Reflection of my Experience in Second Life

This is my second experience teleporting into Second Life (SL). In this experience, we were asked to partner with a classmate and to relate our experience in SL to the principles of instructional design.

We first teleported to the Edtech area. Upon arrival, there was an avatar named Amelia that greeted us, but we couldn’t figure out what we were to do next as she only responded with giving us someone’s name. In addition, she would not respond through the chat or by clicking on her. When we looked around and decided that the information kiosk might be a good location to see if more directions were available, nothing we did prompted us or provided information about what we needed to accomplish next; however, we did find a sign that led us down a path to our building. One of the main questions we were seeking to answer was, “What is the purpose of this area?” “What resources are available for us?” When you are designing a training or lesson, the purpose of the assignment should be communicated so participants have a clear understanding of what they are learning and what is important to focus on during the instruction. Otherwise, students may spend time on activities that are not related to the instructional objectives. This area lacked clear instructions and goals and objectives. In addition, we quickly became frustrated when some of the hints or activities that we found looked like math problems or a programming language in which we were unfamiliar with; therefore, we couldn’t complete the tasks or engage in the activities in the virtual world. The activities did not appear to be intended for our audience.   

Once we entered the Edtech building, we found that by touching some objects text would appear and give hints or directions. However, the quality of the text was not readable, and we spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what the text was asking us to do. So, we decided to try another area and headed over to the Monopoly board. We found maneuvering around a familiar object such as the Monopoly board and interacting with familiar objects such as the dice was intuitive and was much more engaging. For example, we knew that we needed to roll the dice, so we naturally knew to reach out and touch them, and we were able to roll the dice quite easily.  

We then teleported into the second location. We found that this area provided affordances that made interacting with the environment much more natural. For example, when you touched a light, it turned on and off. Once you figured this out, then you knew to go to the other lights, and this action worked for all of them including the fireplace. So, there was consistency throughout the design of the building. With consistency, performing the activities were more instinctive and less frustrating to perform.

I can see how using a virtual environment such as SL could be used as a form of e-learning. However, when developing the activities, the instructional design framework still needs to be applied to this e-learning environment to make it an engaging and a productive learning experience. The 3-D experience contributes to learning because it provides a simulation in which an avatar can interact with, and this is how our mind naturally makes learning connections.