Posts tagged classroomuse
Student Expenses in Second Life?
Apr 27th
I have a question, “If you have your students work in Second Life in a manner that requires the use of $Linden dollars, what arrangements are there for students to obtain the necessary $L?”
- Do students use their own credit cards for payment information and the purchase of Lindens? Or, perhaps you’re not certain because it’s up to students to make arrangements?
- Is there grant funding of some sort that makes $Lindens available to learners? Who distributes those funds to learners? What sort of tracking is required?
- Does your institution make funds available for the purchase and distribution of $Lindens to students? Again, who distributes those funds, and what sort of tracking is required?
- Do you personally fund your students’ needs for $Lindens from your own avatar’s pocket?
- Is there some other accommodation made?
Here’s the issue with which I’m struggling. My institution is looking at all possible issues related to the use of SL with learners, and we have a pilot project in the planning stages for the Fall semester. The issue we’ve discussed focuses on projects which requires learners to have $Lindens available to their avatar; given our student demographic, we expect to have learners that do not have access to a credit card via which than can acquire $Lindens. Further, we may have learners which can not afford any additional expenses. So, we’re looking at all of the possibilities and are curious what others are doing. I have been and will be asking around; as soon as I pull some information together, I will post it here.
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...Second Life Blogs Galore
Mar 21st
I’m putting together resources for an “Educator’s Introduction to Second Life” workshop I’ll deliver on Monday at the Texas Distance Learning Association annual conference. My Second Life blogroll is posted in the sidebar are the blogs I read most frequently. However, I’ve been intending to post all of the Second Life blogs I have in Google Reader; the workshop has provided the impetus for that to finally happen. The list is below; if there are others you feel I should read or include, please comment! I’m always looking for new resources related to real life education in Second Life.
Higher & General Education
- Fleep’s Deep Thoughts
- Second Life in Education Wiki
- NMC Campus Observer
- SLED Picayune
- SLED Blog
- My Second Life
- Second Life Best Practices in Education 2007
- Aggiornamento II
- Jokay.com
- Mal’s SL Edu-Blog
- Flexible Learning @ Heriot-Watt
- Penn State Educational Gaming Commons
- Sean’s Emerging
- Second Life Research
- SLolar Central
Art
English: Literature, Language, Composition
Health Sciences
K-12
- The Story of My Second Life
- Suffern Middle School in Second Life
- Oh Second Life
- Pacific Rim Exchange
- Computers, Creativity & Learning
- Global Citizenship in a Virtual World
- SLED Blog
Legal Issues
General Second Life
Second Life News
- Official Second Life Blog
- Massively: Second Life
- The Grid Live
- New World Notes
- Second Life News Network
- Second Life Insider
- Virtual World News
- VTOR
- Worlds in Motion
- Reuters Second Life News
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Educause Southwest: Does Your Campus Need a Second Life?
Feb 21st
I attended the EDUCAUSE Southwest Regional Conference in Houston, TX; my first session Thursday morning was Does Your Campus Need a Second Life? presented by Ana Gonzalez (SL: Mayela Saenz), Terry Peak (SL: Benotto Bailey) and Phil Youngblood (SL: Vic Michlalak) from the University of the Incarnate Word (San Antonio). My live blog notes – with comments/ideas from remote friends – are available online, and my thoughts and reflections are below. This group covered a lot of ground in their 45-50 minutes; do look for the presentation materials to be posted at UIW and the EDUCAUSE session site noted above.
This group noted two situations which are very fortunate when trying to explore Second Life for instructional uses. First, the CIO at UIW asked the instructional technology team to explore Second Life for relevant educational applications; a CIO requesting proactive exploration of any instructional technology seems like it would almost always be a good thing. Second, they began the project with what can fairly be described as a complete team: an instructional designer, a media specialist and a faculty member. As a result, they’ve grounded the work they’ve done on sound instructional theory and have had a successful and very accomplished pilot project that leverages unique capabilities of Second Life. Specifically, Terry spoke specifically about how they’ve used Chickering & Gamson’s 7 Principles as a framework by which to engage Second Life as a hybrid activity within a face-to-face programming/computerscience course, and Phil described a learner centered classroom that includes collaboration with two other classrooms – one in Mexico and one in France.
