I Read the News Today...

In the past week, there have been several articles in the mass media about Second Life. The interesting thing about the following pieces is that they take a more negative/cautious stance on this virtual world - the first two in particular.

Second Life's Second Wind: Has Second Life moved away from the hype and into a gloom stage?

Why is It Called Second Life When There's Nothing Alive There?: "Wandering around Second Life today is like visiting Blackpool in February; all sad empty shops, deserted car parks and the stench of loneliness..."

Is There a Second Life for Teaching?: Two sentences in this piece sum up part of my dilemma with educators appropriating technologies designed for non-educational purposes in hopes of making the learning process more palatable to students.

"Salmon believes that Second Life constitutes a good example of 'edutainment' - the idea that students are more likely to learn if they are first amused."

"A recent Jisc/Mori report indicated that Second Life remained the least popular technological pursuit among students. As many as 76% have never, or only rarely, stepped inside a virtual world, and some students polled thought that environments such as Second Life were 'sad'."

And finally...Studies in Second Life: "Duncan Innis stands in front of the class wearing a suit and a semi-up hairdo longer than the real professor’s real-life hair. It’s 11:35 a.m. and class is in session. Of all the students, Deerhunter immediately makes an impression. Maybe it was because he raised his hand before anyone else in class to discuss the media empire of Cosmopolitan."

The instructor stands in front of the class, and the students raise "their hands" to speak. How is this different from the physical classroom. This article concludes by noting that the educators interviewed for this piece recognize that SL will not replace the physical classroom. Nonetheless, they believe it (or another three-dimensional virtual world like it) will become a part of the educational curriculum, at least in Canada.