Got an email from a friend of mine (who’s name shall be withheld to protect the innocent). He had a conversation with his district technology director that he asked for some help with.
I had a short conversation with our district technology director yesterday and Second Life came up. I was telling him how streaming video would be projected in SL and how cool it was … He cut me off when I was trying to explain how I thought it would be interesting to some of our teachers to see what SL was like. He asked me: What is the point of using SL? Can you please provide me with some talking points to help me in the future with “what is the point of using SL”.
So I put together a few ideas of my own, regarding why I think Second Life is significant.
provides us the opportunity to experience things that we could never experience in real life. Because avatars aren’t bound by silly things like physics and laws of nature, we can experience things firsthand in an interactive way, as well as new ways that we could only imagine before.
For example, I can watch a hurricane occur from beginning to end, pausing it, rewinding it, checking out its perspective from above and below the water line, from up in the air and so on. Instead of just studying the cell, and the parts of the cell, I can step inside one and see them moving in three day. I can see the shapes and relative sizes of its parts relative to each other. I can study a painting by Van Goh, and then actually step inside it and explore it.
It can also a valuable tool for distance learning. It provides you with a flexible learning environment that also has a personal touch to it. Virtually face to face meetings.
It’s an ideal environment for breaking down our mental barriers regarding physical characteristics. Would students treat someone differently if they had a male avatar? Female avatar? What if they chose to be African or Asian, even tho in real life they’re white? Would that make a difference in how people treat you? Should it? And so on….
And obviously by its very nature, it can really help engage the video game generation. It gives them a virtual learning environment that they can mold to suit their needs.
To be honest, I’m not certain that SL is the ideal platform for education, but I do think it’s the best we have right now and well worth exploring so we’re prepared to leverage it as well as future virtual environments. It provides a platform for live social networking, which is becoming an increasingly important skill in the business world.
However, I’m just a dabbler. I haven’t gotten to spend nearly as much time in world as many other people, and I know some of you reading this have made serious investments into using Second Life in education. I’m hoping that you’ll help my friend out and share your ideas with us.
So in your expert opinion, what is the point of using Second Life in education?
Steve- Thanks for posting the benefits of 2nd Life in education. I’m one of those people who downloaded it a year ago and am still on the initial island. I haven’t been able to get into it for a couple reasons. Its a heavy program so can’t do much else when its running. It’s a little quirky to control. I have yet to see anything educational on in that first stop. All that aside though, your post makes me want to go check out the hurricane and give it another try.
Cory Plough’s most recent blog post.. In Their Words Video
Something that quite a few school districts ignore is the communication of teachers with peers. I don’t mean with peers in your building but with peers in the same district or others around the world. Second Life allows this communication to take place with a lot more presence than say Twitter or chatting applications.
It also allows teachers to learn many new things. Some may not have anything to do with their classroom but it is in fact valuable and exciting learning. There is the creative part too whether you are building a vase or just redecorating a space.
The connections that can be made and the environment make for a valuable part of my personal learning network. Which BTW the DEN in SL leadership council will be presenting on at NECC.
http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2008/program/search_results_details.php?sessionid=42130125&selection_id=42670454&rownumber=4&max=11&gopage=
Riptide Furse’s most recent blog post.. Twitter Updates for 2008-06-15
I have to echo Riptide’s comment. It is the conversations and collaborations that bring me back again and again. I meet other educators from different levels, disciplines and with a global perspective. The conversations inspire me. The Second Life environment is engaging and provides me with a chance to stretch my thinking, imagination and problem solving skills in ways other forms of communication do not. Second life is hard to explain, it is a one of those tools you need to give a good solid try before you can begin to understand.
Beth Knittle’s most recent blog post.. End of One Year and Planning the Next
You might want to get in touch with Graham Stanley who is big in the use of SL in ELT. Actually I’ll probably send him a message about this post.
And EFL Geek did send me a tweet(Thanks!)
I’ve been a fan of Second Life for over two years now. Just for starters, what I find it adds to the e-learning mix is the “sense of place” - we’re so used (in real life) to this and it’s missing in all other forms of e-learning.
I find walking around SL with an avatar and spending time with people more “human” than attending an event in a virtual classroom (even with webcams) or any other type of synchronous event.
It took me a while to get this, but I finally did one day when sitting on a park bench in SL chatting to a virtual colleague while a Four Stooges movie was playing in the background and watching a fabulous sunset - you just don’t get that “added richness” using other online tools for my money.
Graham Stanley’s most recent blog post.. SLanguages 2008
Tech in the Classroom…
Gord has a long post about using Tech in the Classroom that is well worth the read. Gord's post talks about how some things are used primarily for flash and impress, but in my opinion students will know when something is being done to impress them…
Steve, have you met/heard of Maggie Marat in Second Life? She’s a teacher in Suffern, NY, who has been using SL on the Teen Grid for over a year now. http://ramapoislands.edublogs.org/
It’s been awe-inspiring to see what the students have come up with, and how the teachers have taken to SL to enhance their existing curriculum.
