Here's another intriguing example of the potential for distance learning and virtual worlds. Drexel Online has been allowing some of its distance-learning students to defend their masters' thesis within Second Life (as a Brit, I'm not entirely sure what defending your thesis means, but from the information supplied by Drexel I assume it's like the oral examination part after you've submitted it).
Six students are taking part initially, with the first happening last week, and four more due this week. That first student Shawn Brown seems to be pretty happy with the experience:
“I was intrigued by conducting my defense in a virtual world as if I was presenting in a live classroom. It worked, and the format was not distracting. I presented for about 40 minutes, and I was completely focused on my research and findings. I took questions from my committee and being in Second Life didn’t inhibit any part of the presentation.”
It’s applications like this that are spurring dozens of academic institutions to establish themselves in Second Life, rather than the hype that fuelled many big brands’ entrance into the virtual worlds space a year or two ago. For distance-learning in particular, the use of a virtual world and avatars brings some of the human interaction back to elements of studies that would otherwise be lost.
Of course, the potential downside is whether students who aren’t so comfortable with a virtual world are thus penalised by being forced to present within it…
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