Most people probably know that I'm somewhat addicted to video games. I could play Zelda, KotOR, Fable, and Halo forever. Back in the days of old computer games like Labyrinth, King's Quest, Monkey Island, and Jousting, I would play for hours. If someone could have hooked me up intraveneously to sustenance and kept me full of caffeine, I would have played all night. Role playing games, though, are what I like best. I love working through puzzles and investigating new places. So when I heard about an online virtual community called Second Life, I had to see it for myself.
I logged into www.secondlife.com and signed up for an account. It was at first a bit scary. I was standing in a new world, looking not a bit like myself. I tweaked the controls to make my avatar look more like me and set off to find adventure. Since I didn't know where to go, I took the advice of a fellow teacher, who is known as Existential Paine in Second Life, and went to Eduisland. It was a world all its own. I was met with buildings, strange upturned vehicles, and odd masses littering the ground. After some time of wandering aimlessly, I met someone who helped me tour the island. However, I kept thinking it was a video game. I wanted to pick up mugs of java and bash them against walls to see what money I could collect. I kept thinking people who were flying above me were enemies or aliens. I expected to get into trouble at any minute for looking into people's houses. And I couldn't figure out my quest for solving a level. Finally, I realized this was not the purpose of Second Life. Though I'm not entirely sure of its purpose except for fun in a virtual world, I do see how it could hold potential in the educational world.
Second Life has educational possibilities, I think. One can meet others to chat. Some places have buildings with rooms to sit at tables and hold discussions. Dean Koontz, master horror crafter, read his book at Bantam Dell's book shop and cafe. How cool would this be for students to be able to meet all together in virtual reality and hear a famous author reading his or her book or to be able to hold a discussion with an author of a book? Students could meet somewhere on SL and hold real discussions about assigned text or work on class projects. What better way to garner student interest than to meet another classroom from somewhere else in the world to converse about some educational topic? So many possibilities, I think. And since many students love technology and are so much more literate in this medium than I, I think many would be more interested in the subject at hand.
I do, however, think this would require much planning and caution. I noticed I could strip down to my skivvies (maybe even more, though I was not about to try), put on strange outfits, choose an alien-like persona for my avatar, and wreck places by creating litter (which had just happened on Eduisland when I was there and some virtual people were cleaning up the trash). Would I as the leader of the group be able to monitor student activities? Could a student fly (yes, you can actually fly to new places on SL) off and create mischief unbeknownst to me? How would Iensure student learning? How would I evaluate participation? And more challenging still: can students join the adult SL and vice versa? If not, how will we all get on the same island? One can buy an island, at least according to one person I talked to on SL, for about $2000 and then high monthly fees. Perhaps if I own my own island, I would have more control.
I could own my own island. Maybe call it "Webster's Island" or something pithy like that. Perhaps I'll retire there some day when I am ready to leave my teaching days behind. . .