A couple of ideas I’ve explored recently did enter into the discussion – in shades, at least. First, given the 7 Principles, they did consider Time on Task; they set specific time requirements for completing tasks. Of course, this begs the question I’ve been asking, “To what extent does Second Life distract attention from content materials?” They may be accomplishing the time requirements, but does that account for the distractions encountered?
Directly related to that question, Terry commented that there is a learning curve for Second Life which can be somewhat steep; they had a very short time to overcome it. The UIW course is an upper level computer science/programming course, so the technology experience many of those students likely bring to the course probably mitigated the difficulty of the learning curve. While that raises the “efficiency” question (per Dodge’s PADE formula), Phil indicated that they have had 100% attendance with learners frequently staying after class to work on projects. You’d suspect that Second Life and quality designed instruction could provide an extra source of motivation, but that level of attendance and engagement by learners is extraordinary.
A couple of notable comments and question/answers from the session:
- You have to have (instructional design/media) support to teach in SL. You can’t do it by yourself.
- UIW spent a semester working on and planning the course.
- UIW specifies minimum computer hardware requirements for learners in the course.
- Learners could opt out of the SL activities in favor of alternative assignments (which also doubled as SL-is-down-assignments) but none took that option.
If you have any questions about the session, don’t hesitate to ask. I’ll answer as best I can.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Learning Scenario: Entrepreneurship
Feb 6th
I took a few minutes to track down Ann Enigma (SL) and discuss an Internet Entrepreneurship course for which she’s providing Second Life support; they’re planning a Second Life component for the course during this Spring term. The notion is to teach “fundamental business concepts by having students start business[es] in SL,” and they’re inviting any interested educators or entrepreneurs to participate by offering guest lectures and/or professional critiques of learner work. Ann and I had discussed assessment strategy in the past, so this conversation was a follow-up to see where the project is headed.
Learners are going to engage a custom, in-house registration and orientation portal; the orientation will be facilitated face-to-face in a campus computer lab, and learners will have had a 2-3 week overview of fundamental entrepreneurial concepts. For the Second Life component, they’re going to be issued “starter kits” and then choose a business location on “Rhode Island (more space) or Casablanca (less space, more traffic).” Learners will get a “store space, and examples of vendors and products . . . Each group of 3-4 students – mixed majors – will have to devise a product or service, create a business plan for it, and actually start that business.” With the land, prefabricated resources and small L$ grant, learners can do whatever they like within the scope of the assignment and the PG restriction ;-). Ultimately, “they are expected to write a business plan, attempt to implement the plan, and reflect on the result.”
Several thoughts from my instructional design perspective.
Scaffolding/Support. The approach to orientation Ann described is a good example of the type of pre-learning support students need before engaging SL for instructional purposes. Most faculty engaging learners via SL are providing orientations and support, but this course offers learners a SL orientation and solid introduction to the course concepts as well. Also, the prefabs, workspace and L$ offered to learners are invaluable as well; that support will get learners past much of the SL distractions not essential to the course.
Simulation. Ann described, “The hope is that analyzing the SL market will provide the same type of experience as analyzing an RL industry.” Second Life should definitely provide a more authentic opportunity for learners to engage the market experience, particularly when learners are going to be able to follow up that research experience with the process of actually starting the business in Second Life.
Assessment. Currently, the plan for deliverables learners will produce include the business plan and a reflective presentation at the end. The Second Life component will definitely add a layer of authenticity to the exercise and certainly opens the potential for more than a few learners to truly amaze and astonish those teaching the course. However, Ann indicated they’re still debating how best to grade the businesses given that the limited time and new experience with Second Life may make it difficult for the businesses to flourish or develop fully.
While using SL as the market in which to develop a product and business plan (a) adds authenticity to the exercise, (b) is certainly pertinent to the content of a course titled “Internet Entrepreneurship,” and (c) creates unique insights and revelations for learners as they reflect, I think SL may create an additional opportunity in this instance.
In a typical, more traditional learning environment, learners often don’t have the opportunity to engage potential investors or to self-finance/bootstrap in an effort to actually start a business, so learners read texts, listen to lectures, and perhaps watch videos and other media describing the different sections of a business plan before write a business plan for an imaginary business. Thus, developing AND presenting a business plan via SL and/or working to finance a start-up business presents an opportunity to accomplish goals and tasks not easily performed in a non-SL environment; to me, SL makes the “punchline of the course” – actually starting a business based upon a business plan and market research – obtainable.
