Educational Gaming Commons - Press Start

Yesterday, I made a presentation on Second Life pedagogy at the Middle Atlantic Council on Latin American Studies Conference in Baltimore. As I was preparing my materials for the conference, I discussed learning Spanish in Second Life with one of my students, whom I'll call Tory. Tory has really enjoyed the experience of learning Spanish in Second Life over the last two semesters. What she finds most exciting, is the active part of the learning process. She says that she is learning Spanish and actively using it at the same time. It is true that we often want to teach students everything about a language (as if it were an object), and then they have little opportunity, especially outside of the classroom, to actually use it. Then Tory said something very interesting, "After all, we learned our first language actively. The best way to learn a second language is to be active in that language." Language pedagogy theorists have noted this for a long time, but I thought it was significant that Tory was able to see it from her point of view. Second Life does provide active learning, not just for Spanish, but for many disciplines. Think about it, did you learn to drive a car by reading a book, or because someone explained it to you? (I do have to say, however, that our second daughter swears she learned to parallel park by getting instructions over the phone from a friend...I never understood how that was possible, although she can parallel park better than I can.) Seriously, I think Tory is really on to something. This generation of college students, generally speaking, really responds to doing. Second Life makes available a rich, constantly changing, interactive, immersive environment for our students to experience.

Best wishes,
Flora