Is Second Life merely a techie playground for social encounters or can it be transformed into a meaningful and effective method of instruction?
SL can be considered many things. Since it is not a game and has no objective or goal then it can be whatever the user wants it to be. If the user is looking to play and engage in social interactions simply for a neat way to waste time then that can be done. Does that mean that there is no educational merit possible in SL. I tend to think not. With the diverse amount of options and opportunities available in SL you could use it meaningfully for alot of purposes. Whether it be networking, business endeavours, or educational pursuits, it is all possible in SL.
Multi user virtual environments becuase of their versatility and realistic interface, bring a fresh new component to learning in on online context. Students are more motivated to learn in these environments due to the life-like feel and the visual cues that stimulate the learning in a way that a traditional WebCT interface cannot accomplish. When users feel like they are actually in the virtual environment motivation to learn can be increased through a desire to actually participate in the learning. Users have a sense that they are actually part of a learning community The ability of SL to allow users to communicate between either text chat or voice chat allows for plenty of instantaneous synchronous conversations to take which would be much less likely in other online environments.
The use of simulations and demonstrations in laboratories created in the virtual world can be used to augment the learning of students who prefer to learn visually and can actually instantly collaborate with peers while observing a demonstration in a virtually public environment. The immersed graphic nature of SL make it ideal for using detailed simulations that supports students learning using visual memory. SL combines active engagement with the ease of online access. It is also important to remember the merits of virtual experiments and demonstrations. These allow students to conduct experiments, a repeated amount of times without using any materials or set up time, not to mention a virtual environment does not have any dangers associated with it ( except maybe that student will enjoy completing their work in SL so much that they won’t want to attend classes in the real world anymore!). It will only be a matter of time before more and more educational techies get involved in this web 3.0 initiative!
Check out the video below to get an idea of some of the opportunities for learning science in SL.
