On 4/14/2010 9:58 PM, ch...@seberino.org wrote:
I don't know if this educational topic is allowed on this but here goes...
I do online math classes with video conferencing and a shared whiteboard.
I'm trying to find out if doing virtual classes in Second Life with avatars
offers any benefits. I've read up on this topic and the reports vary.
Anyone have any experience going to a "class" in Second Life?
Disclaimer: I work for Teleplace (www.teleplace.com).
In my experience the biggest difference between giving a class in an
immersive environment vs. WebEx or similar is that "you're there". An
immersive environment takes you full attention, between navigation,
pointing, voice chat, webcam and interactions there's no way to "hide"
or to distract yourself playing Freecell without the others noticing.
An immersive environment like Second Life or Teleplace also gives you
multiple focus points. People can look at and work with different
content in the same space; as the teacher/coordinator you get a good
feel for where people are at, just by looking at the clusters of
participants, and you can direct attention by asking people to
look/interact with a particular part of the environment. And when
they're there they're there, and if they're not coming you'll know, too.
If you haven't tried it, invite a few friends and just run an
experiment. Use Second Life or if you want to get a notch up use the 30
days free trial at Teleplace. It's worth trying it with people you have
regular remote meetings with to see if it makes a difference for what
you're intending to use it for.
ObPython plug: The Teleplace extension API uses Python and we've given
Python classes to customers with an interest in extending Teleplace.
Cheers,
- Andreas
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