One of the things I love doing in Second Life is attending the Second Life Academy group’s building classes . I haven’t been to many, but all the ones I’ve been to have been highly entertaining and educational. You can also learn a lot about how best to teach people in SL, and it’s a great way to meet avatrs who are serious about SL, rather than those who are just there to waste time or looking for ways to make easy money.
The last class I attended was on building a fountain, an intermediate building class. In the picture below, you can see the whole group with their fountains, at the end of the class:
It struck me during the class that this was a great way of teaching language – you take a group of students, especially if they have an interest in SL, and you teach them how to build something. You can easily see if they understand : if they do, then they’ll end up building what you ask them to.
I think this should definitely be a feature of our Teen Grid island project as it’s highly motivating. I had the opportunity to try it out two Mondays ago (Monday night, btw is ‘SL Fun night’ for me – I’ve been regularly meeting a friend there at 22.00 GMT, and we explore SL together – come and join us if you like). I showed a friend how to build a lamp, which really helped me understand the best way of giving text instructions.
Of course, an easy way of doing this, and one that some of the SLA instructors use is to utilise a device that lets you pre-load lines of text – you write the instructions beforehand, and wear this HUD device. Then by clicking one of the buttons, you deliver the instructions step-by-step. It also allows you to keep an eye on what’s going on (if you don’t do this, then you spend a lot of time typoing and thinking what to type next), and you can better respond to people’s comments and help out those with difficulties.
