Second Life in Education

1
Second Life in Education

• What is it?
• Why use it?
• What to do with it?
• Anything to worry about?

2
SL in numbers

• opened in June 2003
• Almost 10 million registered users
• 30 000 simultaneous registrations
• 54 Europeans (Feb 2007)
• Average age 33
• Women 41
• Approx. 1 million USD money transfer a day.
• 80 of active Internet users will have an
  account by 2011 (Gartner research)

3
Give me one good reason to use it...

• Enhanced motivation
• Immersion
• Much better feeling of community than in
  traditional e-learning
• Threshold for asking questions considerably lower
• Fun
• Free

4
...continued

• Your world, your imagination
• New tools
• Networking
• Cooperating with students and academics from
  other countries
• Real enterprises, organisations and universities
  are there
• Recruiting
• Actually, that was 12 good reasons!

5
But how does it work in reality?
6
Åbo Akademi University has tested it.

• Much more fun
• More convenient
• Enhanced collaboration
• Much better feeling of community
• (compared to traditional e-learning)

• Much more fun
• More collaborative
• Easier to participate
• Lower threshold for asking questions
• (compared to face-to-face teaching)

7
How to use it?

• distance lectures
• group work
• visualisation
• conferences, workshops, seminars
• Åbo Akademi used together with Moodle. Group
  work and discussion took place in SL.
• Lets go and see

8
Too good to be true? Problems with the virtual
world

• A limited number of people can be on the same
  island at the same time.
• Sometimes there are problems with the connection.
  
• SL is not (yet) very attractive (at least for
  people who play console games!)

9
Too good to be true? Wrong target group

• it is a mistake to believe that this is a way to
  attract young students SL is an adult thing. It
  could be like trying to attract kids by playing
  U2 to them and believing that they think its
  cool.
• Some companies have made this mistake and the
  success (or lack of it) has been a
  disappointment.

10
Too good to be true? - Weirdos

• SL, like real world, has its share of strange
  subcultures.
• A fashion phenomenon groups of terrorists who
  are after a cheap laugh and disturb political
  debates or other serious events.
• gt Can be prevented with access limitations?

11
A self-evident conclusion

• It is crucial to pay careful attention to the
  pedagogical quality here as well. There is always
  the danger of hype in new phenomena like this. A
  good idea and good-quality content are still the
  most important things. There should be added
  value.

12
Sources

• Kim Holmberg Isto Huvila, Åbo Akademi
  web.abo.fi/fc/opu/avoin/material/SecondLifeEsitys.
  pdf
• Second Life News www.slnn.com
• Janne Pyykkönen, Pelaaja Magazine Vol 66, March
  2008.