Imagine . . . As a learner, I don’t just develop a product or service and a business plan for it; the work to research the market, estimate financial gains and expenses, and determine resource needs is only the beginning – just as it is in the physical world. I have to prepare a precise, persuasive oral presentation to potential investors or loan providers (or experienced entrepreneurs or other business educators lending a helping hand); I might have to complete a loan application or endure an interview with a small business development agent for a bank. No matter the situation, I have a limited opportunity to get what I need to get my dream off the ground. My life as an entrepreneur can be nerve wracking, and Second Life makes learning and coping with that anxiety possible along with everything else to be learned in an “Internet Entrepreneurship” course.
Looking forward to learning how this project turns out for Ann Enigma and colleagues.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Educational Overview of Second Life
Dec 8th
This is the second post in a three part series that focuses on three questions for which I offered an answer during a presentation at the League of Innovation in the Community College’s CIT Conference in Nashville. The first part focused on the question: Why Educational Institutions Should Engage Second Life. This post is targeted toward educators early in their exploration of Second Life and will focus on “What is Second Life, and what can it do for educational environments?” This Flickr slideshow includes the vast majority of the screenshots I captured within Second Life to include within or to supplement the presentation. This is a long one ;-)
What is Second Life?
For starters, Giff Constable of the Electric Sheep Company offers a short video answer to this question online at Blip.tv
An important distinction for many, particularly educators, first entering Second Life, focuses on what Second Life is not. It is NOT a game. Second Life is a MUVE – a multi-user virtual environment; that is in contrast to a massive multiplayer online game (MMOG). MUVE is used to describe unthemed, non-game virtual worlds. As noted by Wikipedia, rules, general challenge and purpose are key components of games which often have turns and goals for players. Second Life does not possess any of those features. There are games that have been created within Second Life, but SL itself is not a game.
Alex Krotoski at Social Sim offers several specific arguments that Second Life is a social networking site more than it is a game. Tateru Nino at the SecondLife Insider highlighted an audio interview, which others have also recommended, in which Don Heider of the University of Maryland and Kim Gregson of Ithaca College discuss what Second Life is and is not. In my opinion, a strength of Second Life is the manner in which it draws people and professionals closer; it makes finding and interacting with others of like mind and interest much easier than it has been in the past. One of my first experiences in Second Life was stumbling across and having a 25 minutes voice Skype conversation with another educational technologist; withou t Second Life, I likely would have never met that individual living in Vancouver, BC given that I live in Texas.
Create a salient, virtual identity
The ability to establish a unique, salient personal identity contributes to the social nature and social networking capabilities of Second Life. A quick search at Flickr for “SecondLife + Avatar” reveals the extent to which unique, virtual identities can be established by Second Life residents/users. A YouTube video by Torley demonstrates avatar customization features within Second Life that make the uniqueness possible. This level of specificity in creating personal identities adds a dimension of personality that potentially enhances distance learning experiences and environments.
To get started in Second Life, I recommend that educators create their account and enter Second Life via the New Media Consortium’s account creation page which drops new users at the NMC Orientation Island geared specifically to introduce educator newbies to the SL environment. If you’re already in Second Life, the NMC Orientation Island (slurl) may still prove useful, and at the very least, hanging out there creates the opportunity to meet and help educator newbies.
Interact with the World, Create, Build
The ability to build and create in Second Life presents unique opportunities. In my opinion, Second Life bridges the gap between many educators and the ability to create interactive, 3D environments and simulations. SL provides the foundation necessary – the physics of the virtual world, the user interface, communication tools – to get started; educators can now simply join SL and start building specific tools and resources rather than building a virtual environment from the ground up. There is a learning curve, of course, and it’s not so simple that it can be overlooked, but the learning curve to build meaningful resources in SL is MUCH less than what we’ve encountered in the past. An architecture on the double video provides at least one example of the building process in Second Life.
Interact with Others, Communicate
SL absolutely possesses features expected of a social networking tool: friends list, instant messaging, social groups, public text chat, person search, and detailed personal profiles. It also provides, as of early Fall 2007, integrated voice communications. As educators spend more time in Second Life, there’s an increasing number of interactive communication tools designed specifically to facilitate teaching and learning type communications within the SL world.
