What does it take to teach in SL? What do you need to know?
As I promised last week, I am going to answer some questions I have been asked about teaching in SL. Let´s start with the SL skills a teacher should master to feel comfortable during a class.
Teaching in SL is a new challenge for teachers, even for those who have experience in web-based teaching. When teaching in SL you need to be aware of your own avatar, the teaching tools, the content you want to deliver, the technical problems that may arise, as well as the skills your students have so they are able to follow the pace of the class.
When I started my training in Languagelab.com, I found that even though I had been around SL for some months, I lacked many of the skills needed to teach in this environment. So, I decided to write a list of these skills, and started to look for tutorials to learn by myself. What I learned with the tutorials I practiced in-world with the help of friends and colleagues at Languagelab This was a great experience, but every day that passed I felt I wanted to learn more and it still like that. You never stop learning in SL.
Then, I had the opportunity to design, with 2 other colleagues, a SL Skills Workshop for a teacher training program at Llab. We decided to categorize the required skills into five categories:
- Personal Skills : everything related to your own avatar (e.g. moving, managing your profile and inventory)
- Communication skills: communicating via chat, IM, voice call, creating and sending notes, teletransportation etc.)
- Teaching tools: using different teaching tools (projectors, readers, dispensers)
- Basics of building and scripting: creating and moving simple objects, and editing simple scripts
- Media: recording, uploading, and embedding sounds
The classes were delivered by the three of us and we had the help of two other teachers from Languagelab. In-world and web-based self-access materials were provided for further practice.
I believe everyone with the desire to teach in SL should master these skills before offering his/her services. On this page you can find helpful tutorials to get yourself started: Torley Linden videos
Here are some photos from one of our SL Skills Workshop sessions
BubbleShare: Share photos – Find great Clip Art Images.
Bye for now
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