Second Life

Last night we all logged onto Second Life to take pictures of the places we went to as a class. I do have to say that the over experience was an interesting one. It's amazing how people can have an avatar that represents who they are or who they want to be, or even just a character for fun. I'm actually more shocked by the fact that people do this as their main occupation. I'm not sure this is a good thing for that matter. I mean, we do live in THIS world, not the world of Second Life. I understand that Second Life is set up to give people a "second change" at life but again, that's just escaping reality! Give me a break guys, wake up and live THIS life! Anyway, that's just something I wanted to share about Second Life in general.

As for Second Life being used for educational purposes, I'm still not sure how effective that is. Going around Edu-island and playing "follow the leader" wasn't exactly the easiest thing in the world. I found myself walking into walls, poles and falling in to the water for that matter. Actually getting to places was quite a challenge. The second time around was a little easier since we all know where we're going (sort of) and at least what we were doing at those locations. I know we visited museums of works of art that other students did, visited other countries that we usually couldn't afford a plane ticket for. Those were good aspects of the tour. I'm sure Second Life has a lot more to offer than what we were exposed to. But my concern about this is what real value does it have? How can teachers use this in their class room? And for what grade is it appropriate for? As graduate students, we were already having a hard time navigating around, or for everyone to be on the same location due to technical difficulties. How would this be like if it were used on primary and secondary students? I think in order for this to run effectively, members would need to master those beginning skills of navigation and have the same internet access to prevent lagging or computers shutting down for that matter. I don't know, I think I just like this present life I live in!

With that said, I want to be clear on the fact that I'm closing my doors on Second Life. I'm still open to learning about the effectiveness of Second Life. These were just some of my reflections on Second Life.

Links:
Second Life Website
Second Life for Educational Purposes
Second Life Wikipedia