"Educators worldwide are discovering the limitless academic possibilities of Second Life. Second Life provides a virtual home for some of the world's most prestigious universities and academic institutions. Virtual classrooms at MIT allow for online collaboration, while Notre Dame makes use of Second Life as a cost effective solution to distance learning." - Second Life website
Second Life (SL) is a virtual world, where students (or anyone) can meet and learn with and from students around the world. Second Life is used as a platform for education by many institutions, such as colleges, universities, libraries and government entities. Instructors and researchers in Second Life favor it because it is more personal than traditional distance learning. At least 300 universities around the world teach courses or conduct research in SL.
The Second Life platform is only for adults 18+ and the Teen Second Life is for 13-17. This leaves the educational use of this program mainly for college & graduate students but teachers can use it as a way to meet with other colleagues, librarians and so forth from around the country and world. After the articles is a video created by a group of students who use SL in their own class.
Articles: How and Why to use Second Life for Education?
Wikipedia description of Second Life
Video: Educational Uses of Second Life
~Briana
The Virtual World of "Second Life"
Fun Video Games for Math
http://www.multiplication.com/interactive_games.htm
This link is a very good example of some video games that could be used in the class room and at home. These are some really good games here for solving Math problems in an affective and fun way.
Ryan Ramage
Nintendo Wii, Not Your Average Console
The Nintendo Wii has revolutionized how we play video games, and possibly how we teach in out classrooms. Now video games can be more than just sitting on the couch. With the Wii kids can actually get involved and be interactive with the game, even breaking a sweat. In high school we actually used a Wii to play tennis when it was raining out side. In an article for an online British news paper Beth Hale (2008) wrote that, "Teachers are using the best selling Nintendo Wii - an interactive wireless-based computer game - to get children involved in 'virtual' sport." With Childhood obesity becoming a such an obvious problem, video games such as the Wii can not only hold the child's interest, but it can also get them moving. But the Wii can be used for more than just Physical Education. Michael Breslow (a seventh grade science teacher, and winner of the 2007 Vernier Technology Award) is using the Wii to help his students understand physics. On the New Jersey Education Association website Breslow stated, "Using the Wii, I can establish relevance with the students and get them thinking about physics concepts in a new way." Technology is here to stay, and it is important that we embrace it, especially if it can be so beneficial to us as teachers and our students.
Dance Dance Revolution in gym class
Hi and welcome to our blog!
Our team is for video game being used in schools.
One way to use video games in school is through P.E. class. In my high school school we used the Dance Dance Revolution game to get exercise in our P.E. classes. This is one way to get students off their seat and excited about exercising. I read a New York Times article about this subject and this is a quote pulled from the article, "In a study last year, researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., found that children playing Dance Dance Revolution expended significantly more energy than children watching television and playing traditional video games." Clearly video games can be more than just a time waster, it can promote exercising and combat the growing obesity issue. After the link to the article is a great video showing the use of DDR in a middle school and explains why they use it.
Enjoy!
~Briana
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