Second Life

I don't have any personal experience with Second Life, though I am fairly familiar with it.  I think the implications for educational use are very interesting and I can see some good possibilities for that, if the challenges can be overcome.  Palloff and Pratt discuss the need for creating social presence in order for effective collaborative learning to occur in online settings.  This is the very definition of Second Life, according to Warburton's article.  He cites Schroeder (1996) and states that Second Life, "allows or compels the user (or users) to have a sense of being present in an environment other than the one they are actually in." If, in fact , that sense of online presence can be established in Second Life, some of the physical barriers to successful distance education can be overcome.  Some of the advantages described in the article include the ability for simultaneous participation, real time interactions, similarities to the real world because of the physical space, the ability to interact with objects in a 3-D environment, and the persistence of the in-world environment.  The first two of these advantages -- simultaneous participation and real time interactions could, in my opinion (and with no actual experience with SL) be realized through the use of other synchronous activities such as video and chat.  Certainly though, there could be more of a sense of physical interaction within a virtual world -- the closest to an actual classroom environment without actually being in the same physical space.

Technical issues and problems would obviously be a negative factor if relying on Second Life for an online class.  Down time, updates, those unforeseen and unexplainable random network issues...all could result in mass frustration on the part of students and instructors alike.  The time and costs involved would also be deterrents to widespread integrations.  Warburton also discussed more personal issues that can be challenging for Second Life users such as building a social identity, issues with isolation -- the very thing instructors would use SL to overcome, challenges with collaboration which result in the need for additional activities, and the lack of standards across platforms.

As new developments occur and more people become involved in the process, many of the challenges to Second Life will surely be addressed.  It will be interesting to see if widespread use becomes the norm, or if some other tools of technology will surpass it.