What can education do with Second Life?
Networking & Collaboration. Again, I think the networking and social capabilities of Second Life are critical. As example, the Second Life Best Practices in Education conference was held entirely within Second Life in May of 2007; sessions ran from 12:00am Friday to 12:00am Saturday with more than 1,000 unique avatars attending at various times throughout the day. Other physical world conferences have simulcast into Second Life – making it possible for many more to attend and network with one another: TED Conference on TED Island
and the MIT5 Conference was held on the NMC Campus. Also, many educationally relevant groups exist in SL, with number of members listed with t
- 3200 – New Media Consortium
- 2174 – Real Life Educators in Second Life
- 453 – EDTECH Community
- 105 – PhD Research Community
- 23 – Association of SL Academic Research
- 709 – Educational Podcasting
- 1970 – ISTE
- 230 – Literature Alive
- 960 – Science Center
- 105 – AECT
Music. I’ve written about how live music works in Second Life, and it still amazes and impresses me. Suzanne Vega performed in Second Life which can be seen in this YouTube video. The music capabilities of SL make possible authentic learning environments to explore music performance along with the business management, promotion, venue management and new and mixed media aspects of music education. There’s already been research regarding the diversity of music represented in SL.
Political Science. Back in January, I attended the grand opening of the SL Capitol Hill location at which they streamed the audio/video of the CSPAN feed of Nancy Pelosi’s swearing in as Speaker of the House. Watching the event wasn’t the key, it was the opportunity to attend it in a crowd of politicos and press present in Second Life – a unique opportunity I’d never come close to in my physical world. Also, there have been protests and opportunities for political participation at that virtual Capitol Hill (slurl) along with political rallys and campaigns (slurl). In September 2007, Seton Hall University offered, in celebration of Constitution Day, a program focused on interrogation held at the Virtual Guantanomo Bay.
History. History-related resources in Second Life include virtual recreations of historical locations: Rome (slurl), Tudor England (slurl), and the Sistene Chapel by Vassar College (slurl), for example. Also, role play within those environments and others, makes history education more authentic. One example of that is the virtualization of WebQuests; San Diego State (slurl) offers one such environment focused on the experience of American settlers and immigrants. More recently, the Land of Lincoln initiative began planning meetings that are ongoing and supported by a Google discussion group as well.
Health Sciences. The possibilities within the Health Sciences are incredibly exciting. Most recently, the NESIM simulator by John Miller and colleagues provides outstanding opportunity for virtual learning. Similarly, additional clinical simulations in a slightly different format are possible, and simulations already exist to demonstrate and educate regarding heart murmurs (slurl) and respiratory ailments (slurl).
Literature & Language. In addition to historical recreations, like that of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater (slurl), the Literature Alive! project (slurl) by Desideria Stockton (SL name) has sought to engage learners by creating virtual representations of literary works like Dante’s Inferno. Sarah Robbins (SL: Intellagirl Tully) formerly of Ball State University and currently of MediaSauce created a rhetoric board which engages learners in a collaborative writing activity. Finally, with residents worldwide, Second Life provides opportunities for immersive language learning in Spanish, English, French “villages” in which specific languages are spoken and written by native speakers and language learners (more on earlier posts).
Science. The science-related resources already seem nearly endless – even at this still relatively immature stage of development of Second Life. From Spaceport Alpha to Genome Island to Virtual Ecosystem, Second Life is brimming with science resources. Inside Higher Education offered a write up on a project by the University of Denver to develop a virtual nuclear reactor in Second Life to facilitate a master’s degree program. I recently received a note card in Second Life that listed a tremendous number of science-related resources; that note card is available.
Other Disciplines. The earlier building video demonstrates how clearly relevant SL is to architecture and design. SL residents have developed performance venues and performed full length plays and ballets. Behavioral sciences are represented by a well-known hallucination simulation developed by University California Davis. The Teen Grid has hosted a College Fair for recruiting purposes. Broadcast journalism could explore participation via CNN’s i-Reports or the SL News Network. Generally, distance learning can engage SL directly via LMS integration like Sloodle – a mashup of SL with the Moodle LMS.
