In March of 2006, I joined Second Life. At that time, educational institutions were beginning to pay attention to the space as “educational environment.” Knowing the track record on (lack of) innovation that most institutions bring to online education, I wanted to see if there was anything interesting happening there. Near my first anniversary I wrote up my observations in a long post on my SLumming blog. At that point, I observed that most educators working in the space were trying to recreate the classroom experience in-world. Rather than using the space as it existed, they were imposing real-life expectations, structures, and restrictions where they were neither required or useful. In some cases, those efforts led to frustration and dissatisfaction. In too many more, the educators completely failed to comprehend the nature of the space and were quite happy with the results they were getting.

For the sake of clarification, my objection is to the use of Second Life as a “virtual classroom.” In the “virtual classroom” a virtual student goes to a virtual space to sit in a virtual chair so a virtual instructor can show them a virtual powerpoint, or even a movie of their lecture. In many cases the student must raise a virtual hand in order to type a question and must be acknowledged by the virtual instructor before they can speak. This structure is a direct translation of the real-world classroom. This scenario plays out over and over in-world. Classes, presentations, and lectures all have the same form.

I believe these efforts are well-intentioned and misguided on the following grounds:

• Synchrony: A classroom is predicated on the assumption of effective application of instructor time. Students gather in one place at the same time so that they can all get the same message with a minimum of repetition. That assumption of synchrony is carried in-world by teachers who do not understand that the web is not bound by that same stricture. More, because the web is global, timezone issues are endemic.
• Telling vs Doing: A classroom is based on telling. Learning is based on understanding. Understanding is fostered by doing. Homework is based on the idea that you’ll get the idea in class and practice it at home. While you may find out the basic structures in the classroom, you don’t actually learn them until you have to do them for yourself. SL is based on doing.
• 3d Carries Meaning: Nothing in the classroom (except in very rare examples) is more than 2d. If the in-world effort is not going to use the ability to move around in the space, then what is the point of taking the effort in-world. There are many alternatives for 2d presentation on the internet and few of them carry the technological overhead that SL does.
• SL is a Social Space: One of the absolute key elements is understanding the nature of SL as a social space. Typically, the first thing an educator wants to know is how to keep students under control and “protected” from the environment. This represents a fundamental misconception about the space. The reason for it is to make sure they “stay on task” but the problem is that the tasks are typically misguided. See above.
• SL is a Creative Space: Yes, you need to have land to support prims that allow people to create objects. That’s the cost of doing business in SL. At $200US/mo the cost is stupidly cheap for any institution of any repute (I own a full region myself). The learning curve is short (at least for rudimentary activities) and supported by a plethora of youTube videos, tutorial sites, and instructional materials. At a minimum, any teacher working in SL should know how to build, texture, and do basic scripting. Failing to understand these functions is like working in a classroom and not knowing how to turn on the lights or start the projector.

In my opinion, the value of Second Life is in experiencing the world. The potential for learning through doing is limited only by the imagination of the creator. In spite of my general lack of support for the majority of “educational” activities in SL, I’ve seen some that exemplify what I’d call ‘good practice’

• A college class on teaching in 3d worlds where the students have to actually learn how to build, texture, script, and interact with the world and each other. They do that by building, texturing, scripting and interacting. There is a classroom component but it involves a symposium where they gather to share thoughts and ideas with each other and not attend a lecture.
• “The Alley Flats Project” – A local Austin, TX, initiative to provide green, low-cost housing. A group of in-world builders took the blueprints for the green houses and built them to scale, then created a sample neighborhood around the models so that visitors could walk through the neighborhood and observe the effect for themselves.
• Embodiment Research Group – A group of researchers who are interested in how cognitive processes are changed by the way one’s body is configured. They’re examining issues like “in-world/real-world” permeability (the effect of real-world physiognomy from in-world activity), and how perception of body in-world effects others.

Finally, after almost eighteen months in world, I offer these suggestions to would be teachers in SL.

1. Learn the world. Not everybody is going to be a master builder or a super scripter. Rudimentary understanding of the space is required if a teacher is going to take advantage of it by incorporating the strengths of the world into their practice.
2. Get a job. There are jobs out there. You can always open a shop, start a club, create something and try to sell it. Participate in the economy. The economy is what differentiates SL from most other social spaces and it changes how the residents relate to each other.
3. Get off the island. Way too many educators get into a single space or mindset and ignore the rest of SL. I’m not suggesting you wallow in the prurient, but don’t be a tourist. If you don’t know what’s there, you can’t understand what’s possible.
4. Stop thinking about teaching. Be wary of the question “What’s the best way for me to teach this?” That’s the wrong question to ask. Think about learning. In SL you’re not bound by the same strictures you are in the classroom. If you could do anything (and you can), what would be the best way for somebody to learn whatever it is you’re trying to instill in them? Do that.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 19th, 2008 at 8:53 am and is filed under 688, Education, Resources. 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.