Today there was an article on TechCrunch entitled “Second Life Speaks.”  The article outlines a beta development for the world of Second Life in which residents will not only be able to talk with one another using VOIP protocol, but avatar’s voices will be adjusted “relative to you based on the distance and direction of the speaker.”  Wow!  Now that is getting more real life. 

I have been playing around in Second Life for some time and while my first experience left me intrigued, I kind of dismissed its possible educational use as a virtual classroom.  Relationships were being developed, knowledge was being transferred, but it just took too long to communicate.  With this new development we will have the two most important senses for learning, audio and visual. 

Potential

As I think about my last post about Second Life, I am starting to see the potential here.  If you recall, I was inspired to write because of an article written about Second Life becoming the new internet.  Not just a place to go, but a virtualization of the net. 

Imagine with me for a moment logging onto second life and going to your virtual history classroom (that looks just like your real one).  You sit down with the teacher, and start a lecture, but soon you all transport to a history site and walk through some virtual pictures, or even buildings of some historic event.  Class ends, but you bookmark your location so you can come back later and take a better look around. 

You transport yourself to your virtual Art classroom next.  Same story.  Class starts, you talk for a couple minute then transport to the Salle des États to look at the Mona Lisa.  You can move around the room to look at it from different perspectives, or zoom in as close as you want to see each tiny detail. 

Next you have Spanish class, but this class doesn’t meet on campus, it meets on popular virtual beach in Mexico.  Today you are interacting with all sorts of locals talking, chatting, building relationships with the Spanish skills you have been honing the past 3 years.

You really enjoyed the “break” in the middle of the day and head off to your last class of the day, business.  You quickly change the profile on your avatar to professional attire (the swimsuit from Spanish just won’t do) and transport to your business class (which just happens to me meeting around a virtual board room table).  The class has invested in some virtual property and are discussing some ways to market that property in Second Life. 
With all your classes done, you decide to do some research for your business class and take your avatar and head off to a popular executive meeting place.  You start chatting with some people, not knowing who they are, and soon realize you are talking with a marketing director from IBM who likes to hang out in Second Life in his spare time.  You try to glean as much information as you can before he has to leave.  He adds you as a friend and every once in a while you’ll meet up and talk.

Okay, perhaps all this is an idealized view of what can happen with Second Life, but a lot of this is already happening too.  As I mentioned in my previous post, I met people from all over the world, in all sorts of different backgrounds.  There are no apparent social classes and you can talk to pretty much anyone, anywhere.  The person you are talking to may be a CEO of an organization, or it may be your friend from high school. 

This little scenario is just one example.  The possibilities are endless. 

UNC’s Second Life

On a sidenote, for those reading this from UNC-CH, I went to a lecture
last week on campus about Second Life and apparently we have our own
island.  If you are familiar with Second Life you can find it at these
coordinates: 215.176.27.  It is a work in progress, but it constantly
amazes me how much we can make a virtual landscape look like the real
one.  Stop on by, take a look around, but if want to see a fully
functioning University Campus check out Ohio University (22.137.26).