NMC Campus Observer

Your First Life is Fine

CDB Barkley (aka Alan Levine) : Sep 25, 2006 05:47pm

Over at Academic Commons, Christopher Watts writes What Are You Implying About My First Life? Real Students, Virtual Space and Second Life — the title alludes to his openiog statement:

I have been thinking quite a bit about Second Life lately. And yes, I have been spending a fair amount of time in Second Life. There are some things about it that irk me. The name, for example: it seems to imply that my second life, whatever form it may take, is likely to be of higher quality than my “first life.” I hope that is not the case. But there is also an incredible potential there that keeps me coming back.

After giving NMC Campus some good nods, Christoper goes on to describe how last Spring, for a faculty development showcase, they decided to show a technology (Second life) that was “out there”, one that generated both excitement and concerned, and had a yet hard to nail down potential for liberal education.

He gives recognition to the fact that an emerging technology like this one is definitely not a technology that “saves time” (most will agree the effect is much the opposite). But is that the highest goal for technology? And he counters it with the seductive pitfall of technology that has a huge “cool factor” that overshadows any potential to transorm learning.

Christopher does an excellent job of summarizing how many educators feel with some Second Life experience- there is much potential yet some serious dark sides to consider, and that all of this is in a rapid state of evolution:

By the end of our session, faculty members were coming up with fantastic ways to make use of Second Life: staging crime scenes; prototyping sculptures; designing stage sets; bringing a level of visual interaction to distance learning that is currently missing. The following day, two senior faculty members approached me to tell me that they had had nightmares about Second Life the night before. It is not for everyone. And it is important to remember that our students are not all going to enjoy or even be comfortable using virtual environments. We can call them the Net Generation, but that does not make every one of them exactly the same. Still, Second Life has captured my imagination, and I look forward to figuring out the ways it fits within the enterprise of liberal education. As long as we manage to use it as a tool for engagement and not escape, I feel good about it for now. I hope others who are exploring related questions will weigh in here. In the meantime, I’m going clothes shopping for Walter.

Hey Walter– your clothes are cool, and so are your shades. But go shopping anyhow!

Story filed under: Second Life News

See all stories by CDB Barkley (aka Alan Levine)