Components of a teacher training course for Second Life
An online friend of mine and ESL teacher, Dennis Newson, asked a good question in our SLexperiments discussion group:
“What would be the components of a training course for teachers who want to use SL in and for their teaching?”.
He added some ideas to start the discussion:
- Build up a list of pedagogically useful tools.
- Build up a list of pedagogically useful sites in SL.
- Study possible pedagogical uses of notecards, IMs, etc.
- List basic movements the teacher must be proficient at (walking, moving, flying, teleporting, etc.).
There are some other Second Life skills that teachers should know (e.g. writing and sending notecards, group chat, etc.). While these are all important technical skills teachers should know and would make up one component of the course, this alone will, of course, not be sufficient to make teachers good educators in Second Life.
The second component would be to look at the pedagogical side of teaching in SL. I would have teachers share their believes about teaching and learning in general and what they think teaching in SL would be like. Why they want to teach in SL in the first place?
If possible, I would have them observe some SL lessons (maybe good and bad examples) and ask them for feedback.
Have them think about “How much about what they know about teaching in RL can be transferred to SL?
Have them think about what makes SL unique. What are the strengths of SL compared to RL classes? When does it make sense to teach in SL and when in RL? Is there a special SL pedagogy? Many teachers and schools simply try to replicate Real Life in Second Life building traditional looking classrooms.I have visited different schools, talked to directors and observed lessons, and what I have seen was sometimes appalling.
Finally, you can only really learn how to teach by actually teaching. This is also true for teaching in Second Life. Therefore, the last component of the course would be teaching either peers or, even better, real students and receiving peer and tutor feedback and reflecting on their teaching.
At the end of such a course, teachers will also be able to decide whether they really like teaching in SL or not.
Besides the content of the course, a trainer would also have to decide on how to deliver the course — entirely in Second Life or only partly. If in Second Life, the trainer would naturally lead by example and conduct the session using SL pedagogy 
This is not a complete list and I’d love to know what others think. So:
If you were a teacher interested in teaching in Second Life, what would you like to see covered in the course?
And if you are already a teacher or teacher trainer in Second Life, what would you add to the list?
I think that what makes SL life unique is the fact that it is a virtual world.It is really a solution for distance education
After having read Prensky : This may be important for digital immigrants because they feel they have a sort of “physical presence”. SL looks pretty familiar for digital natives who grew up playing virtual games. Besides SL is highly interactive and offers plenty of tools. The weak point is that learning how to “live” in SL takes time.
Wow great article Nergiz. This is a very comprehensive and thorough teaching plan for teaching in SL. Teachers should master the basic skills and pass it onto peers and students. I am impressed by the systematic knowledge and instructional design clarity that you possess. I hope you will make a revolutionary difference in ESL teaching in SL.
Hi Nelba
Prensky’s point is an interesting one and I agree. You do have a feeling of real presence in SL. This is quite different from online virtual classes (although, conducted well, these can give participants a real group feeling, too).
I have a bit of a problem with the widely used terms “digital natives” and “digital immigrants”. My problem is actually not so much the terms themselves but the underlying definition that “digital immigrants” have more problems learning and coping with the new tools like SL or Web 2.0. According to my age, I belong to the immigrants but I do not feel handicapped because of that. My generation has the advantage that we do know the pre-digital times and were there when everything developed. The digital world and tools didn’t suddenly materialise, it was a development.
To give you an example, of what I mean: I trained as a photographer and when I started with digital imaging, it was much easier for me to understand how things worked because I knew about the underlying principles, I knew what happened to a film when it was developed, etc. I could transfer this knowledge to digital imaging because the software was based on these principles. The only thing I needed was to learn how to use the new tools. Some of the young trainees in our digital imaging company, the so-called “digital natives” were fast in learning how to operate the tools but because they had no background knowledge it was difficult for them to produce good results. So we needed to teach them the background to help them understand the tools.
I believe teachers like you, who are experienced professionals and use new tools can guide the digital natives to make good use of these tools.
But I totally digressed from the topic now
So, what you are saying is that in a teacher training course for SL it is important to talk about the advantage (strengths) an disadvantages (weaknesses) of using SL for teaching.
I absolutely agree with you. Simply using a new tool, which SL is for me, because it is available will not lead to improved teaching or learning.
Thanks a lot for your kind words, Minhaaj!
Actually, it was Dennis Newson, one of the most active members of or SLexperiments group, who got me thinking about this.
I firmly believe that we can all make a difference together.