I decided to work with social literacy within virtual environments for my new literacies project. I was enthusiastic to work with virtual environments because I had never used a virtual environment that would allow me to interact with other people. One of my friends met her future husband on a virtual environment and although I thought it was odd, I decided to use this opportunity to understand her situation better before making any further judgments.
What I found within second life was far from what I was hoping for. Plagued with advertisements, scams, violence, drugs, and sexual content, I was somewhat disappointed and unsure of how to continue with my project. It came to me that I should use this as a learning experience and share my findings with everyone, rather than scrapping it and trying something new. Although there were some worthwhile sites in second life I felt that the majority of what I found was something that the rest of the class should be warned about. I think I carried this out effectively by beginning my presentation on a much more positive note. As I began to unfold the world of second life to my classmates I began introducing them to the much darker side, and I think that I shocked and horrified several classmates. I think this was really effective because it allowed them to experience what I felt, except that they never had to actually witness or discover things that I found.
One of my favorite projects was Katie's map mash-up that mapped teaching salaries across the U.S. I think that this particular New Literacy brought me in because it made me think about my future and how where I choose to live and teach will affect how I live. It was a very extrinsic motivator but it was effective.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I really liked your New Literacies Project, Hali. I liked it because it stood out and was different than everyone else's. Your project gave me insight to a technology that I don't want to use because of what you discovered and found. When we had the technology day in class I was really interested in the second life technology and thought it would be interesting to investigate into further. The information that you gave us on Thursday was really insightful and I am glad that I know now what second life is really like. Here I thought that it could be a great way for elementary students to share and get to know other elementary students in different places. The sex and advertisements that you told us about, not to mention the bad words scares me, I hope that other teachers check it out like you did before they jump into it.
If you had the extra money you could create your own private second life that would probably be fun and interactive for your students, but who has the extra money lying around to do that? Thanks Hali I really enjoyed and appreciated your project.
Post a Comment