- Photo:pcworld.com
A secondary school in Middlesbrough has started testing with the new Second Life system. This system will allow children to learn about things via a 3D screen, and then after watching a 15-minute video presentation will have to move into a second room, where they will interact with each other and their teachers in a virtual environment.
Well that all sounds good in theory, but has nobody stopped to consider the fact that it’s taking away a massive amount of social interaction from the classroom? Communication is 80% body language, and trying to convey that through a virtual environment is impossible.
After watching a BBC programme recently I was disgusted at the fact that the children using this system had a firmer grasp on the technology than they did the English language, really I thought I was listening to a 5 year old, rather than a 13- 14 year old.
Second Life truly is an amazing bit of programming, it’s an online world that allows the user to interact pretty much like MSN, but you’ve got graphics depicting the users actions and so forth. But is it really necessary to use it in the classroom?
Before using the Second life environment, children will watch a presentation in 3D; this is also a really good way to teach about things such as the inner workings of the heart. However after this has happened children will be moved into a separate room filled with nice shinny Macs and then be let loose in the virtual world, with the teacher sat in a separate room asking question just as if she was on MSN.
Well the children in that school must be the best behaved in the country, I know as soon as the teacher was out of the room when I was at school the class went crazy.
Not only that, why are children being encouraged to get so social on a computer? Most adults spend at least 8 hours a day in front of a computer. Maybe instead of blaming video games and television for all the violent problems in the world, scientists should be commissioned to research the psychotic effects of sitting in front of a brightly lit box for that period of time.
I’m not a technophobe and think the Second Life System really is a truly amazing feat of engineering, but implementing the use of it in the classroom, will truly turn the next generation into one of agoraphobics. They will be too worried what is happening in their virtual world to remember there is a whole big real world out there to be explored.
