Tours in Second Life

Thinking that Second Life is just for fun and games. I am here to tell you that it can be used for much more. Second Life can also be very educational, there are tours that one can take to landmarks, countries, and cities with a search and a click. While in Second Life I took a tour called Real World Locations. It was based on national landmarks from around the world! I went to the Great Wall and the Gateway Arch all in one day. It was interesting to get to go to these places, when in reality I have never been to any of them. You can move about the landmarks and see them from all angles.

Do to these travelings that I had the pleasure in taking, I think that it would be fun for students to be able to do this. Say they are researching the Great Wall or Africa's Wilderness and the pictures they find on the internet or in books are only from one side or the same pictures over and over again. The students can get on Second Life and go to these places, walk around and experience them for themselves. This kind of usage will open many doors to students who may never get the chance to go see these landmarks.

I made my own tour on Second Life. At first I thought it was going to be rather hard and very time consuming, but it was the complete opposite. It was rather easy to find places and then bookmark them. Then you just had to go back through and give each location a description. The hardest part was thinking of a topic to do my tour on, I thought of other lessons I have taught and a Social Studies lesson dealing with memorable sights in the United States came to mind. I created my tour based on landmarks that we have here in the United States. My students would be able to travel to the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, and even The Golden Gate Bridge. It was rather fun to think about using this tour in a classroom some day.

The first stop for my tour is The Statue of Liberty, the link to it in Second Life is http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Carnforth/37/215/35. The second stop in the tour is just a hop, skip, and jump away, it is the memorial for the World Trade Centers. The link for it in Second life is http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/New%20York%20NYC/163/215/21. The third stop for the tour is The Gateway Arch in St. Louis. The link for it is http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/St%20Louis%20Island/183/128/31. The next stop on our tour is Mt. Rushmore. You may find it in Second Life by going to this address, http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Le%20Dome/221/178/60. We will now be going to the Golden Gate Bridge, you may go to it by this link, http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tech/23/211/38. The last stop on our tour is the Grand Canyon. The link in Second Life is http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Grand%20Canyon/92/177/111. Have a fun time exploring these wonderful US landmarks!