Foundation Studies in Second Life - SLENZ

The Skill Mastery Hyperdome is a step into the future, an environment in which students can learn, develop and practice interview skills that will help them progress on their career pathways and achieve their life goals.

The Hyperdome was built for Foundation Studies (Bridging Education) as part of the Second Life Education New Zealand Project http://slenz.wordpress.com/ Foundation students who will use this build are preparing to enter academic and/or training courses as diverse as nursing, teaching, business, police, travel and tourism, IT, engineering, and social work. Foundation Studies provides the basic building blocks and the scaffolding to enable students to enter and succeed in their selected career pathway.

Acitivites provided in this build are designed to enhance communication skills, specifically the skills needed in an interview situation. Rapungakore ("...you have come to the right place"), our clothing store, is part of the Hyperdome. Here students will select appropriate clothing for an interview.

Irrespective of their ultimate career goal all students will need to develop interview skills and strategies. This environment allows students to experience virtual interviews, to take on the roles of both interviewer and interviewee, and to develop confidence in answering and asking questions in a professional manner. The opportunity to rehearse variations of the interview scenario will lead to further enlightenment through reflective evaluation and deliberation on their own behaviour in action.

Visit The Hyperdome in Second Life http://slurl.com/secondlife/Kowhai/86/176/35

Category:

Education

Tags:

• SLENZ
• Second
• Life
• Learning
• Education
• Foundation
• Studies
• PookyMedia
• Pooky
• Amsterdam
• Interview
• Skills

[diana8y]

(lol)is that u talking!.nice

[sarahmstewart]

I have been working with midwifery students doing role play & what I have found is SL gives the role play an authenticity that we can't find in the class room, yet at the same time, the student feels very 'safe'

[sarahmstewart]

Congratulations everyone!!

[GeoMeek]

Fine work indeed thank you for sharing this.

[rikomatic]

I like the idea that Second Life simulation is "more real" than a real life classroom!

Thanks for the clarification. So you are saying that SL allows all the students to be involved in the role-plays, whereas in the classroom only a subset of them could do it at time? Is this a space issue?

[ldorland]

"Skill Mastery Hyperdome" in SL from New Zealand, video by @pookymedia--well done by all!

[ldorland]

Love it! Congrats to the NZ group and to Pooky for a great video. -- Chimera

[briarmelle]

Part 2-

A huge advantage is the relative safety that students feel when they first role-play in SL - their avatar allows them to be just that bit more confident, more prepared to take a risk and open themselves to the experience. Students have commented that the experience seems very real and this is hard to achieve in the classroom.

[briarmelle]

Part 1-

There are a number of advantages using SL for these exercises.

Firstly, there is the ability to have all the students actively involved in role-plays and interview practise at the same time. Then there is the advantage of being able to link classes of students, pairing students off with interviewers they don't know, inviting in guest interviewers.

[rikomatic]

Could you comment on the value of the SL platform vs doing these exercises in person w the students? What does the virtual world component add?