Uses of Second Life in Education





Introduction
Second Life is an Internet-based virtual reality world that is being used for a wide range of business, entertainment, education and other purposes.

Quoting from the Wikipedia:


 * Second Life (abbreviated as SL) is an Internet-based virtual world launched in 2003, developed by Linden Research, Inc (commonly referred to as Linden Lab), which came to international attention via mainstream news media in late 2006 and early 2007.[4][5] A downloadable client program called the Second Life Viewer enables its users, called "Residents", to interact with each other through motional avatars, providing an advanced level of a social network service combined with general aspects of a metaverse. Residents can explore, meet other Residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, create and trade items (virtual property) and services from one another.


 * Second Life is one of several virtual worlds that have been inspired by the cyberpunk literary movement, and particularly by Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash. The stated goal of Linden Lab is to create a world like the Metaverse described by Stephenson, a user-defined world of general use in which people can interact, play, do business, and otherwise communicate.[6] Second Life's virtual currency is the Linden Dollar (Linden, or L$) and is exchangeable for US Dollars in a marketplace consisting of residents, Linden Lab and real life companies.


 * While Second Life is sometimes referred to as a game, this description is disputed. It does not have points, scores, winners or losers, levels, an end-strategy, or most of the other characteristics of games, though it can be thought of as a game on a more basic level. It is a semi-structured virtual environment where characters undertake activities for the purpose of personal enjoyment.

Cory Ondrejka, Co-founder of Second Life
Quoting from the 5/8/08 Chronicle of Wired Campus News:


 * Cory Ondrejka, the co-founder of the virtual world Second Life who is now a visiting professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, said in a speech today that virtual worlds are here to stay, and that professors are among the most active pioneers. "In my view the academy has been blazing the trail of adoption of virtual worlds far more than gamers or industry," said Mr. Ondrejka, who spoke at a conference at Case Western Reserve University called Collaboration Technology and Engaging the Campus 2008.

Learn More About Second Life
There is a huge amount of information about Second Life Available on the Web. A recent Google search returned about 560 million hits. A Google search on educational uses of Second Life returned about 14 million hits. See a 7 minute You Tube video on Educational Uses of Second Life.

The SimTeach Wiki, begun by Jeremy Kemp at San Jose State is a great place to start, constituting a collaborative effort by many Second Life Education Community members: http://simteach.com/wiki

The Second Life Education listserv, known as the SLED list, is also very active - with over 5,000 subscribers: https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/educators

The official Second Life Education blog, led by Sarah "Intellagirl" Robbins, is likewise considered another key resource by many: http://www.sl-educationblog.org/

The annual face-to-face and inworld Second Life Education Community Conference - a member of the official Linden Lab-sponsored and approved Second Life Community Convention - is a wonderful way to see the scope and variety of this 3D Virtual World: http://sledcc.wikispaces.com/

The SaLamander Project http://www.eduisland.net/salamanderwiki - aiming to index the learning materials made and accessible within Second Life is growing through use of a free Heads-Up-Display (i.e. HUD) inworld and a growing community of expert educators vetting materials for placement in MERLOT http://www.merlot.org

An excellent short video illustrating a Library Science use of Second Life is available at http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2410.

Innovate's Special Issue on Teaching in Virtual Worlds
Innovate is published bimonthly as a public service by the Fischler School of Education and Human Services at Nova Southeastern University and is sponsored, in part, by Microsoft.

Our December 2008/January 2009 special issue on academics in virtual environments focuses on the possibilities and pitfalls of teaching in virtual worlds. Our contributors offer insights into how educators exploring multiuser virtual environments (MUVEs) can use the lessons learned in earlier versions of the technology, describe worlds built to meet specific educational needs, and offer advice for using Second Life and other environments to help students with special needs.

This special issue covers a number of important topics. For example:


 * Our next two articles describe MUVEs created to meet the needs of specific educational contexts and offer evidence to support their effectiveness. Greg Jones and Scott Warren use a MUVE they developed to facilitate literacy learning for middle schoolers to illustrate how intelligent agents, in-game characters the game and to the individual player\'s situation, can accelerate learning in MUVEs and other virtual learning environments. (See http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=576&action=article)

Author or Authors
The initial version of this page was based on content provided by Jonathon Richter.