One of the interesting concepts learned thus far in OMDE 603, is the concept of the Virtual Worlds. This is amazing, not the technology; rather, the use of the technology. Who would have thought that computer games and online worlds would have turned into a way of accomplishing a collegiate level education? Going back to the synchronous and asynchronous technologies, this sort of system allows for a great number of possibilities in regards to the diversification of communication. A student can tour around the campus (virtually mind you) and then go to class, without ever being physically present.
The hard part is guiding instructors to use the system. I think this type of system has many flaws and more flaws will be developed in time, like any other quality Web site invention. However, I think the Virtual Worlds have a lot to offer distance education, if the people involved give them a chance. One interesting thing aspect I was thinking about while I was watching all of the videos on Virtual Worlds, was how easy it is going to make peoples lives. Imagine you are living in PA and are interested in a school in CA, why travel all of that way to be disappointed, join a virtual world and take a peek at the campus. Additionally, imagine wondering what your house would look like painted a certain color; why not paint it in the virtual world first? I am going to stop the banter, but I must say that I am impressed with the videos on virtual worlds.
References
Moody, M., Oh, Y., Boucher, R. Educational Uses of Second Life (video, duration 7:00). Retrieved August 25, 2008, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOFU9oUF2HA
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I think that virtual worlds have some uses, but I'm not sure how they will change virtual class meetings. Whether everyone has a virtual avatar within a virtual classroom or not, for the most part the interactions would be the same as without that. I don't know if turning education into a "game" would work too well since people may not take it as seriously.
ReplyDeleteI do see the advantages to using a virtual world to create a virtual tour of a campus, that could be really useful. Regarding painting rooms in your house... I think software has been developed to do things like that. I know my friend is redesigning his garage and turning it into a woodshop and is using a google software (Sketch-up http://sketchup.google.com/) to visualize it.
However I do agree that if these virtual worlds are going to be used in a classroom it may be a hard sell to the instructors and may take a lot of training for some of them to learn to develop and keep up with it.
Though we may differ a bit when it comes to the grandness of virtual worlds, I absolutely agree with your comment that it is going to be a hard sell. I know many schools use traditional professors to teach distance education courses and they are reluctant to do that. To add virtual worlds to this would be far too much technology overload and I think many would avoid using all of its tools. Thanks for the comment.
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