Robert Rowe’s most recent blog post.. GeekTripping
As an EFL teacher and from the top of my ehad I can tell that SL life is really good for:
1. having role-plays in virtual environments like a restaurant, a hospital, etc. we cannot have in the language classroom. The furthest we can get in a F2F session is “Use your imagination”.
2. “speaking” can be done through text chat and audio by means of avatars flying, dancing, sitting, walking. You cannot do that through MSN or Yahoo messenger. That is in terms of communcation it provides a sense of closeness or nearness to someone else traditional chat software cannot provide.
3. contacting natives or fluent non-native English speakers to talk to your students in a close to real life environment (or any other language).
4. learning in a different way. Have you ever imagined listening to someone reading the Raven in an immersive presentation where you can experience the settings and emotions of this literary classic?
Miguel Mendoza’s most recent blog post.. Buzzword
In terms of actual research, you can also mention the social presence and immediacy angle. Studies have proven that increasing both of these factors in online learning will improve learning. I did find a study once that showed that students reacted better to virtual talking heads than just chat text. But it shouldn’t take research to prove that audio chat through a 3-D avatar will be more realistic communication than text chat in a chat room. So, if you want to bring pedagogy in to the mix, Second Life (if used effectively) can increase social presence and immediacy.
You made some great points, Steve. I used to come into SL for the chat. I lost touch with all my in world friends and the last time I went in, couldn’t really find anyone. But I do love the ideas for educational use. Maybe it’s time for me to head back in and connect again.
Lisa Parisi’s most recent blog post.. The Successful Inclusion Program
Hey Steve! A lot of the important points have already been said. And it’s very easy to make a list of the obstacles to using SL in K-12 education. (I have a chapter coming out in a book soon that discusses those.) As for the “point,” well, I think SL affords the following possibilities:
1. Communication - of all kinds, including text chat, IMs, group chat, group notices, voice chat, voice IMs, video, audio, textures (images), presentations, notecards, etc. etc. If communication is the essence of education, then SL provides many many media for education.
2. Representation and simulation - the hurricane is a good example…..there are others…a tidal wave, a model of the Globe Theatre, the city of Amsterdam (okay, most of these are on the Main Grid - not open to K-12 students, but they provide examples that might be followed on the Teen Grid), plus the capacity for the students themselves to build models…and an awesome, powerful scripting language that affords the possibility of learning object-oriented programming while representing complex processes or events.
3. Scaffolds - all kinds of ways to support learning as it occurs, not the least of which is the capacity to build “Head-Up Displayes” (HUDs) which can provide real-time access to glossaries, maps, instructions, tables, data, etc. as students do their work. These require planning, of course, but many scaffolds are already built or can be easily adapted to specific learning tasks.
4. Teacher professional development - I actually think this is the primary utility of Second Life for K-12 education these days, due to the obstacles mentioned above, but also because right now, it’s the teachers, for the most part, that need to learn about the possibilities of virtual reality, social networking, and cutting-edge technologies….what’s important to remember is that most teachers will not come in on their own to learn this type of technology…but in supported groups, with a professional development goal in mind, or by joining with groups such as DEN or the ELVEN Institute (http://elveninstitute.org), there is a whole new world of discovery awaiting teachers, igniting their passion for teaching while opening them up to transformation both in themselves and in their students.
So, what’s the “point”? Teachers learning; learning teachers. Those skeptical district tech coordinators might want to remind themselves that it IS about learning, after all….not just predictability and control. 
Craig A. Cunningham’s most recent blog post.. ELVEN Communication Workshop Held Today
[…] DimensionM is already having a substantial impact on student achievement and teachers are finding exciting ways integrate Second Life in ways are academically rigorous. Be the change you want to […]
For all of education, and perhaps more specifically K-12, one point of using Second Life is to engage learners “where they live.” Second Life is just one multi-user virtual environment among a great many; and there’s a large number (>100) in development or already available that are targeted to under 18. Webkinz World is one example, and both of my daughters (7.5yo and 4yo) are actively involved in that space. So, it’s important to engage that *type* of technology, even if it’s not Second Life. The reason to engage Second Life in particular, for me, is the number of educators actively engaging that environment - both inworld and via the web (blogs etc).
Chris (SL: Topher Zwiers)’s most recent blog post.. Podcast Episode 3: Legal Issues in Second Life
7/4/2008
No, no, no, no, NO! Second life is for people with NO life. So what if you cant experience the things you can do in SL, it’s NOT real! Just go out of your house and experience some sunlight and REAL things than just a keystroke.
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