West Virginia University
has joined Marshall in using a
software program called Second Life on its campus.
At Marshall Second Life is a tool that helps students learn
more about the campus.
Second Life will be used at WVU to train aspiring elementary
education teachers.
Joy Faini Saab is the interim chair of curriculum and
instruction/literacy studies in the College
of Human Resources and Education.
She says this program is unlike any other in the country.
“We recognized that there was no program in the United
States that included a rural, urban,
international and virtual experience for practice teaching, before these
teachers are certified,” she said.
“Many programs across the United
States offer options, but none of them had
all participants in all of those settings.”
The program utilizes a three-dimensional environment called
Second Life.
The students will create virtual characters called avatars
to do things like run science experiments and act out characters from plays.
Pamela Whitehouse is an assistant professor of instructional
design and technology.
“We’re very concerned these days about appealing to an array
of learning styles, and so this is really an important part of appealing to
students who are visual or audio learners,” Whitehouse said.
“In Second Life, they can do all of those things.”
Whitehouse has her own avatar in Second Life and is moving
it throughout the area that has been created for the program.
There is a red schoolhouse where the teaching students can
enter and interact with other avatars.
There is a movie theater where the students will watch
videos about the program.
Pamela Whitehouse says there is plenty more to come.
“There is some technology now that allows you to make a 3-D
photograph, and you can walk into it in your avatar,” she said.
“One of the things I would love to do is have pictures from
places around the world, that our students might not ever get to go, but they
can walk into it and walk around, and see things close up and we can develop
them so it’s interactive.”
The students will also use a laboratory to simulate a
classroom environment where students will interact with characters that
represent students.
These virtual characters can be programmed to behave the way
real students do.
For example they can
be disruptive or shy.
The program places a strong emphasis on teamwork between
teachers, so students admitted to the program will live in the same residence
hall at WVU so they can participate in team-building activities together.
Joy Faini Saab says this new program offers a more expedient
way to get a teacher certified.
She says the academic program is also a response to the
growing shortage of teachers in the state.
“We’re facing 60 percent of our teaching workforce at
retirement age right now. We have a crisis on our hands,” Faini Saab said.
“Not only do we need to always keep our eye to the future,
we also have to face the fact that any day, if teachers exercise the option to
retire, we are without teachers.”
The university is in the process of selecting students for
the program’s first class.