Last night I attended the first Teachers' Buzz Session on the NMC Campus in Second Life. The group's focus is on teaching and learning in Second Life. While NMC is sponsoring the meetings, they're not setting the agenda. As a result we all spent a bit of time during last night's one-hour session quietly waiting for someone to steer the cnversation.
Eventually we decided to share ideas for future conversations. The group is going to meet every other Monday at 6 PM SLT (there is some talk of finding a time that's easier for people in the European Union to attend).
The idea of holding a class in a virtual world is interesting but I need something specific to really appreciate it. Last week Gardner told me how he'd like to someday assign the creation of a performance of Shakespeare's plays in the Globe. What would students build? Where would they focus – on the environment, the action, or something else? What could they teach him? It's a compelling vision but the tools to make something like this happen need to be much easier to use before a project like this could happen.
These days it's hard for me to imagine much more than using virtual space as a way to bring students together outside of the classroom or to bring people who are geographically separated. Listening in to the Teachers' Buzz will hopefully give me more ideas.
You can see a transcript of the conversation here, and photos from the event are here.
Next meeting is September 4.
Technorati Tags: buzz, nmc, nmc-campus, Second Life
