Lessons from WOW in the classroom?

John August put up a post that’s getting dug pretty good that I thought might be applicable to the educational sphere as well, especially after talking to a colleague from Education about a week ago. WOW is an amazing experience for many people as they find that they are actually able to plan, manage and otherwise be part of a community in a place that is unlike thier everyday world. This is certainly something that I can see being appealing to teens, but also to visiting students who may cultural barriers or variably abled students who mayhave physical or communicative barriers. I’m thinking that the same might be true of Second Life as well.

I’ve taken the original seven and spun them for education (John provides good spin for life already), let me know what you think:

1. Complete manageable tasks or questions first, take smaller steps in any projects and you’ll get further (for the gym/PE crew… don’t over stride).
2. Tedium and details are part of life. Remember to go over the basics of your field. Understanding them better will lead to greater steps elsewhere.
3. The novel events that occur in a life are what learning comes from. When you tell people about your day, these slight variations are what you should tell them. When learning something, the little details in the margins are what are going to help you get a better understanding of the concepts.
4. Share information that you have with others, teaching is the best way to learn anything (it helps work on point 2)
5. Plan, if you plan to take an exam, to plan how you are going to complete an exam, you’ll be less stressed. A well planned course is better than an ad hoc course. This doesn’t mean that you need to lesson plan everything to death, but as long as there is a structure that you can refer to somewhere, you’re doing good.
6. Clean out your courses and your notes (do students still keep their notes). If you don’t access it, it’s not worth anything, regardless of how hard you worked on the course
7. Overplanning kills spontaneity, remember that novelty is the spice of life and the heart of learning.