Second Life

Second life is a famous virtual world. The difference from virtual worlds I introduced before is that this virtual world is not design for education. Even so, there are still educators who try to use it in education context, especially in Language Learning. In this blog I will introduce some example of the using in education. For the virtual world itself, you can learn more from their official website and Wikipedia.  

Since Second life is not an educational virtual world, it doesn't include activities designed for specific instructional goals. Most users in Second life are general players, they communicate with each other and live the life they may not have in the real world. As a result, it is a challenge for educators to explore the possible use of Second Life in their own class context. 

Mihwa Kim from Teachers College of Columbia University had used Second Life in high school history class to investigate how using a virtual environment impacts student learning with collaborative activities. She used Second life as a collaborative space, students in the same group worked together to solve two problems about Korean historical events and concepts. During the activities, students would explore this 3D environment and discuss with other group members, and share their findings with other groups. Her study showed, using this 3D virtual world positively effected students' learning. Interactive, collaborative, embodied, and exploratory features in Second life led students learn more.

Also, there are researchers using Second life to change students' attitude toward science and science related careers. Selen Turkay from Teachers College, Columbia University, used Second life in a high school located in New York city through a whole semester. Students played to be as scientists. Major science activities took place in SL and were strengthened with classroom discussions led by the teacher. What should be noted is that the specific unit environment used in their class is installed in Second Life by content developer. Remember, Second Life is not an educational virtual world, so educators who plan to integrate this virtual world in their class should develop their own suitable unit environment.

In regard of Language Learning, there is an example of a group of American and Chinese researchers using Second life as a virtual learning space where a EFL program taking place. The participators of this experimental EFL program came from a state university in the southeastern USA and a provincial university in Eastern China. The American students are freshman from different department and took a basic computer skill course. The Chinese students are 20 full-time sophomores majoring in English. The learning activities included in this 5-week program are a lecture, virtual tours in group and one-on-one with SL partners and individual presentation. The learning tasks of each week are 1 hour learning activities in SL, blog writing consisting of reflections on their learning experiences in SL and language preparation for learning activities in SL for the subsequent week. According to their study, the study participants perceived the SL_EFL Program to be interesting, effective and helpful in the EFL learning.

   

Although researchers find some advantages of using SL as a virtual learning space, there are problems perceived from their research, such as distracting objectives, uninvited people suddenly came out and so on. Even so, I think it is good that teachers, educators and researchers try to explore how to use Second Life in education.