Second Life: Freya Ophelia

I really enjoyed the atmosphere at our first completely SL based class. Being able to walk around each others projects, touch them, sit on them, sometimes go inside them, spurred some great chat and constructive comments. The level of participation was amazing. In the real classroom there are usually a select few students who answer questions and actively participate while the rest of the class zones out. I think that SL is so much more engaging than a real classroom that participation and attentiveness weren’t even an issue. As strange as it sounds, I think I also benefited from the distractions going on around me. Being in my own comfy chair with Pink Floyd in the background and incense filling the air proved to be a better learning atmosphere than the starkness of a classroom. The ability for students of this day and age to multi-task has surpassed that of students in previous times. Our day to day lives are saturated with numerous distractions appealing to our 5 senses. If this high level of saturation is our norm, then why should the classroom be a site of saturation deprivation?

On a different note, I found it funny that other avatars were quite interested in what we were up to. I noticed numerous avatars hanging around the outskirts of our class...I even heard one say “I think Freya is the teacher.” I heard another say “oh, I get it, it’s a class,” which made me wonder…do you really get it? This is no SL class from TUI or whatever other virtual institutions there may be, this is a real life class that meets in a real classroom at the same time twice a week. I wonder if we had them fooled.