Second Life

I recently had an opportunity to take part in a meeting within Second Life. Second Life is a virtual environment in which multiple users can interact with each other. Within this virtual world avatars can purchase land, built structures, socialize, present information, and teach others, with many more options that may be unknown to me. While there are many areas of Second Life that are used for personal interaction our purpose that day was to interact within the interface and to gather ideas for how it can be used for education.
Once you sign up for an account you are asked to create a username within SL (and to download the software, which is free). You may create your first name, but there are predetermined last names that you much select from (although the reasoning behind this was not immediately known). Once logged in, there were approximately 25 avatars that represented both colleagues I knew (identifiable because I knew their avatar’s name before logging in) and those that I did not know, only that they were part of the same University program that I was (although I did encounter avatars that were strangers and not part of our group). We were given instructions mainly through a chat interface, along with a list of islands to visit. We were then directed to find a partner (or in many cases form groups of 3 people) to teleport to different locations. No other instructions were given (with the exception to stay with and communicate with your small group).
The lack of direction allowed us to wander around getting used to this virtual reality. Although this was a great way to simply explore, I personally would have preferred to know ahead of time that this was the goal. I kept waiting for further instructions, which distracted me from my surroundings. For a first time participant Second Life was relatively easy to use. We were shown the basics of how to get around with ease, although one would most likely be able to find their way around even without guidance.
My opinion of this virtual reality? I’m not sure yet. I’m certainly happy I had the experience, but unsure that I would want to use it with the students in my building. Second Life would require a decent chunk of educational time that would be used for students to get past the “wow” factor. After which I don’t believe that the students in my building would use it for open exploration as a learning environment. They would need to have a specific task in mind to keep them focused. I see that organizations such as museums could showcase their body of work within Second Life and that I could build a lesson around that. How is it different than me taking them to the Internet site for that museum? Why is Second Life a better option than that? I understand that this is simply one example and that I need to conduct more research before passing judgment. But….based on my one time experience, I’m not convinced it would be worth the class time it would take to get students to use it correctly. Additionally, teachers would have to put in time to not only learn the interface, but to see how exactly they could apply it to their subjects.
I’m keeping an open mind to Second Life. I’ve even begun reading an article about how it could be used in education. What I would prefer to see is a specific example of an elementary school that has used it, and how it played out. Of course, if CPS blocks Second Class (which is unknown by me at the time of this posting) then the conversation is mute.

This website is a wiki which contains videos that teach about second life: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Video_Tutorials

Another wiki with ways to use Second Life in Education