Week 4

- In what ways can multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) contribute to the learning experience?
- Do MUVEs benefit certain students or groups more than others?

I had a lot of fun exploring the multi-user virtual environment (MUVE) Second Life this week. I’ve even taken the time to go back and play it several more times since our assignment and found some neat places to talk to people. I am especially interested in finding places where I can work with people on improving my Spanish. I did find the Spanish Institute that offers some free classes but most are not free. I signed up for their e-mail list and now get occasional e-mails inviting me to come and sit in on a class.

I have no doubt that SL would be useful in an educational setting. It’s a game with an extraordinary amount of detail that would provide students with a social and creative outlet. I think it would be especially beneficial for students who struggle with social interactions in real life because it provides a safe place to communicate with others while still giving the safe anonymity of the Internet.

I do think that there would be some safety concerns when using SL in the classroom, especially with younger students who could easily fall victim to the ploy of untrustworthy strangers. These types of issues could easily be avoided with the proper education of online netiquette and safety. Also, SL makes it very easy to block someone’s contact with you if they make you feel uncomfortable. Therefore I don’t think that this would be a viable reason not to use SL in a classroom.

Although I haven’t used many MUVEs, I think that they would be beneficial to students who wanted to use them. They might not be as effective to some, but it’s silly to think you can find a teaching method that works for every single students. MUVEs would be a great way to differentiate instruction.