Learners without Classrooms

Learners without Classrooms
A while back, I suggested that virtual reality might be useful as a way to provide learning opportunities outside of classrooms.  Just last week I cited data describing the growth of online learning.  This week I am going to point to some routes that I think are opportunities to develop nontraditional methods for learning.

I have been exploring the use of Second Life as a medium for instruction.  It is accessible without cost and will probably run well on any computer that is adequate for Win Vista.
But more recently, I have been exploring a route that is immediately available to anyone with broadband.  That is, to use the capabilities on Second Life for the creating of videos.  

Here are a few of the videos I have made:
Hobo Village 1
Interview with a Dragon
Dragoneering
The Bridges of Hobo Village

The Watery Slide of  Spritely Pixel

None of these is directly instructional.  But they do illustrate what a person could do in SL.  That capability can be applied to any objective.  In The Stories of Hobo Village, I am combining the SL capabilities with blog capabilities to support collaborative fiction.  Clearly one could do the same for instructional material.  Indeed, the pattern of collaboration would probably follow closely the pattern in the fiction blog.

YouTube is available to host the videos (free).  I find that the camera work, editing, and voice-over can be done in a reasonable amount of time.  (Of course, if I did it better, it would take longer.  For further comment, see Satisfice.)   I am providing technical background in part of my web site:  The Meaning of Second Life.  

I expect to make additional vids more directly targeted on instruction about elements of Second Life.   I will comment about them here when they are posted.