Born into the New

Orientation into second life is much like orientation into our own life. This video presents some of the major difficulties the E Learning System is facing.

The main point I took away from this video was that users of second life need to have a familar place to begin orientation in. When teaching people to use second life we need to remember to try and find ways that get that person involved. Often people are confused when they enter into unfamilar teritory and so we need to make second life a confortable environment for the users.

I know absolutly nothing about second life. The closest thing growing up for me would be video games. Video games are sort of like second life to me. I think that this video is right when it says that entering into programs like this is at times very overwhelming and confusing. This is why orientation is so important.

I can't see really using anything like second life because I know nothing about it. Just as the video talks about most people when in an unfamilar situation don't want to learn. But if I were to use any type of second life system in my teaching I would now know that I should put orientation in a classroom setting for the students. This will create a familar environment for them to learn in.

Wanting to be engaged.

Parallel Play is extremely important in todays classroom. This video shows us the importance of engaging student through the use of wikis. The main thing I took away from this video was that you can't just set up thing you want students to learn and then expect them to do it. Students have to want to be engaged. So as this video disscusses some ways of doing this would be to find out what your childrens interests are. By simply doing this children will not look at some project as work and a chore but rather fun and experience to learn.

I like how wikis give children a new way to express themselves. In my education we never had ways to really do this. The only classes I can remember were web design. Maybe if someone in class designed a good web page they would get recognized. Now with things like wiki you could show all students work and even allow students to make contructive comments.

This video gives me great ideas to use wikis in the classroom. As long as I can use them right. According to the video if the wiki offers students choice, novelty, variety, and authenticity students are learning. I have thought of ways to use wikis. Maybe have students do science projects or book reports. Wikis could be used for all subjects. Maybe at the beginning of the semester I can make surveys and find out my students interests and then design my assignments around that.Overall when used right wikis allow for great classroom colaboration.