Last night I had my first spontaneous conversation with another resident of SL. His name was Daniel, and I found his on ISTE island. I think that he was actually there to help,
but he initiated the conversation by asking if I am an educator. I then asked if he was, and he told me that he teaches teachers about assistive technologies. I am always intrigued by a term in education that I am unsure about so I asked him what he meant by that, and part of his answer was that he teaches teachers how to use word predication software. When I applied to Marlboro College, one of things that I talked about was how I wanted to learn about to use technology in the classroom without it being a crutch for students; I had word prediction in mind when I said this. I asked him how he would defend this, and he pointed out to me that there is a big difference between spelling and writing. I understood his point, but I also pointed out to him that as an English teacher it is my responsibility to teach students how to form concepts and how to spell. We discussed it a little, and then he shared a story with me about he too was once a skeptic untill he saw it actually help students with both writing and spelling.
I think that I would still need to see work predication in the classroom, so that I could form my own conclusions. My real point in sharing all of this is that I had a meaningful conversarion about a subject in education that I interested in, and I didn't have to go anywhere or find a teacher who could make time for me. In addition, I have never heard teachers talk about word prediction at all, so even if I were at one of the previous schools I taught at, I do not think that I could have carried out this conversation.
I think that I will always stand by my belief that events in SL cannot take the place of real life interactions, but if you are talking about SL or nothing or SL or reading a one-sided article, then I have to say that my faith in possibilities of virtual worlds has expanded.
I still have not done much socializing in SL. I have mainly gone there to play around with functions, but I certaily look forward to "talking" with more people about the issue in education, among other things.