Educational Gaming Commons - Press Start

Thought I'd take a moment to catch you up on things Spanish in Second Life...

A group of my Spanish 002 students have designed a Penn State T shirt. It has the Lion on the front and on the back it says, "Estudiar, Aprender, Vivir en Espanol"(Study, Learn and Live in Spanish) Penn State Harrisburg. Our plan is to have a T shirt dispenser located in the Hacienda for visitors to get a free T shirt.

This Friday (2/29/08) we are planning an Avatar Fashion Show at the Hacienda. Our lesson this week is on clothing words, so each student will introduce another avatar and describe their clothing. I have also invited some visitors. We will have a "reception" afterwards, with virtual food, of course. The students are excited about the show and spent some time last week finding new outfits. I am actually stylin', myself. To get ready for this assignment, the students studied the vocabulary and watched a video segment of a Spring fashion show on Univisión that I posted on ANGEL. They watched, listened and filled out a video guide that I prepared for them. One of the keys to building a Second Life program is to integrate it very tightly with your syllabus. That way it is not something extra, but enhances your objectives for the course.

This program was featured in the February 2008 edition of The Language Educator, a national publication of ACTFL (America Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language. As a result of the article, I have been contacted by a couple of universities about collaboration, and received an invitation to do a six hour workshop on SL at ACTFL's National Convention. I really want to get the word out about how effective the virtual world can be in college courses. This is not original with me, but I will say that... it is serious fun.

Thanks!
Flora