woensdag, april 04, 2007
Second Life and education: what can we do?
Second Life is hip. Hey, even I've been there. And when someone talks about the 'many uses' of Second Life, somewhere education is in that list. But how exactly can Second Life or a similar multi-player virtual world be used for learning? Here are five of my thoughts:
1- Virtual Class 2.0
One component of the e-learning spectrum has always been the virtual classroom. At this time a virtual classroom is pretty close to a web conference system. You have a list with participants (sometimes in a seating metaphore) who can raise hands and/or show basic emotions. You have a shared whiteboard, a central presentation or polls and questions. You have an instructor and/or a facilitator who speak, sometimes via the tool itself sometimes via a separate telephone conferencing system. And you have a chat window. Centra is one of the popular products in this area.
Second Life-lookalikes could transform this 'Virtual Class 1.0' into what virtual classrooms have always been trying to do: mimic the ever so popular face-to-face classroom as natural as possible, but distant. It might work. People can all teleport to a virtual classroom building and share a learning moment there. As long as the learning is instructional and information sharing only and doesn't involve labs or exercises this will work fine.
A further evolution of this is a Virtual Conference. Lotus for example held part of its January LotusSphere conference both in Orlando ànd in Second Life simultaneously. They are basically the same, except for the number of participants and concurrent events.
Take a look: http://slurl.com/secondlife/ibm%209/34/58/23
2- Research
A second big learning thing with Second Life is learning about Second Life itself. Hey, it is a virtual world and a hugh experiment. Second Life has for example its own virtual economy. I can imagine economists wanting to research if it behaves in the same way as the real world. Will the SL economy collaps if that Chinese lady tries to convert all her money into real dollars?
And there is the dark side. You didn't think SL would be free of terrorists, hackers and freaks did you? Some weeks ago a bomb exploded on SL. Hackers are trying to steal your virtual assets. Just last week I heard about a new problem on SL: child porn. There are no laws against avatars having sex with avatars representing children. I can imagine sociologists will want to research how a society and community in a virtual world evolves. How it regulates itself.
So all of that is valid learning. But it is more research-oriented , so I for one am not interested as my 'thing' is corporate learning. This is for the academics among us.
3- Learning to be someone else
What better way for sensitivity training, role play or diversity training if you actually can change into someone else. How does it feel to be a woman, a black person, or a gay rabbit? Second Life can have its place in any kind of training where you are trying to let participants experience things from the other's point of view.
4- Soft skill simulation and coaching
Second Life can be used to bring coach and coachee together via the net. For example a manager and his coach can meet on Second Life every evening to go over their program. A sales trainee can schedule a one-on-one with a virtual coach to practise selling a product.
5- Images and 3D animation
And if nothing else, Second Life is a cheap way to get quality images and 3D animation movies. Just 'act' in Second Life and let the program capture it. Then include it in your e-learning course. I haven't figured out if Linden Labs (owners of Second Life) prohibits the use of photo's and films taken on SL. I think you are OK if you mention the image or video was taken there and link back.
I did not include putting learning on Second Life billboards in here. For me, that is just the same as putting up a web page or writing a piece of paper on some topic. Second Life doesn't add anything to that.
As a conclusion for today's post, some educational resourses on Second Life:
- TOP 20 EDUCATIONAL LOCATIONS IN SL
http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Top_20_Educational_Locations_in_Second_Life
And some other sources of information on the same topic:
http://greateribm.typepad.com/web_log/2006/10/greater_ibm_vir_1.html
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/011107-web-20.html
In one of the next posts I'll talk about pro's and con's of SL.
1- Virtual Class 2.0
One component of the e-learning spectrum has always been the virtual classroom. At this time a virtual classroom is pretty close to a web conference system. You have a list with participants (sometimes in a seating metaphore) who can raise hands and/or show basic emotions. You have a shared whiteboard, a central presentation or polls and questions. You have an instructor and/or a facilitator who speak, sometimes via the tool itself sometimes via a separate telephone conferencing system. And you have a chat window. Centra is one of the popular products in this area.
Second Life-lookalikes could transform this 'Virtual Class 1.0' into what virtual classrooms have always been trying to do: mimic the ever so popular face-to-face classroom as natural as possible, but distant. It might work. People can all teleport to a virtual classroom building and share a learning moment there. As long as the learning is instructional and information sharing only and doesn't involve labs or exercises this will work fine.
A further evolution of this is a Virtual Conference. Lotus for example held part of its January LotusSphere conference both in Orlando ànd in Second Life simultaneously. They are basically the same, except for the number of participants and concurrent events.
Take a look: http://slurl.com/secondlife/ibm%209/34/58/23
2- Research
A second big learning thing with Second Life is learning about Second Life itself. Hey, it is a virtual world and a hugh experiment. Second Life has for example its own virtual economy. I can imagine economists wanting to research if it behaves in the same way as the real world. Will the SL economy collaps if that Chinese lady tries to convert all her money into real dollars?
And there is the dark side. You didn't think SL would be free of terrorists, hackers and freaks did you? Some weeks ago a bomb exploded on SL. Hackers are trying to steal your virtual assets. Just last week I heard about a new problem on SL: child porn. There are no laws against avatars having sex with avatars representing children. I can imagine sociologists will want to research how a society and community in a virtual world evolves. How it regulates itself.
So all of that is valid learning. But it is more research-oriented , so I for one am not interested as my 'thing' is corporate learning. This is for the academics among us.
3- Learning to be someone else
What better way for sensitivity training, role play or diversity training if you actually can change into someone else. How does it feel to be a woman, a black person, or a gay rabbit? Second Life can have its place in any kind of training where you are trying to let participants experience things from the other's point of view.
4- Soft skill simulation and coaching
Second Life can be used to bring coach and coachee together via the net. For example a manager and his coach can meet on Second Life every evening to go over their program. A sales trainee can schedule a one-on-one with a virtual coach to practise selling a product.
5- Images and 3D animation
And if nothing else, Second Life is a cheap way to get quality images and 3D animation movies. Just 'act' in Second Life and let the program capture it. Then include it in your e-learning course. I haven't figured out if Linden Labs (owners of Second Life) prohibits the use of photo's and films taken on SL. I think you are OK if you mention the image or video was taken there and link back.
I did not include putting learning on Second Life billboards in here. For me, that is just the same as putting up a web page or writing a piece of paper on some topic. Second Life doesn't add anything to that.
As a conclusion for today's post, some educational resourses on Second Life:
- TOP 20 EDUCATIONAL LOCATIONS IN SL
http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Top_20_Educational_Locations_in_Second_Life
And some other sources of information on the same topic:
http://greateribm.typepad.com/web_log/2006/10/greater_ibm_vir_1.html
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/011107-web-20.html
In one of the next posts I'll talk about pro's and con's of SL.
Labels: metaverse, Second Life
