandbox.

I believe that Second Life or at least the concept of this virtual world has a lot of promise for education. It gives us a new way to interact and create together that we lacked online. Anything can exist in this space. It's only limited by the imaginations of the users. It's free! It's visual.

I do have some concerns about Second Life as an instructional tool at this time for community college students (where I teach). Second Life is free, which is great, but it's usage requires a healthy computer with a strong Internet connection. At GTCC, 80% of our students have a computer at home with 70% of them using broadband to access the Internet. We don't have any idea of the quality of their personal computers. We do not have 100% saturation of home computers.

Also, using Second Life takes some training. You have to learn how to create your avatar, move around, create, etc. PLUS you have to learn the culture. There are thousands of tutorials out there ready to teach you, but it's a time investment. Most faculty members are not going to want to give up 4-5 hours of instructional time to teach a student how to use an instructional tool. Second Life will need to simplify its approach and shorten the learning curve to gain more acceptance in the educational markets. A 8-year-old can learn a new video game in less than 15 minutes. A 18-year-old is not going to understand why s/he has to spend hours learning how to use a tool.

Facebook

I guess by our class's definition of Web 2.0 that Facebook is a Web 2.0 tool. It's one of those tools that people either love or hate. I love it, though I hate to admit it. I have reconnected with tons of people via Facebook - both a pro and con. I have gotten tons of advice on personal matters, how to do household chores, how to approach something at work, what haircut to get, etc. My theory is the more heads, the better. Once I found a way to access my Facebook account from both my cell phone and iPod Touch, well, my life was never the same. I can wait for a meeting for 5 minutes and change my status update a million times without accessing my computer. Scary.

There is an instructor at GTCC named Carolyn Schneider. She told me once over lunch that in order to force herself to learn something new or research something, she agrees to give a talk about it. The deadline of that talk forces her to learn the subject to prevent herself from looking like a fool in front of her peers. I have used this approach many times in the past. One of those times, I agreed to speak at the League of Innovation several years ago about Facebook and instruction. They accepted my request. I had to stand up to the challenge.

I poured through everything that I could find about Facebook, how it works and instruction. At the time, there was not a lot out there about it. Yikes.

To help me illustrate a way that Facebook can be used, I created a Facebook page for George Washington. I invited about 2o of my friends to attack that page like student and post things on that page as if they were George Washington. You can see this page my clicking here. (This link will require you to have a Facebook account.)

NOW, if you google "Amy Brown" and "Facebook", my League presentation is like the 4th or 5th option that appears. Here is link to my Facebook presentation. I really enjoyed giving that presentation. HUGE attendance. Obviously, many people were curious about the use of Facebook for instruction.

So, how can Facebook be used for instruction:

1. History students can create a Facebook page for famous historical figures and share everything that they have learned about a historical figure.

2. Math students can create a Facebook page for a particular mathematical approach and invite others to share examples of it in action.

3. Music students can discussion genres of music and share links to their favorite examples.

4. Sociology and psychology students can focus on the information that their friends place on their information places and write volumes about the information we share and what is says about us.

Just the tip of the iceberg. But why Facebook?

If you look at the Internet traffic on our campus. The most popular spot our students go to is Moodle. (Yes!) The second most popular spot our students go to is Facebook. Hmmm. They go to Moodle because we force them to do so for a grade. They go to Facebook to connect and collaborate with their friends. Over 85% of our students have a Facebook account which means they are already trained on how to use it. Interesting. Could instructors learn to use a tool that students ALREADY know how to use to introduce their topic in relevant ways? I think so. We just have to be "brave" enough to log in and explore our options.

P.S. DI, I know that you are not a fan of Facebook (per your status updates). As you remember, I was not a fan of Moodle when you first introduced it to me. You brought me to the "dark side", please allow me to return the favor. :)