THE DISRUPTIVE POWER OF SECOND LIFE

I have run a state licensed home child care for the last 25 years out of my home.  I became interested in Second Life and Virtual Worlds because of my love of technology but also because I cannot bring the children on fieldtrips.  I also like to add more realistic elements to my curriculum whenever possible.  This being said, as an educator, if anything were possible, where would you like to take the children in your care?  Would you want to take them to tour China and learn about its people and their culture?  Maybe go back in time and visit dinosaurs.  Or how about going on an underwater adventure exploring sea life?  Would you like to visit a factory and see how different products are made?  Of course, these field trips are not possible – or are they?  If you plan and create a virtual field trip it can be done (Kirchen, 2011).

A virtual field trip or VFT is a technology-based experience that allows children to take an educational journey without leaving the classroom or their home environments (Kirchen, 2011).  These multimedia presentations bring the sights, sounds, and descriptions of distance places to learners (Kirchen, 2011).  Incorporating Second Life would allow the students to actually interact with others in these environments in order to actively participate.

Nuthall (2008), quotes Mitch Kapor (who founded Lotus 1-2-3) in respect to Second Life as “Second Life is a disruptive technology on the level of the personal computer or the internet.”  Second Life is a disruptive technology.  I say this because Second Life replaces the traditional physical teaching environment.  It also adds another dimension to the curriculum.

I really cannot pinpoint or guess how many years Second Life has left before another emerging technology or disruptive technology replaces it.  However, I do agree with Rosedale (2008), when he stated “Wherever this is all going, whether it’s Second Life or its descendants, or something broader that happens all around the world at a lot of different points – this is what we’re going to see the Internet used for, and total traffic and total unique users is going to invert, so that the Web and its bibliographic set of text and graphical information is going to become a tool or a part of that consumption pattern, but the pattern itself is going to happen mostly in this type of an environment.”

In reference to the social benefits of Second Life and what the social implications of virtual worlds in education may be, Rosedale (2008), stated “Lifelike environments are really important in some magical way to us.  But the second thing – and I think this one is less obvious – is that the experience of creating, consuming, exploring that information is in the virtual world implicitly and inherently social.  You are always there with other people.  And we as humans are social creatures and must, or are aided by, or enjoy more, the consumption of information in the presence of others.  It’s essential to us.  You can’t escape it.” 

According to Wang and Lockee (2010), one of the current innovations is three-dimensional (3D) virtual worlds.  The medium of virtual worlds for online distance education is currently a topic discussed extensively in the distance education field.  Dass et al., (2011) notes when looking at virtual worlds from an educational perspective “virtual worlds can provide classroom space, house resource materials, or support self-contained stand-alone course conduced entirely within the virtual world."

References

Dass, S., Dabbagh, N., & Clark, K. (2011). Using virtual worlds: What the research 

          says. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 12(2), 95-111.

Kirchen, D. J. (2011). Making and taking virtual field trips in pre-k and the primary

          grades. YC: Young Children, 66(6), 22-26.

Nuthall, K. (2008). US: A disruptive technology arrives - University World News.

          Retrieved from http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=

          20080117162121373

Rosedale, P. (2008). Philip Rosedale on Second Life [Video]. Retrieved from

          http://www.ted.com/talks/the_inspiration_of_second_life.html.

Wang, F., & Lockee, B. B. (2010). Virtual worlds in distance education: A content

          analysis study. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 11(3), 183-186.

 

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