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Using Virtual Environments As Professional Development Tools For Pre-Service Teachers Seeking Esol Endorsement, Rebecca J. Blankenship
Using Virtual Environments As Professional Development Tools For Pre-Service Teachers Seeking Esol Endorsement, Rebecca J. Blankenship
USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations
The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential use of Second Life (Linden Labs, 2004) and Skype (Skype Limited, 2009) as simulated virtual professional development tools for pre-service teachers seeking endorsement in teaching English as a Second Official Language (ESOL. Second Life is an avatar-based Internet program that allows end-users to interact, using audio and chat features, with a digital representation of themselves (an avatar). Skype is an Internet-based video conferencing program that allows users to see each other by way of a webcam. Of particular interest to this study was how a group of 12 pre-service teacher …