Recently, I attended a professional development training on Second Life in the classroom. For those of who haven’t heard of it, Second Life is a virtual environment where users create avatars and interact with the virtual environment through these avatars. Basic membership and download is free, but to purchase land, which is necessary to build anything, one must first convert actual money in Linden dollars. Goods and services can also be purchased within the environment, but there are also many freebies that one can get from various places.
Second Life’s purpose is different depending on the user. Some users use it as a social site where they can meet and interact with people from all over the world. The purpose of the PD training which I attended focused on the educational value of the program. Many colleges, including Ohio University (we have a branch, OUC, here in town), have a presence within the virtual world. Learning kiosks and virtual lecture halls can be found on OU land. It is quite fascinating what has been constructed by these universities. A colleague of mine, who was also at this training, discussed how his Master’s program uses Second Life as a meeting place for his classes.
We explored various places in the training including reconstructions of different places around the world. It was really cool to walk—and fly—through England. While the educational benefits of Second Life within the college world seems to be obvious, the benefit to a K-12 school district seems to be limited and overshadowed by the cost. Members under the age of 18 are automatically placed in Teen Second Life, which is just for teens 13-17. Educators can enter Teen Second Life but their mobility is very limited. Unfortunately, teens don’t have access to many of the great educational resources in the virtual world because these are located in adult Second Life. Also, training is extremely time consuming and unrealistic for the common classroom. Several of us from the training have discussed the purchase of some property to create a meeting place for educators in the area to collaborate, although we are concerned as to how many educators would actually use it because of the time it takes to get started.
For more information visit: secondlife.com
This is a promotional video for Ohio University’s Second Life Campus:
