There has been a buzz about Second Life http://secondlife.com/ and its potential for education recently. It has taken me a long time to try it out because most of the computers I use are not powerful enough to run it (first warning signal). Once there, I had a specific destination in mind, Edunation, an educational island set up by the Consultants E http://www.theconsultants-e.com/ and went there without delay as there was a scheduled meeting there. Perhaps that was a mistake but I only discovered later that I should have spent some time on the Help Island one lands on initially to learn about how SL works. So I spent a lot of time trying to work out how to get to my final destination (second warning signal). In fact I never made it to the real meeting and was distracted by a water cooler conversation I stumbled across with some people I know. In discussions afterwards it was suggested that we need to take a social learning view of our time in SL and organise help in a more structured and open way so that people don't get lost.
So what is the potential for learning activities in SL? I must obviously give it more time but I have heard of a couple of universities which have set up shop in SL to deliver learning, plus there is an initiative to integrate Moodle with SL, the SLOODLE (inevitably) project http://www.sloodle.com/ I have seen pictures of a virtual classroom where students can pick up their assignments which seems to kind of miss the point to me but others seem to recognise this http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/vvvv/2006/08/19/postcards-from-northern-illinois-university/ and are starting to think of more innovative approaches.
I have a feeling that SL or something like it is part of the future of learning but that for the time being it may be limited to an elite of the digitally rich and savvy. And I will continue to explore it.
Keywords: Consultants E, e-learning, Edunation, Moodle, Second Life, Sloodle
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