Second Life for Education, a discussion part I

Second Life (SL), a program from San Francisco-based company Linden Lab, immerses participants in a virtual world of their own making and allows users to create everything within their virtual world. Users are able to buy and sell plots of land, objects they have created themselves, and so on. The world itself and its economy closely resemble that of everyday society. The quality of interaction and expression in SL are attracting people with various agenda to it. In my brief visits to it, various commercial entities are using it for marketing purposes to good effect. There are also people creating and selling objects in SL and exchanging them for US currency in real life.

SL has its potential in education due to its open environment and undetermined state. The ability to design and create object, building, character within the virtual world can be adapted and extended into teaching and learning. This will be discussed in part II.

Notwithstanding SL's immense popularity, there is a serious issue with the appropriateness of its content. There is a range of seedy activity available to users: Gambling, stripping, and virtual prostitution. To address this concern for SL to have a stake in the educational market sector, Teen Second Life (TSL) is developed.

TSL, is arranged in the same fashion as the adult version, although there is only PG-rated material available in it. The world is restricted to teens aged 13-17, and all adults other than Linden Lab employees are banned from entering the main island in TSL.

Recently, private islands in TSL have been set up as the only place where educators can set foot if they decide to participate in the program. The purchased island can be limited to students in their class or program, or open to any teen using Teen Second Life.

Ironically, even though it's free to get in Teen Second Life, you will still need a credit card to register. That's how Linden Lab manage and maintain a youth-only space, but this makes registering a challenge for teens internationally. Another possible access issue is the requirement for a relatively new computer with the necessary graphic card support and broadband network speed.