Sunday, November 19, 2006

Second Life

I've been reading about Second life in a variety of places. I find myself meeting the idea with a variety of facination, hope, suspision and aprehension. Yes... indeed all of those things at once. I think this has to do with the fact that none of us really know what kind of effect Second Life will have on us all, but we're pretty sure it is only going to become more prominent. All the more reason to stake a spot for education in a fast growing medium I supose.

A recent CNN article by Grace Wong explored the excitement of educators stirred up by Second Life classrooms. Wong describes the birth and rapid fire of online classrooms:

A growing number of educators are getting caught up in the wave. More than 60 schools and educational organizations have set up shop in the virtual world and are exploring ways it can be used to promote learning. The three-dimensional virtual world makes it possible for students taking a distance course to develop a real sense of community, said Rebecca Nesson, who leads a class jointly offered by Harvard Law School and Harvard Extension School in the world of "Second Life." "Students interact with each other and there's a regular sense of classroom interaction. It feels like a college campus," she said. She holds class discussions in "Second Life" as well as office hours for extension students. Some class-related events are also open to the public -- or basically anyone with a broadband connection.

Andy Carvin gives an even more vivid description of what this first Second Life Harvard classroom is like:

Second Life is home to pretty much everything you can imagine in real life, both good or bad, and thanks to CyberOne, it’s now home to the first accredited course from a major university. Each time students gather at Harvard for the class, virtual participants gather on Berkman Island, a virtual representation of Harvard’s law campus. It’s complete with buildings, trees and paths that exist on the real campus, but it’s populated with fanciful avatars of all shapes and sizes, from purple humanoids to Mr. PotatoHead. But each of these avatars is a real human being, somewhere in cyberspace, attending the course online, accessing live streaming video of the lecture and chatting with other students.

While a somewhat realistic representation of the real world in vertual space strikes many as exciting, Wong points out that, some are skeptical about how much of an impact "Second Life" will have on the educational landscape. "'Second Life' on its own doesn't force anyone to do anything," said Marc Prensky, a leading expert on education and learning. "It's a blank slate, and whether it develops into a useful tool depends on what sort of structures are created within it."

Wong also briefly mentioned some conserns with possible distractions in the Second Life classroom environment, but gave a promising testimony from Schmidt, who learned about "Second Life" from her teenage son, integrated the virtual world into a course she teaches on digital communication to give students a new avenue for collaboration.

While Andy Carvin, my professor and many others are extreamly excited about the possibilities Second Life has to offer education, other tech in ed bloggers are reluctant. Even David Warlick admitted in responce to the CNN article, I’m going to say something really grumpy and old, but “What’s wrong with the first life?” I know that there are many instances where distance learning solves some vexing and opportunity-constraining problems. But are the problems ubiquitous. Let’s get these empowering technologies and opportunities into our classrooms!

I certainly agree with Warlick in the sense that school would lose something if the only classes were in Second Life, but I do think that sharing content in an on line class room can create colaboration that would not be physically possible otherwise.

A commentor on Warlick's blog, David Truss asked some similar questions in a related blog: How will we use the community building aspects of the internet to foster learning in schools?How do we make schools into 'modern day' learning communities? How do we get students to engage rather than escape?

I think Trus brings an important focus back to the discussion of not only Second Life in education, but technology for education in general. Technology should always be promoted in schools as a way to enhance the first life and engage students in it. The possibility of technology promoting escape has already been realized. It occures every time I hear about someone procrstinating homework to play a video game, I see it when kids are messaging their friends instead of talking to their family members, I'm feeling it right now as I spend way too many hours in my opinion on line instead of interacting in face to face conversation with another intelectual. I think this is something we have to consider as we get excited about a Second Life or second school or second identity. Perhaps I too, like David Warlick, am old and grumpy.

Educators explore 'Second Life' online
November 14, 2006 5:45 p.m. EST
By Grace Wong Special to CNN
Complete Article

CyberOne: A Glimpse of the Future Classroom?
October 3, 2006 8:02PM
by Andy Carvin
Complete Article

My Avatar's Smarter than Me!
November 14, 2006 at 7:30 pm
by David Warlick
Complete Article

A Story About A Tree
November 09, 2006
by David Truss
Complete Article

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