Second Life Education Research

It seems the world is abuzz with news of education in SecondLife. Here are just a few stories from the last week.
The Chronicle of Higher Education : Here and Here
The San Antonio Current
And The Boston Phoenix (from two weeks ago)

Finally, the world seems to be taking SecondLife seriously and seeing past the strip clubs, Barbie-Doll looking avatars and gambling. There is so much more to SecondLife than vice. There are fantastic cultural opportunities, incredibly intelligent people, and immersive simulations so realistic you can smell the flowers.

I won’t deny that there is a learning curve that has to be overcome to teaching inside SecondLife but the payoff is well worth the effort. In nine years of teaching in higher ed I’ve never seen a class as enthusiastic, excited, or engaged as the one I’m teaching this semester. I can hear the naysayers now “But how you can you teach a serious subject in such a silly place? Aren’t the students excited about the environment and not about the actual material of the class?”

Of course they are. My students like to change their avatars, shoot guns, fly planes, and generally test out all of the perks of SecondLife. However, while they’re doing it, they’re also learning valuable lessons about community, identity, and ethnographic research and writing a ton! As I lecture about fieldwork in class their hands are shooting up to ask if they can research a community they found the night before on a distant island in SecondLife. Even the experimental nature of the class seems to draw them in. They feel privileged to be part of something that feels cutting edge. Several of them have told me about bragging to their friends about what they’ve learned and most of them have asked if the course will be offered again because their friends want to take it.

Meanwhile, they are really internalizing the methods of research I’m teaching and writing insightful blog entries about what they’ve learned about research and writing. I compare teaching writing in SecondLife to teaching chemistry in the kitchen. Using real examples that students can put their hands on makes the learning real and powerful. It’s exciting to watch and I’m fortunate to be a part of it.

To follow the class please visit our site and our picture gallery

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 31st, 2006 at 7:57 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.