Higher education

Work or play?
Educators say Second Life is an effective teaching tool in part because it provides a social laboratory where role-playing, simulations, exploration, and experimentation can be tried out in a relatively risk-free environment. But perhaps the most touted benefit of Second Life is the opportunity it gives students to interact with people around the world—there are users registered from more than 100 countries. It also allows students to visit places that no longer exist, like a townscape reconstructed to look like Elizabethan England in the late 16th century.
http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/e-learning/2008/01/10/a-second-life-for-higher-ed.html

Fantastico....ma............................. ATTENZIONE

It sounds fun, right? Indeed, one worry is that student activity on Second Life may be more playful than pedagogical. Students have to learn to teleport, manage and outfit their avatars, and handle basic communication before they can even begin to think about the course homework. And the software isn't all that intuitive. "Students need to have adequate time to become minimally skilled," says Robert Vernon, who teaches in Second Life at Indiana University School of Social Work in Indianapolis. Policing behavior in the virtual realm has also been difficult. In one disturbing incident, Ohio University had to temporarily close its island when a virtual gunman began shooting other visitors. And this summer, the Woodbury University island was permanently deleted after Woodbury student avatars engaged in disruptive and hostile behavior.

The most common complaint, however, is that communication between avatars is inadequate. Although it is possible to click on emoticons to, for instance, make an avatar smile, the actual effect can look unnatural and even unnerving. "I've tried to conduct classes in Second Life, and it is clearly inferior to a classroom situation," says Peter Ludlow, a professor at the University of Toronto. In a classroom, teachers can read the body language of students and determine if they are attentive, bored, tired, distracted, or agitated, but in Second Life they get none of that feedback.
"The eye gaze of an avatar means nothing," says Ludlow. "The student could be in the next room making a sandwich."

..forse se non si pensassa più a sL solo come ad una piattaforma od ad un mondo virtuale dove realizzare classi virtuali ed insegnamenti virtuali del tutto uguali a quelli reali...queste obiezioni verrebbero aperdere di significato.

NO LA POTENZIALITA' E' BEN MAGGIORE...bisogna sfruttare e sperimentare il valore aggiunto del mondo virtuale, la sua specificità, e non copiare quello reale(chiaramente superiore per "effetti realistici" e comunicazione in presenza...ma siamo proprio così sicuri che i feedback del linguaggio non verbale non abbiano anche dei risvolti che potrebbero ostacolare la comunicazione e la creatività invece di favorirla?)!