Web 2.0 Educator

I picked Peggy Sheehy. She is an 8th grade science teacher at Suffern Middle School. Her blog URL is http://rampoislands.blogspot.com/. She seems to specialize in getting students accustomed to virtual life and simulations, she has been using this program for I think three years now (as of 2008). She uses the simulation to get students engaged in what she wishes to teach them and pretty much lets the kids do the learning. I think that this is a very interesting piece of technology used in a classroom. I would like to learn more about this and just how exactly it can be utilized in educating students. The health teacher part seemed like a good idea, to give the students a chance to see what their bodies look like, and then what they could look like if they changed their body build. I do not think that using an AOL type communicator is beneficial for the students. All I think it does is kill their grammar and spelling. Also I think the secrecy aspect of this game is great, I think students would be able to be more of themselves if all the other students did not know who each other’s characters are.

Summary of the Blog entries:

9-19-2007- The writer talks about how the health teacher, Ms. Whiting, at his school uses “Second Life.” She uses the portion of the game that gives students a visual of body image. It allows the students to tinker and change around what the body image looks like for you in the virtual world. There aren’t really any specific details about what she actually does.

9-22-2007-This day the students learned how to use and log in to a virtual avatar called Second Life. It is a program where the students can interact with one another. The students must come up with “virtual” names that they will use for their avatar, and the only other people who know which student belongs to which name is the teacher. One student on the first day, thought this program was boring and hated it when they could not log on correctly. The next day the students were able to sign in and the one student who did not like it, was one of the most enthusiastic students in the classroom. He had spent the night before learning how to use it.

9-24-2007- The writer discusses how the students work hard at using “Second Life”. The students can build tools and other constructions in the virtual world, and a lot of the students log in from their homes. He thinks that this may be caused from his classes watching last years eighth graders use the program and fell in love with it. The goal is to have only “virtual” communication among students.

9-26-2007- This blog shows how students can log in from at home and still be able to attend class. Apparently all students have to do for this class is use “Second Life” and follow the goals and instructions from the teacher. The students communicate much like AOL instant messenger. However their spelling is less than par.