Teams Experiences
Teams Experiences
Felipe Alvarez
Second life is a virtual world with many islands created for a variety of reasons. For this project my team and I chose a Holocaust Museum. My experience with Second life was not pleasant. This is definitely a tool that can be used for educational purposes but it also has many flaws. The operating system seems outdated which can cause issues navigating it. In Second Life you are able to explore islands, teleport, fly, and run around. The island that we chose was very informative and could be primarily used for a History class or ELA class.
I had trouble navigating Second Life at first but then after some time got used it. Second Life can be used for educational purposes it just requires some practice. Overall what helped make this project successful was my classmates. Fortunately, I was grouped with a team that had the same goal as I did. Most of our communication occurred through WhatsApp but we met through Second life and Zoom every week.
This project was definitely a handful but as the weeks have gone by my team and I have been able to pull through and successfully overcome Second Life.
Rochelle Brooks
This was my first experience with Second Life or any virtual world. I have never had any interest in virtual reality. After having experienced Second Life I am even less interested. I found the idea of being able to experience different locations exciting but traveling to locations was not always easy. On numerous occasions, the transporter did not work. The whole experience was clunky and overly time-consuming, although that would improve with regular use.
Out team used WhatsApp as a means of communication. We used Zoom for our team meetings. A Google Doc was created for the team to share information. For our first team meeting, each member came prepared with a recommended location within Second Life to use for the project. Two people suggested the Holocaust Museum site, we chose the one that offered more details and sites to visit. We ended the meeting with an assignment that everyone selects the spot they would like to present and write on the Google Doc. We also selected a date and time for our weekly team meetings.
For our second meeting, we visited our Museum in Second Life and walked through it as a group. We ended the meeting by agreeing that we would each work on our individual presentations. During a subsequent meeting, we all shared our verbal presentation, decided what order to visit the spots, and created the notecard. Before our scheduled presentation, we did a rehearsal of our presentation.
I plan for my career on the corporate side, for adult learners. I do not have any interest k – 12 education, but I can see how Second Life is a good option for that group. I found the information in Second Life about the museum to be limited so I used other sites for research. I used history.com, https://www.history.com/topics/holocaust/kristallnacht, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nazis-launch-kristallnacht, and Britannica.com, https://www.britannica.com/event/Kristallnacht.
Ana Cruz
My experience with Second Life was a little difficult for it being my first time. I had never heard of the virtual world program before but I was very excited to learn about it and use it. I have always been fascinated and interested in using Virtual Reality and more so, especially in education. I did notice that when the first time I had logged into Second Life I always had trouble moving around and it seemed to always be lagging. That is for sure one thing I would fix is for it not to lag so much so one can be able to explore the worlds a lot more. Something that I noticed was also very difficult to do was to change the way that my avatar looked. Even in the virtual world, I would want for my avatar to duplicate what I look like in the real world and it would get a bit confusing when trying to change my look until finally I gave up and kept the way it came. Apart from its bugs and glitches, Second Life has a lot of potential in the future of online education. I would suggest they update the program and of course make it more user-friendly as it can be pretty difficult and confusing to use. I would hope to use other programs such as Second Life to give more virtual tours such as the one my group and I did together.
Karin Cruz
This was my first time hearing about Second Life and using it. I had never really been in a virtual world before, so the concept was interesting. The first couple of times that I logged in I was confused about how to navigate the world and get my avatar to walk around. Even with the tutorial provided I was still having some trouble. Eventually the more time our group spent on it the easier it was to navigate our avatars and to teleport to different locations. Our team helped me learn some new things while being in Second Life such as, how to make and send a notecard, how to favorite a place, and how to brighten the environment we were in. I did appreciate how you are able to visit different places within Second Life all the while being able to learn interesting facts and how the world simulates what the location looks like in real life. I can see how using Second Life in the classroom would be beneficial for students to be immersed in the virtual world. This virtual platform can honestly be used to enhance any content, whether it’s reading or science. Right now, we are still under virtual learning therefore we could possibly use Second Life to have our students collaborate with one another on a different platform. The only thing I would have to watch out for is not letting my students wander alone within Second Life and making sure they would only visit sites we had in our notecard for the specific lesson being covered. Overall, I have to say that I had a great experience working with my team in Second Life because of how helpful everyone was.
Samantha Pena
My experience with Second Life was complicated at first. Like the other members of my group, I had never worked with this program before. After spending much time designing my avatar, I struggled to figure out how to even operate my way around the virtual world. Even with the guided tutorial given after creating your avatar, it takes time to learn how to use Second Life to the fullest extent. Once I started meeting with my group on Second Life and participated in-class field trips, I began to understand the functions of the program. Classmates and team members would share small tips and tricks to using Second Life that helped me become more familiar with its functions. I feel Second Life is a great way to bring the classroom alive, especially with the current pandemic. Students and teachers can meet and interact in this virtual place and visit major locations around the world. Some downfalls of Second Life are how the program runs on a device. Through multiple group visits in the 3D world, my group and I discovered the program causes your device to run slower than normal. If one was to use Second Life in a classroom setting, they would have to use only Second Life and would not be able to switch between windows and applications. Overall, Second Life can be a great educational tool. I have participated in virtual tours, but the unique thing about Second Life is that it places you in the actual world as a person present, not just as a viewer.
Andres Barragan
For me, it was very difficult to understand Second Life at the beginning. I created my account and set up the avatar but when I was trying to find virtual worlds and move around from location to location, it was very confusing and not very user-friendly. With the help of my team and watching several videos, I started to understand Second Life a little more than I did at the beginning. I still believe that if it is updated and made a lot more user-friendly then a program like this can be a success in the classroom. I can definitely see the upside of Second Life and using it to take virtual field trips such as those we did during class time to teach students about historical sites or other information that is related to any topic. Although our group's topic was in line with History and ELA topics, this can be used throughout all subjects or even a cross-curricular field trip. As for my experience with my team, I thought it was a great experience. All of the group members were active during our meetings/discussions and everyone contributed in all aspects of the project from deciding the location of our field trip to researching the topic. Overall, I had a great experience using Second Life and work with my group.