Back to School! What Educators New to Virtual Worlds Should Think About

Location: VWER Meeting

We had a small group gather last week at the VWER meeting, just before the Boston SLCC event where Philip Rosedale joined our group. I moderated a useful chat of what educators need to consider as the school years begin. Here's some group wisdom:

• Avoid "tossing students in" without orientation and practice (in person if possible, which is hard for distance ed.)
• Put pedagogy ahead of technology: target assignments to specific tasks and appeal to student interests
• Make students aware of community standards; use a signed waiver if you feel it's best
• Don't come in-world just to do a Powerpoint show for students
• Try new features out with an ALT account (notecard givers, interactive parts of simulations) before inflicting it on your students
• Use voice judiciously in student groups; allow one student to use voice at a time while others use text chat
• At the start of the academic term, clean out old groups, spruce up simulations if only to make things look fresh.

The rest of the transcript of our talk can be found here. In light of Rosedale's encouraging words, perhaps more of us will bring in colleagues to SL and other virtual worlds, both commerical and self-hosted grids.