#7 - Create Your Own SL Tour

The topic that I chose to create my tour was resources for Languages. I thought this topic would be easy, but it wasn't. Choosing this topic showed me two things.

1.- SL is full Language institutes. I think this is good if you want to take language courses online, because it permits to practice oral skills in save environment. The problem is in the majority of them, you must pay. I don't know if this is good or bad.

2.- SL is lack resources for ESL/EFL. I think this is a bad point. Most of the resources in second life are in English, so you need some training in this language first in order to really enjoy it. I think SL could be the major center for practice English if EFL/ESL teacher use it.

After this little reflection about SL and ESL/EFL, here are my places.

Enjoy them!

1) !Cypris Chat English Learning Voice Chat Community

Open Community to practice English through voice tool. Chat mode is not allowed. There is always a person to talk.

2) Tea Leaves @ VIRTLANTIs

Free Community that permit you to practice for English, French and German in all levels. They Have a calendar with all the activities.

3)Voice 3D English Chat

SL English language Institute with classes in different levels. Suscription is needed.

4) English Cafe in *'`'-.,_, * SHODOSHIMA Olive Island

Free place to practice english language. Only text chat.

5) Sky Learning Center

Language Institute in the sky. Subcription required.

6) Learn Spanish!!! - Instituto Español

Spanish institute with Mexican Culture Orientation. Subcription required.

7) Babel Language School

Institute that offer classes in different languages in groups. Suscription required.

8) Reborn Tongues

Organazation which works in preserve language and culture from Native Americans.

9) Dracy's Virtual Shop

SL place full of resources fro ESL/EFL Teacher. Some of them are not free.

10) The Academy of Linguistic Studies

This academy offer classes in French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and German. All of them are for free!

#5 - Take a Tour of Second Life

In this quest I decided to take the Real World Locations Tours. I think this is a very good opportunity to history and geography teachers because you don't have travel in order to give a class about a specific place.

I went to Cologne Cathedral and St. Louis Arch. at those places it was boring because there were nobody there, and the problem I couldn't find information in the places.

Then I went to the great wall and It was awesome! I saw some samurais fighting each other. Actually I ran away because one of them started to follow me (LOL).

After that I went to the Sistine Chapel. I believe this place is so cool, because there is a lot of information including on it, you can interact with almost everything.

St. Paul Cathedral was OK. It has a shop and a Coffee shop. But I couldn't fins information about it. The only thing that I found was a bible that gave me a passage.

Going on with my visits, I went to The Villa Capra “La Rotunda". It is principality in Italy. I found that because I started to talk with a guy there. he was so friendly and he permitted me to take a picture of him! (At this point I am behaving as a tourist!)

Next Destination: Africa

If you have traveled abroad, you know that you always found people from your country, or at least people you speak your language. Well Guess what, I found Spanish speakers! They were students from E -e-learning FATLA Planet. They were walking around SL as I was doing it. That was awesome and weird. I thought those kind of things just happened in real life, Now I can say that It also happens in SL.

Almost Done: Natural History Museum of Vienna.

I think this is great! A real museum with real exhibits. I was really excited by I must say that at the end I was a kind of disappointed, because it was not so good. The only thing that I really liked was the big Dinosaur (I got I photo :D ).

Last Destination: Golden Gate Bridge

What I can say? Awesome! The good thing about GGB that I could fly to see all the place. But I could not find to much people in this quest.

As a conclusion, I can just say that SL give us the opportunity to visit places that I can't ever imagine before. It is a extraordinary resource for research and conduct tours and provide learning from experience. And also, I saved a couple of dollars doing it!

Snapshots

#4 - Getting Fashionable

I will be very honest. At the beginning I really hate this. I thought it was so difficult to work with outfits in SL. I spent an entire afternoon playing with my Avatar (It was before watching the tutorial video and realized that my Inventory was a mess!)

SO, I made some research about where w

e can find item for free. This web it was so useful because I could move from one place to another.

http://travellingsecondlife.blogspot.com/2010/09/new-resident-time.html

Well, I think I did what I wanted. In those sites I found a lot resources. But I thing I still need to keep in touch with some things in SL. Even tho

ugh I found a lot of stuff I couldn't use them. I think this part of being fashionable need more time to improve

.

I couldn't change some things of my avatar like face and some clothes.

Anyway I am spending a very good time doing this. I think I am becoming a Second Life Follower.

Snapshots!

Fist Avatar!

Second Avatar!

Last Avatar! (Ready to Re-Kill Zombies)

#3 - Journeying Into Second Life

I have already finished my Third SL Task. It was not so difficult. I could notice that there is a bug in this version. When you press Pg Up Button to fly, you cannot stop flying. At the beginning I thought it was my connection or my computer but that happened to me three times. the thing that I really love was the gestures. I would like to know if we can add more gestures.

Also, the other thing caught my attention was the enterprise that has headquarters in Second Life. I think this technology really helps to create connections around the world.

What I really hated was to change my Appearance. It was a nightmare. I could do some things, but I need to work more in my character.

I have some snapshots with my new appearance and making gestures!

Peace out!

Second life: #2 Task

I think this task was easy. Flying around is fun. But the only problem that I had was camera angles. I play First Shooting games, so I got used to having those angles. Ever for flying was difficult. I had some snapshot to share!

