[HSGC] Designing Houses
This past week the main task for students was to work in groups to design/build their houses with limited number of prims and reflect their actual ecological footprint to this house.
I would say that although all students enjoyed designing/building their houses and this was a big challenge for them. This was the first actual task for them to use the skills they have learned so far for learning science. Second Life has been a very new for students and they have learned so much so far and unfortunately due to the class time, there is not enough time for them to practice their skills. So, I think they are doing great with building since it's definitely challenging to build in Second Life.
Group work is a great way to have students learn from each other. In Second Life, group work requires some more coordination due to the 3 dimensionality and permissions to build things together. During the activity, I realized some groups divided up the tasks, for example, one student edit the notecards, another one changed the textures, and the other put out the objects, etc. In another group, students gave permissions to each other so anyone could move the objects put out by anyone of them. These are goods example of how students come up with a strategy to work together without being instructed.
I am so excited that I will be getting my avatar in TSL soon so that I can be with students in Second Life, so I can have a better idea how students are learning with all the tools given in Second Life, and what difficulties they are having. They have been doing very well so far and they are all very motivated learning in Second Life. I am hoping this will lead to a better learning of science and will effect students' attitudes positively towards doing science.
I can't wait to see students' next project 
