Second Life & Virtual Worlds in Education

A few days ago, I sent out a notice about a demonstration of using the virtual world, Second Life, in a Nursing class. The demo has been postponed, due to real-life floods in western Washington (the course is a Centralia College course).

In preparation for attending that, I set up an account and an avatar [the virtual person you use to navigate Second Life] and did some exploring. My avatar's name is Gerard Latte (your first name can be anything, but you choose the last name from a long list).

It can be confusing and hard to understand at first, because it's so different from the applications we use regularly. Bit-by-bit, though, you learn how to do things. At first I found some videos on YouTube that helped learn basic things, like changing your avatar's appearance. Yesterday, I met some of the other eLearning Council (SBCTC group) members and with the Nursing instructor as a guide, we looked at a simulation like the one he uses in class. He also answered a number of questions and demonstrated some things.

Since it's so new (well, not that new, but reaching a point where it is usable), the question is bound to surface asking whether this is appropriate or useful for education, or is it just a gee-gaw for the technologically obsessed. Although I think it's more than the latter, there is a lot of experimentation going on with the former. Some useful things will, no doubt, come out of it, as well as failures and time wasters.

A reformed online gamer asked me if it was a game, or like a game, with an objective and the ability to collect objects and points and such. While it resembles online games, there is no specific objectives, and while you can collect stuff, it isn't in the scope of 'winning.' The point is more to build and create your environment and interact with others. He then warned me that it could suck up my life, so to be careful.

There are other virtual environments. If I get a chance, I'll look at them and report back, or at least provide some links.