Benefits
Disadvantages
Communication
Time
Communicative capabilities of this platform are constantly improving. Thanks to rich communication tools (audio, chat, gestures and movements) we can communicate with people from around the world and enhance social and cultural exchange. We can use teleport to visit, together with our students, different places during one class (for example, replicas of real cities, where students can interact with native speakers and learn the language) to attend various lectures, web meetings, theater performances etc. Through these communication tools and other built-in mechanisms for online interaction (web links, videos and audio files, multimedia events) communication possibilities are limitless. Collaboration
Using these platforms requires a lot of time and work. Second Life is not an environment in which you can just stop by and try it - if we want to use its resources for learning; we need to invest much more time than for other online tools.
Second Life allows you to connect and work together teachers and students from different schools and different parts of the world. It’s possible to work with experts in various fields, without technical, financial, geographical, and even physical limitations. The possibility of construction of common 3D objects with each other in real time in one place, giving a great potential for creating and knowledge building. Interactivity
Second Life is a free platform, but if we want to create our own learning materials that will be linked to the LMS Moodle, we must have a premium account ($ 70 per year).
Skills transfer
Using Second Life achieved better effect than using other tools, because we can use videos, presentations, images at the same time and in one place (all the participants are "immersed" into virtual world). Teachers can easily make connections between activities in virtual world and the real world, by using informational resources: interactive bulletin board for posting comments,
The problem might be the transfer of skills from virtual to the real world. The teacher has to think twice about what skills and knowledge can develop by using virtual world’s experience, and whether the same effect can be achieved in teaching in the real world. We also must keep in mind that not all students like to create avatars and some of them dislike this kind of communication.
Price
189