Second Life as a Learning Tool

Found via Corporate eLearning Strategies and Development

A great introduction to using Second Life as a teaching / learning tool. Video embedded below - didn't show in my blog reader.



A few thoughts ...

1. I've said for a while that Second Life offers something interesting in terms of providing a natural "setting" for online sessions, presentations, etc. because they are based on understood physical settings, e.g., presentation rooms with break out spaces. Now that Second Life has audio, there is a really interesting capability to have natural break-outs during online sessions that just never seems to work well in the current batch of tools, e.g., WebEx, LiveMeeting, etc. I've been saying for a while that these mainstream tools will eventually start to provide a very simple SecondLife like thing. The hurdles for Second Life are still a little too high for them to become truly mainstream, but would be great for a controlled audience.

2. Over Spring Break 2007, my family including my kids (ages 12, 10 and 7) came with me to Boston (where I was speaking). They had a great time seeing places they had heard about. But probably the best experience was a visit to Plymoth Plantation - a recreation of Plymouth where actors playing the part of Native Americans and Colonists told stories and answered questions about life, religion, history, etc. It was a fantastic learning experience where you learned things in such a great way. And there were quite a few surprises, that I didn't remember ever hearing in all my different history classes. (We have a rather idealistic view of the colonists.)

I came home from the trip thinking that the California Missions should really do something similar. I've had to take my kids to a Mission several times as part of their school work and it's frankly boring to walk around reading as compared to the experience at the Plantation. Maybe one of the tribes that has casinos could sponsor putting this together?

But as I was watching the video, I realized how effectively this kind of experience could be done in Second Life with the physical space recreated and having avatars online answering questions. Somehow I'd not pictured using Second Life this way until I saw the video. Truly that would transform the learning experience just like the plantation transformed the learning experience for my family.