Sarah Robbins on Teaching in Second Life

We're about a week from the ELI 2007 Spring Focus Session, Immersive Learning Environments: New Paths for Interaction and Engagement. As usual, I'm interviewing some of the presenters scheduled for the event to get an advanced sense for the issues they plan to address at the focus session.

In this interview, I talk with Sarah Robbins, a TA Instructor in English at Ball State University, about her experiences in teaching classes in the immersive learning environment Second Life. I ask her about the teaching and learning objectives that led her to try to teach in Second Life, as well as the level of technical expertise she feels is or isn't necessary to teach in that online space. We also discuss the benefits she has found that students derive from learning in Second Life, as well as the benefits she has realized as a developing faculty member by teaching in an immersive learning environment.

On the first day of the focus session, March 27, Sarah will conduct a project parlor on her teaching activities in Second Life, which will give all of the session participants a brief overview of her efforts. Participants will then have the option of attending either one of two concurrent sessions Sarah will hold on the second day of the event, March 28, during which she will engage them in her Second Life virtual classroom and help them get a sense for how teaching in that environment works.