Pros and Cons of Using Second Life as a Learning Technology

          I decided I wanted to experience the Second World as an avatar ("Juleeah Lavender") in order to explore some educational areas, and other parts of the vast Second Life frontier. I decided to use the avatar so I could experience what a student would experience. I needed to do this in order to judge anything about Second Life. I was not impressed when the system crashed, or when the avatar's shoes were not functioning correctly. I especially was not impressed when I was in a public zone, and two female avatars ran around me seemingly after each other, and were using very large pistols in the process. On a positive note, when I was near other Avatars, one or two sent me an IM to let me know they were there to help; these "helpers" were from the company tech teams. After two or three hours, I could actually walk almost straight, and fly without hitting too many buildings. That was a little exhilerating, and actually created a sensation of flying. I could not get some other features to work, which were placed by other participants such as a "touch me" screen to start a hologram feature. Another person had placed some features to buy a "how to make or print" parts of a book. I "teleported" to several educational sites, which had tech tools for teaching. After a few hours, I did become quite tired of trying to learn about how to use the system.

        During the Second World experience, although I was not partaking of a lesson or in a learning situation, I kept thinking that students would have to undergo the same orientation that I did. I kept working in the system because in trying to evaluate the Second World, I did not want to give up too soon because I could be losing a valuable tool for my students. I did not want that to be the case unless I worked hard at learning the program. With just trying to evaluate the Second World in 2-3 days, I am not convinced yet that it is either valuable nor invaluable. My goal is to teach online undergraduate students, not younger students (who have already used Second World for a long time). My goal is not to impose massive frustration upon my students (not to say that our instructor did this to us…we are merely learning about new technological tools). 
         My opinion is that instead of having my students spend time designing an Avatar's many features, learning to move it, transport, buy clothes, get freebies, and so forth, so they could afterward participate in a lesson from me or someone else, I would be better off in using this tool for educating myself as a teacher, which the system provides in some ways. I would also be very skeptical of using Second World for a universally designed learning scenario for any age student: even if a physically challenged person in the real world could walk in Second Life, there are many emotional, physical, and cultural challenges which may be erased temporarily, but re-emerge after logging off Second Life. Are our children mature enough to adapt to this depth of change? I conducted some research and found some pros and cons of Second Life written by Valerie in 2008, which was posted at the Educational Development Centre Blog.
          Cons include a long learning curve, difficulty in managing student behavior and interruptions from the real world, the fact that a monetary cost frequently emerges, communications have not been perfected, increased difficulty in ensuring students take their school work seriously, impaired ability for students to reconnect to their real world, and public areas are "uncouth" or "raunchy" – it is not just a space for education, but one in which both bad and good exist.
          Pros include amazing and successful possibilities for learning through development of virtual activities, world of physical limitations – enabling a diverse and creative set of activities, greater connectivity and engagement in distance education classes, a tool used for entertainment becomes also one of education – meeting students where they are and making learning engaging and enjoyable for them, ability to have access to a virtual classroom in cases when physical teaching is not possible, highly adaptable, user created, and users retain intellectual property to their creations, utilizes experiential learning and caters to different learning methods.
         Mmmmmm….more pros than cons. This must mean there are more positives than negatives! What weight do we assign each pro and con, and who devises those weights? For example, one pro is not equal to one con; in fact, one pro may carry five times the importance than the one con.  I reviewed about 20-25 Second Life videos, and almost all were entitled "Educational". My opinion is that this technology could add some value as a supplement to the curriculum, but only as a supplement. My vote is still out on whether I would accept and implement Second Life material into any age curriculum. My instincts after seeing and experiencing first-hand the virtual environment of Second Life are to suspend using it until I can investigate it much further, and see empirical data supporting it.

Reference: 

Educational Development Centre Blog (2008, February 5). Second life in higher education: Surveying pros and cons. Retrieved May 13, 2010, from http://edc.carleton.ca/blog/index.php/
2008/02/05/second-life-in-higher-education-surveying-pros-and-cons/