Today was an exceptional day for learning in Second Life! Mrs. McKiernan’s classes were all given their stipend of100L$. They joined the group, “Beach Bash” and a whole group notice was sent that read :
Hello everyone…
By now you should have received your lindens. You are going to have to make sure that you budget wisely. In order to attend the beach party, you MUST have:
A bathing suit
Suntan lotion
A towel
A surfboard
You will also need a beach blanket, a cooler, and some shoes. You must have 6 lindens left at the end of your shopping so that you can pay to get into the beach party.
You will record all of your work on the recording sheet I gave you. The first sheet is like a checking account…when you buy something, subtract the money. Your second and third sheets are for calculating how much money you are paying for the item (with the percent off). This will be handed in and used for me to grade your project. PLEASE DO NOT LOSE IT!
Good luck and I’ll see you at the beach party!
Mrs. McKiernan
The 45 minutes flew each class, as the kid were feverishly doing their math, calculating discounts, recommending certain items over others (in IM!) and helping each other manage their budgets! There was a lot of laughter,some complaints about prices (LOL) and comments were heard that truly attested to the learning going on:
“Don’t buy that one- the blue one is a better deal”
“But I want the red one to match my surfboard!”
“If I get this I won’t have enough L$ left fotr the ticket to get into the party!”
and the inevitable….”Can anyone lend me 4L$???”
Teacher’s comments: I think this is incredibly fun.The kids are engaged, they’re doing math and they aremaking choices they would encounter in real life situations!”
[...] Now, 10 years later, computers have become indispensable to modern education. Students use them for research, and teachers to find out if the students copy pasted from more than one, unique source. Or they use computers and the internet to connect to the Second Life Teen Grid, which is the case at The Suffern Middle School. I’m not reading up much on using virtual worlds for education, but was amazed that Peggy Sheehy together with the teachers has worked out that many projects that proof the possibilities for teaching using a virtual world. An example: [...]