Second Life in Higher Education?
Is Second Life an appropriate place to take education, specifically eLearning in higher Education?
What started as a game, or a gaming environment, has jumped into main stream life (people even get married in there). Second life is described as “a virtual world without theme, a virtual canvas for creativity”.
One problem that has been levelled at eLearning is that is it impersonal. Second Life offers the personal touch of the avatar-based interaction (your Avatar is “your persona in the virtual world”) “virtual world education is highly interactive, providing the same convenience of not having to travel while providing a richer, more effective and more enjoyable experience. For such, many students would most gladly make the scheduled time for the virtual classroom”
Second Life offers the organisation that ability to ‘buy’ areas, islands even. Ted Wrightwrites that the common disadvantages of eLearning are now overcome with Second Life. “Educators are not slow to step into and embrace this present, simple to use, interpersonal and further developing media.” He continues by saying that it is highly recommended that virtual campuses, for educational institutions, should be private areas in Second Life, not open to the public. This will easily “facilitate a secure learning environment”.
The use of Second Life is not a new concept, many US and UK Universities have invested many millions of dollars/pounds in their virtual campuses.
Sarah Robbins writes on her blog that “it’s not always easy to see how Second Life can be useful for training. In many cases it’s just not the best tool for the job but sometimes a training need just matches perfectly” when talking about modifying face-2-face teaching for Second Life (SL as she calls it) activities.
I don’t know where I’m going with Second Life, but there is a need to meet the expectations of the student and if the student expects a more interactive and personal ‘approach’ to their eLearning, and it is something that Second Life can reach, then I am going to get more involved. More soon.
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