Second Life Review

Second Life (http://secondlife.com/) is a virtual world that allows its users to create avatars and travel to destinations all over the world.  The avatars can communicate with each other and interact in the digital world through the Second Life browser.  I recently joined Second Life to see how it might be used in my high school classroom, as well as other educational endeavors.  The Second Life browser was difficult to get the hang of at first, but after venturing out into the virtual world, I quickly was able to teleport to many interesting places.  I was impressed right away with the fact that I could teleport to many historical landmarks and explore.  I could see how this might be useful in history, science, and many other disciplines at school.  Also, I have read articles that talk about lecture halls in Second Life, where students take their avatars and listen to a lecture presented by a guest speaker or their professor.  As a math teacher, I could see the possibility of taking my class to the Great Pyramids to discuss the volume and surface area of a pyramid.  


Even though Second Life has great potential in education,  I feel it is not in an environment  that can be controlled effectively for younger students.  The avatars can approach any other avatar they come across and chat or even talk over their microphones.  While this feature brings about many great opportunities, such as chatting with their professor or a famous scientist, it also brings about the uncertainty of who else students may chat with in this virtual world.  I guess this is true of the Internet in general, but I bring up the point to emphasis that careful planning must be taken in order to ensure students arrive in the educational arena of this virtual world.  


Second Life will surely draw the attention of students and involve them in the learning process.  It has great potential to allow students to interact with people and places that they may never get the chance to experience in the real world.  Students in middle and high schools today have grown up with virtual worlds and technology available to them in an instant throughout the use of computers, tablets, and gaming consoles.  It seems certain that educating these students will have to take place in an arena that they are comfortable with and peaks their interest.  Second Life could be a great technology tool to fill this need.