The challenge in all of it is to use Second Life for quality learning experiences and not just experiences for the sake of delivering instruction via Second Life.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Nursing Education Simulator in Second Life
Dec 2nd
I attended a SL Community College group meeting late this afternoon. The focus of the meeting was a demonstration of the NESIM nursing education simulation. I’ve blogged about NESIM before, but the demonstration provided a much better, first-hand experience. I tried posting the details via BlogHUD, but I’m not certain it worked terribly well: I believe it truncated the end of the post which was relatively long. Also, I wanted to post the pictures I took. The NESIM is truly amazing work and a fantastic application of Second Life – pictures are necessary to convey the capabilities.
The meeting was well attended by a group of about 15-20 community college educators; we all teleported to NEWG for a demonstration by JS Vavoom (RL: Jon Miller). The Emergency Room Simulator he demonstrated was based on industry standard simulations: METI and Laerdal. Below, I’ve copied details from the notecard and my attempted BlogHUD post regarding the demonstration:
Jon indicates that it’s a few hours of learning curve for SL engagement. Orientation of 54 learners to Second Life was a challenge. Interesting thing – they’ve “given Lindens to students” in addition to the orientation matierals.
Once the patient lies on the table, the monitors turn on. Instructor and student have control over the system via the HUDs – patient/instructor and nurse/learner.
With the patient on the table, Jon increased the oxygen via the tank. In this simulation, the patient reported and pointed to chest pains; as the instructor, Jon changed the heart rhythm, and as the student, he started an IV, administered a lidocaine injection and started a lidocaine drip which was reported in the chat line. Jon then created a medical emergency via the instructor HUD: the blood pressure dropped, the pulse stopped, O2 levels dropped and the ECG rhythm changed dramatically. Jon demonstrated bagging the patient and turned up the O2 rate. CPR compressions were followed by defibrillation – for which specific settings were added (360 Joules). The patient returned to sinus rhythm.
The simulation – patient responses to learner/nurse actions – is mostly controlled by the instructor; at some later point, there will be scenarios scripted with automated responses. With the two HUDs controlling the simulation, it becomes possible to have roleplay as well. All chat and actions can/are recorded for review and study.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Health & Psychology: Self Image
Apr 28th
Peggy Sheehy at Suffern Middle School in New York began using Second Life with her students in early April (at least it appears that way on her blog).
Her blog provides several examples of what I believe is quality, value-added use of SL; they are developing “authentic learning projects that allow learners to engage learning content through interaction with communities and/or creation of content or products in a manner not possible through a physical or standard web-based learning environment.”
Specifically, the rough draft plan Peggy describes for a Health class lesson on Self Image is outstanding. Certainly, read the blog entry for full details, but in short, students will consider media portrayals of “real beauty” and, as best they can and from their own perspective, create their avatar in their own image. They’ll then reflectively discuss, via SL, the avatars they created. Randomly assigned groups will then create attractive and unattractive avatars according to popular media standards, including boys creating attractive/unattractive female avatars and vice-versa. The avatar creation activity will be followed by “all four groups [will] hold[ing] a discussion about how they look, how they react to each other and why.”
Brilliant use of SL, in my humble opinion. Certainly, this sort of activity may have been engaged before in a face-to-face classroom, perhaps even with the use of computers to digitally enhance or alter photos to create more or less attractive self images. However, there’s an incredibly powerful authentic opportunity in SL for learners to create an appearance and then assume that appearance throughout a discussion, and potentially, over the course of several interactions with other learners in a social environment. That is truly a value-added use of Second Life to enhance the learning experience.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Important Educationally Related SL Blogs
Mar 21st
If MUVE Forward has been of any use to you to this point, I want to very strongly recommend two similar blogs: The Story of My Second Life by Kevin Garrett (KJ Hax) and Puritan’s Guide to Second Life by Dembe Wellman. Both are, IMHO, very valuable contributions to the education community from which any educator will benefit.
Both blogs have essentially the same goal as MUVE Forward: exploring the educational possibilities of Second Life while making available resources to shorten the learning and discovery curve for other educators entering Second Life.
The Story of My Second Life by Kevin Garrett (SL: KJ Hax) began in late February to early March 2007. Kevin is a member of Walden University’s faculty who received a grant to explore the educational applications of Second Life. From his site . . .
I would like to be able to create a comprehensive guide to SL for post-secondary instructors (and their students), particularly for online universities like Walden.
Puritan’s Guide to Second Life by Dembe Wellman began in early February 2007.