Second Life: Virtually Real

I heard about second life many years ago. Once I tried to join myself to it but I did not have the knowledge (and time) to do it. Now, I have the opportunity to do it again. In my first task, I went to different places. I went to a zombie land, London and some Islands. I think second Life has advantages and disadvantages. You can interact with others and create stories and other life, but is it good?I mean, from my point of you, it is insane to go to a virtual world and not to be yourself. For me, it is very difficult to be another person. But this is just the beginning of this game. Let's see what I will find in SL.

Gaming: StarCraft and our lovely time together

Well I have finished to play Starcraft II: Winds of liberty. I started to play at 8:05 PM and ended up 9:23 PM because I downloaded the demo and I could play just one campaign (enough for my research I think).

About flow? It is true. Let's review:

1.- There are clear goals every step of the way: of course! In a game you know you have to do, like in the classroom, when you give good instructions, students know what or how they must perform. The goals are clear. In my Starcraft II, every mission that I played had aims. When I achieved the aim, I went to the next step.

2.- There is immediate feedback to your actions: When I did something stupid in my game, I lost my brave marines and I was attack and I should start again thinking of my mistake. In my English class, I used to give my students immediate, indirect feedback.

3. -There is a balance between challenges and skills: I decided to level my game in normal. Because I have play Starcraft I but I haven't seen Starcraft II before. So, I decided my level using my previous knowledge. We have to do the same in our classes. It is very different to teach a 7 years old student a song than a 15 years old student. You always must think about their background knowledge and skills.

4.- Action and awareness are merged: I was completed immersed in my game, at the point of feel worried about the characters that I was protecting. I think this is difficult to achieve it in the classroom, but not impossible

5. - Distractions are excluded from consciousness: When I arrived at home, my roommates were at the living room. when I finished my game... They have gone and I hadn't notice! (bad roommate). I think when you bring something interesting, funny and challenge into the classroom you can achieve this. An experiment, a movie, etc. Once, I taught Imperatives using origami. It was awesome.

6.- There is no worry of failure: When you start a game, you know you can start again if you die or not accomplish the mission or whatever. He know that before starting the game. And what about classes? I have a professor that in my first English class at college He said: "You must make mistakes here, not in the test". I took that phrase too.

7.- Self-consciousness disappears: I didn't notice that I almost ate my screen when I were playing. This one is also difficult to achieve it in classroom. Kids are always worried about the look when they are doing something.

8.- The sense of time becomes distorted: Yes. Starcraft has a resume after each level. When I noticed that the first one took 30 minutes, I said to myself: No way! Sometimes this happen in classroom when we use games or another funny activity.

9.- The activity becomes ‘autotelic’ – meaning it is an end in itself: At the end I really enjoyed my time playing starcraft. I really wanted to win. I forgot "life"for a while and immerse myself in a new world.

Can we do this the whole semester?

See you!

Including Technology in the Classroom: The Chilean Experience

In 1992, The Chilean ministry of education created the “Enlaces” program. The program’s aim was “constitute a national educational network among all schools and subsidized secondary schools in the country and incorporate new information and communication technologies to education (Enlaces, 1992)”.

During almost 20 years, this program has tried to encourage integrating technology in the classroom. The Chilean government has spent millions of dollar putting computer labs and internet connections in school. Also they have trained teachers in computer literacy. Sounds Familiar?

I think so. Why? Did US do the same? Yes.

But, Ministry of education in Chile has the worst problem that it could exist. It is a copycat. It always brings ideas from other countries. And Enlaces is not the exception. They did exactly the thing that Spanish Ministry of education did. But in the Chilean way, and you know what? They failed.

They failed not because the teachers refused to use computers. Not because the students didn’t learn. They failed because they brought a plan in which Chilean reality was not included. And they failed because they have a 20-year program that the only thing that has made has been to teach teachers to use projectors and PowerPoint. And they feel proud because we have reached a higher technological level in Latin America. But I think the Chilean teachers can and will give more. We just need to redesign this plan. We need to disrupt. We need to do something different.

The more I read Disrupting class, the more I thought and I do think that things in life have a natural development. But it is time to break them up.

How do I start on Twitter? Well, Use hashtags.org

I have had a twitter account since last year. At the beginning I didn't know how to use it. After a couple of hour I decided not to use twitter because I had not found its use. When Dr. Z said "we are going to use twitter", I said to myself: "Oh boy, We'got a problem here". After a few weeks and also, after being added to #theaccused hashtag, (because I haven't tweeted in my class) and after the creation of #UNI_theaccused , I realized that the key is: Hashtag :)
But, wait a second.... Where I find them?? Easy man... http://hashtags.org/.

http://hashtags.org/ is a web page that track hashtags in twitter and give some information about them powered by Trendistic © Flaptor.

So Let's start Tweeting!

Speech Recognition

After the class, I stayed on -line for a couple of minutes to talk with Professor Zeits about what I could do, because I am not a blogger. I asked If a could make a video and he agreed about it. So today I was trying to record a video and idea showed up in my mind. Speech Reconigtion!!
This tool is included in every Windows 7 and XP (I guess). So I started to play for a couple of minutes with this and you know what? It is amazing! you can control your entire PC with it.You can write, open program and so on... Educational Uses?

There are plenty of it!

Pronunciation and reading skill can be improved using this.

For TESOL, you can practice Imperatives.

Here two links that I found about Speech Recognition

How to Activate Speech Recognition

Accessibility in Windows 7