Educational Gaming Commons - Press Start

Sorry the image is so big, but Flora wanted to meet everyone and refused to fit into a smaller space. She is sitting in the resource room of the Hacienda waiting for students to arrive.

We have been very busy at Hacienda Segunda Vida this Fall semester. Two sections of Spanish l (48 students) have participated in weekly projects that are coordinated with our textbook, Mosaicos. They have done such things as have a scavenger hunt for introductory vocabulary; practice numbers by shopping in Barcelona; visit European University; and have conversations with their partners.

Last week we had a guest avatar, Capricorn Brewster, speak to the classes. Capricorn is a Cuban American who is a faculty member at Borough of Manhattan Community College. He shared his experiences growing up in the Cuban community in Florida, his parents'experiences fleeing from Castro's regime in 1959, and his reflections on a trip he made to Cuba. The students really enjoyed his presentation and flooded him with IM questions. We decided to use IM so that 24 students could ask questions without a lot of confusion.

Also last week, I prepared a display to teach about the Day of the Dead celebration in Mexico. There is an ofrenda or altar, still set up in the patio of the Hacienda, if you are interested. Also, there is a display of photos of ofrendas in Mexico. The photos were uploaded from my collection of photos taken in Puebla by my daughter, J. Elizabeth Clark and I. Two of the photos were uploaded from Morgue file, a copyright-free site for photos. On October 31, the classes visited and explored the displays. The students received a notecard explaining the Day of the Dead, a sugar skull for their inventory and a candy bar from my pumpkin-shaped candy dispenser. I have to admit, however, that the candy was scripted to make their avatars go into convulsions and die for a second or two...they really got a kick out of it, although they were worried at first.

Overall, this has been a terrific learning experience for the students and for me. The students are expressing themselves in Spanish, have created more written text than any class I have ever had, and are learning a lot of culture in a 3-D environment that would be impossible to reproduce any other way.

Visítenos en Segunda vida
Gloria Clark