Journal 3 - Walk, Fly or Teleport to Learning.

Brown Yoder, M. (2009). Walk, fly or teleport to learning. Learning and Leading with Technology, 37(2), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=September_October_No_2_3&Template=/MembersOnly.cfm&NavMenuID=4381&ContentID=24200&DirectListComboInd=D

This article is about virtual worlds in the classroom and how the amount of students who are participating in these virtual worlds at home are going to be increasing and how this may impact things in the classroom.

The article then goes on to discuss the different ways in which teachers can get involved with MUVE's (Multi-user virtual environments), and the ways in which they can be used to reach out to the students and also as a education platform with teachers being able to create different levels (or worlds) for indivdual classes and therefore being able to interact with the students and educate them at the same time.

In the article it also discusses the way in which the students can also interact with other people and they can become reconnected with reality through being in a virtual world. You can use it to your advantage to look at things which are effecting the world in real life and they can then learn about things that they may not otherwise pay attention to in real life. They go into a reality world to leave from the real world, to being learning about the real world again.

Finally the article closes with ways that teachers can bring this into their own classroom and the way that it would benefit the students and make it possible for them to become more connected with students who are becoming more dependent on technology and also provide them with another platform to educate the students.

What would parents think if this was a child's homework?

I know many parents would not be happy if they were supervising their children and their homework consisted of the child playing a "computer game" for their homework. Therefore I feel that if a teacher was going to do this with their students then they would have to send out some correspondence to the parents and justify their reasoning for having the students do this work, and they would have to make sure that they are learning something though this homework and it was a advantage to their education and they were benefiting from it.

How would the teachers make sure that the students were benefiting from this?

I feel that the teacher would have to make sure that the student was learning and would have to make a quiz or an assignment to make sure that the student was doing what they were suppose to be doing and also learning what they are suppose to at the same time. The students may complete the assignment, but they may not necessarily learn from it and if it going to be beneficial to the student then they have to be checked up on and make sure that they are learning as well as having fun!