Avatar Languages Blog

At Avatar Languages we have started to encourage students to add to Wikipedia articles. We have chosen Simple English Wikipedia, which is a version of the online encyclopaedia that is written in a simplified style of English for non-native speakers.
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Hoy es mi primer día en el Nuevo mundo virtual “Twinity”. El mundo es muy nuevo y se queda todavía como una versión beta y tengo la oportunidad de probarlo como un probador de beta.

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The second article about teaching English in Second Life has been published in the November issue of English Teaching Professional. This article focuses more on SurReal Quests as a methodology that takes advantage of Second Life as a social and communicative environment.

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The Knowledge Tree has published an article of mine in their most recent edition.  The article can also be listened to as a podcast via their website.

The Webheads meetings continued this last Monday, when we visited another real life location in Second Life – this time the Basilica of San Francesco d’Assisi. The Second Life model can be found on the San Francesco Assisi island and more information on its own website: SecundaVita.com. It is an amazing place that has extraordinary detail both inside and out.

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The PR / Communications firm DRAFTFCB has put together a short movie called “Second Life in Real Life”. Not only is it amusing for those of us who have spent some time in Second Life, but I think it also raises some interesting issues for SL (language) educators. (more…)

Yesterday I attended the second Webheads tour of European cities that have a presence (3D model) in Second Life (unfortunately I missed the first one last week). The tour was led by Graham Stanley, who has also blogged about these tours. We visited Second Life Barcelona and Second Life Liverpool. We visited Second Life Barcelona and Second Life Liverpool. Barcelona’s Plaza Real (Plaça Reial in Catalan) and Las Ramblas have been recreated within Second Life, with some adaptations to try and recreate the social atmosphere that the Plaça Reial has in real life (such as a café and a dance floor). Second Life Liverpool has plenty of Beatles themed places, including the Cavern Club.

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Second Moscow, the SL version of the Russian capital, will be celebrating its inauguration on 1 September. This is excellent news for SurReal Quests as there will be yet another destination for students to visit, socialize, research and podcast about. (more…)

I have been working on a way to take advantage of the unique benefits of Second Life as an educational environment while maintaining the best of what both real life education and education 2.0 have to offer. The resulting approach is a task-based “SurReal” quest that draws on Second Life, web 2.0 tools and conventional use of the internet.

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