As I read through the course syllabus, I found myself thinking that virtual worlds like Second Life (SL) and what I consider “traditional” online teaching platforms such as WebCT don’t have much in common. However, after reading Stefanie Bucks’s article and the first chapter of Tom Boellstorff’s Coming of Age in Second Life and exploring SL and the designer side of WebCT, I realize that they actually have many similarities. Both are contained online environments that allow users/residents to build the world around them and interact with people that may be sitting in the same computer lab or logging in from a different continent. Though they look different, both are a kind of virtual world that provide platforms for education.
I wholeheartedly agree with Stefanie Buck when she writes on the value of becoming a distance education learner to broaden one’s horizons as a distance educator. I am looking forward to immersing myself in the world of online distance education in order to (hopefully!) become an effective online and distance educator as I enter the librarian profession. I also look forward to further exploring the similarities and differences between various online educational platforms, and finding out which ones appeal to me and why. Hopefully this will provide not only useful technical practice as I enter the profession, but will also allow for some constructive personal reflection.
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Works referenced in this post:
Buck, Stephanie. "A Distance Education Librarian becomes a Distance Education Student: Switching Roles." College & Research News 72.1 (2011) 34-35.
Boellstorff, Tom. Coming of Age in Second Life. Princeton University Press: 2008.
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