Virtual Reality Week 5

There were a list of questions and this is the one I chose.

Do virtual worlds give students a better learning experience than real world experiences?

I don't think that virtual worlds give students a "better" learning experience than the real world, but maybe a different experience.  I work in a unique educational environment.  I take students that are 18-21 years old, who have special needs, into the community and teach them job skills.  Every morning we do different job sites and every afternoon we have a variety of activities.  On Wednesday afternoons I teach a music class.  This semester I am teaching my students how to perform "If You're Reading This", by Tim McGraw in American Sign Language, I am teaching them how to sing, "The Rainbow Connection", in the style of Kermit the Frog, and I am teaching them how do a line dance to "Jump On It", by the Sugar Hill Gang.  I believe that they need me to be there to help shape their hands correctly to hear me sing and watch me dance in order to learn how to do these activities correctly.  I also have realized how the virtual world can be helpful.  I am going to create a blog for my music class.  I got permission from all of the parents and on my blog I will post a video of me doing the ASL song, a recording of the Rainbow Connection and a YouTube video of the line dance.  The purpose of having all of these things on the blog is so that the students can practice at home, if they so choose.  In addition to the practice materials, I will be posting our performance and various pictures of things that we do over the semester.  I feel that the virtual world will help my program save some money by not having to put the performance on DVD's so the parents can see and help my students be better performers.  

So, even though I support the  virtual world, I don't think it makes a better learning environment, I just believe that it enhances the learning environment that we as teacher's provide.