From her site . . .
I am blogging about the possible educational uses of Second Life and safe sites that are New Comer Friendly to SL . . . I will look locations, interactions and of course educational purposes of Second Life. Follow along with me on a daily trip with the Adventures of Dembe.
Both provide fantastic insights into the application of SL to real life education.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Defining quality integration of SL into learning spaces?
Mar 5th
Early in this blog, I cautioned against what I thought and still believe is poor use of the SL environment for real life educational purposes. In short, replicating existing classroom spaces for avatars to sit and receive a lecture or simply using SL as a platform for delivering messages regarding traditional assignments is, for me, an instructional technologist’s nightmare. Using SL in that manner is using technology for technology’s sake; quite simply, if SL is the coming of Web3.0 and the internet’s future, we need to engage it’s unique capabilities and not use it to simply do things that Web1.0 applications could do or teach via a unidirectional Web1.0 pedagogy.
As an instructional technologist, I believe the key to quality integration of Second Life into learning spaces is:
to develop authentic learning projects that allow learners to engage learning content through interaction with communities and/or creation of content or products in a manner not possible through a physical or standard web-based learning environment.
Thus, my goal for this blog has been to suggest ideas for doing one of those two things. My hope has been and will continue to be that content experts working as faculty or curriculum designers in specific disciplines (music, language, literature, health sciences etc) may take and develop one or more of the ideas that I’ve personally suggested or one of the ideas suggested by others of the SL education community which I’ve chosen to highlight here.
Given that definition of “quality integration of SL into learning spaces,” I would like to highlight a learning experience and project developed by Sarah “Intellagirl” Robbins. Her Rhetorical Spaces project is an absolutely fantastic example of using SL to extend or create an innovative learning experience by exploiting the capabilities of the multi-user virtual environment. Professor Robbins employs both tactics I suggest in the definition above; her students are engaging the SL community and developing SL content/products they could not otherwise create in the physical or standard web environments. In my humble opinion, as an instructional technologist, this is a brilliant application of the SL environment which I believe any student would enjoy immensely.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Integrated Voice Chat in SL by Summer?!
Feb 27th
I’ll come back to this post with more details, but I wanted to note this as soon as possible. Reuters reported this morning (7:02am CST, about and hour and a half ago) that Linden Labs announced integrated voice capabilities will be launched on the grid within “the next several months.”
More on this (2:20pm CST) . . .
The Reuters article offers a few hints regarding what functionality will be available initially and how it will be provided; these insights may have implications for educators and educational institutions engaging SL as a learning environment.
First, at least it doesn’t seem as though the addition of integrated voice communication will create lag or system load issues.
. . . calculations to provide voice services take place on a separate server which should not contribute to lag or additional system load.
I believe this is critically important news. One of the fears many do or should have regarding the addition of new grid features is the impact they and their solutions have on system load and functionality. Certainly, Linden Labs considers those issues and plans accordingly, but their plans – as the contingency plan to ensure service during peak times illustrates – do not always keep educationally-centric users in mind. The integration of voice does not appear as though it will interfere with current real world educational uses of SL.
Second, there will be a voluntary adjustment period for educators since, apparently, implementing voice communications is a decision left to respective land owners.
Voice will be available on islands and parcels of land where the owners choose to make it available, along with group conference calls and one-to-one personal communication similar to Skype.
Not every aspect of a technology is beneficial. The addition of voice communication within a virtual environment will create additional administrative and implementation issues for educational institutions; making the voice communication an option which may be turned off or on by a landowner affords the educational community time to address increased threats to safety and privacy among other issues.
Finally, the technology, made possible by applications from Vivox and Diamondware, will allow coherent spatial communication.
. . . sound will come from the right or left stereo channel depending on where the speaker is located, and voices beyond a certain distance will not be audible. Indicators and animations will also reflect when someone is talking, and how loudly.
With sounds coming from spatially relevant directions, the learning curve for new users engaging SL as a learner communicating with faculty and peers will be reduced. This type of feature and capability is one that we’ve known would be included for some time, but its value should not be overlooked.
Of course, the benefits of adding voice communication to the SL learning environment may be innumerable; I’ve certainly addressed several here (1, 2, 3) that will be enabled or better facilitated by integrated voice communications. And, the Reuters article even describes the potential benefit regarding inter-language communication.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...
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