Second Life and the potential of virtual learning spaces

Teachers around the world are beginning to realise the educational potential of this virtual learning space on the internet.

Second Life was created in 2003 as a place on the internet to meet people and socialise. However, unlike other social networking websites that continued to concentrate on connecting friends, Second Life has grown into what has become one of the internet’s most sophisticated virtual worlds.

Described as an ever-changing, three-dimensional world that users create, the Second Life landscape features cities, islands, mountains, buildings, airports, factories, homes and universities. Lately, even real countries are claiming a stake in this new world, with Estonia opening what is reported on the website as being an official embassy in Second Life.

When visitors first open an account, they create an avatar of themselves, that is, a virtual person. In this vicarious way, Second Life citizens are ‘real’ people who choose to spend some of their ‘first life’, sometimes often hours a day, ‘elsewhere’. However, unlike people in the real world, Second Life residents are all young and beautiful, and can achieve distinctive looks with just a little extra programming. They are physically gender-free and when they remove their clothes, as they sometimes do, they resemble unisex shop mannequins. Avatars can fly, walk or take transport to every location, microscopic or majestic, in the Second Life world. This includes exploring a virtual replica of the Eiffel Tower or travelling through a human kidney. They can be programmed to move in particular ways (for example, appear to breathe unevenly if they are being used train medical students) and can communicate with other avatars in real time. As users look at their computer screen, they remain just behind, and slightly above, the avatar, so that they ‘see’ what the avatar ‘sees’ ahead of them.

Created by the San Francisco-based company, Linden Lab, the website now has 13 million registered residents who pay to ‘live’ there. While visitors may enter the online world for free, ownership of ‘land’ in Second Life now costs real money (and not just the ‘Linden dollars’ that are used in Second Life business transactions).

Providing education in Second Life

To the extent that Second Life has become an increasingly significant ‘learning space’ in 21st century youth culture, its (fantasy) ‘real estate’ has assumed a real value to some innovative educators. The Dallas County Community College District, in the USA, recently paid US$837 for an island and a yearly registration fee. Southern Methodist College, also in the USA, used a US$5000 grant to pay for its island on Second Life, and a further US$2000 to finance a graphic artist and architect to design and build this island to its specifications. Harvard, Rice and Princeton are among the hundreds of universities and colleges with Second Life ‘campuses’. Virtual education institutions include art galleries, lecture halls, surgical units, conference rooms and laboratories.

‘You can build something that’s impossible or very expensive to build in the real world, and then look at it, and interact with it’, says Dean Terry, associate professor of arts and technology at the University of Texas, and also director of the school’s virtual world laboratory. ‘Because things like gravity are optional and you can’t get hurt in Second Life, you can visualise things that you wouldn’t be able to visualise otherwise’.

As yet, students aren’t being asked to sign up for totally Second Life-based courses but some are being asked to ‘attend’ the virtual world as part of a course. While most educators would agree that traditional classrooms are not yet close to being replaced, students now ‘attend’ some lectures or PowerPoint presentations in a virtual meeting room on their college’s island. Teachers might also set homework assignments in a Second Life learning environment.

So far, no teachers have been told that they must incorporate Second Life into their curriculum but those who have chosen to do so must first learn to build simulators and create the necessary learning activity in the virtual environment. ‘It’s not necessarily a better way to teach’, says George Barnes, director of the Global MBA Online program at University of Texas at Dallas, ‘but it’s a different approach that’s attractive to some people’.

Educators who would like to explore Second Life should visit: http://secondlife.com/.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ms Debra Brydon is a former primary, secondary and adult education teacher who is based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. She works internationally creating a variety of virtual learning and information spaces and is currently director of the education e-publishing company, CyberText, and the education e-news company, FastText.

 

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