This week the makers of Second Life unveiled a new interface designed to make the virtual world more user-friendly, and some professors say it will help their educational experiments.
The new interface, called Second Life Viewer 2, looks more like a Web browser. The designers say their goal was to make it easy to find the navigation controls, and to find other people and events in the virtual space. And the new software makes it easier to browse Web pages within Second Life and watch YouTube videos and Flash multimedia.
Nergiz Kern, who runs a blog called Teaching in Second Life, wrote that the new interface seems easier and will make it easier to get students up to speed to participate in classes in the virtual world.
A recent survey of members of the New Media Consortium, a Texas-based higher-education-technology group, found that the steep learning curve of the old Second Life software was the biggest barrier to its educational use.
Some educators are now experimenting with open-source alternatives to Second Life, hoping to design virtual worlds better suited to use as virtual classrooms.
14 Responses to Will Second Life Upgrade Help Virtual Classrooms?
11272784 - February 25, 2010 at 5:40 pm
Given the amount of work it takes to build an environment in Second Life and the compexity of operating in it, I am not convinced that it’s the answer to a question that any educator has actually asked.
magrathea - February 25, 2010 at 7:28 pm
There is no need to “build an environment” in Second Life in order to teach there. A few tools and a knowledge of virtual worlds teaching are sufficent, and there is a community of supportive colleagues who are willing to help new teachers. Our students can use this virtual space at no charge; they can collaborate with students from other universities and other nations, and they can even participate in communities of practice. Learning in a virtual world can be very powerful, and the quality of the experience is improving yearly.
dallasm12 - February 25, 2010 at 10:03 pm
As a graduate student at Northern Arizona University, I just created a free Second Life intro course for teachers interested in exploring the possibilities of virtual learning environments and am discovering the new browser to be a great enhancement. It’s much more intuitive and fashioned after already familiar browser layouts.The course is designed to be self-paced or group interactive so anyone should feel free to try it out.
eurominuteman - February 26, 2010 at 4:36 am
Check the Ning “Immersive Environments” for more systematic background on choosing other 3D immersive options… http://second-life-tool-ranking.ning.com/group/immersiveenvironmentsCheck especially the Thinkbalm Guide (PDF), which compares 19 virtual vendors, with regard to the 3D use case Education and Learning, and its needs & requirements…
eurominuteman - February 26, 2010 at 4:42 am
Comparing Opensim and Second Life http://rezzable.com/blog/rightasrain-rimbaud/comparing-opensim-second-life
eurominuteman - February 26, 2010 at 4:43 am
Second Life/Opensim versus WebEx http://zonjacapalini.wordpress.com/2010/02/21/sl-vs-webex-the-myth-of-second-life-as-a-platform-for-education/
eurominuteman - February 26, 2010 at 4:50 am
A place to discuss the next-generation technology “Grid Computing” and the parallel emerging next-generation method approach “Education Grid”, and their impact on Adult Learning…Grid Computing: The Grid & Adult learninghttp://adult-learning.ning.com/group/thegridadultlearning
eurominuteman - February 26, 2010 at 5:07 am
YouTube and Media sharing with Google Docs is a feature that other 3D browser based systems have already implemented. Its nice to have, but the actual feature needed would be a streaming link with Flickr, so that the uploading of textures for slideshows can be eliminated, thus making things more productive… This feature enables mixed reality presentations and more…Mixed Reality Presentations – [ZONE] Touch Screen Media Television with Searchable YouTube and Flickrhttp://second-life-tool-ranking.ning.com/group/buildingmixedrealityeducationalappsforsecondlife/forum/topics/mixed-reality-presentations
eurominuteman - February 26, 2010 at 5:14 am
Maybe the Google Docs version of its PowerPoint can hold with this capability maturity, I havent tried it yet…
eurominuteman - February 26, 2010 at 5:24 am
Teleport between Grids like SL and OpenSim using Meerkat Viewerhttp://second-life-tool-ranking.ning.com/video/teleport-between-grids-like-sl
urspider - February 26, 2010 at 5:23 pm
Jeffrey, thanks for this piece and continuing to cover SL. I’m planning to take a low-risk (small inventory) avatar and test the new viewer soon. It promises a few things educators have asked for: a more intuitive interface for new users and the ability to run media inside SL without owning land.As for the difficulty building, the new viewer appears to make it harder for experienced builders, but I plan to use an third-party client when I build. And to the respondents who asked, building is tough beyond the basics, yet in all of the classes I’ve taught in SL, the students have good experiences with others’ creations w/o building anything.It’s about simulation and immersion: for me, that means building. For others, it does not and they can use SL in pedagogially productive ways.Ignatius Onomatopoeia: In SLhttp://iggyo.blogspot.com
fergbutt - February 27, 2010 at 8:22 pm
Second Life is so 2008.
arrive2__net - March 1, 2010 at 2:59 am
Once you get a teaching environment built in Second Life, it may be possible to scale it. The course structure might be duplicated, so other instructors could also quickly prepare to teach the course without reinventing the basic structures, or multiple instructor could team teach the course. Obviously the basic structures may also be usable for other courses in other time slots. Maybe a sort of Second Life course management system will develop, so a basic model of the structures required for a course could be quickly adapted from a basic standard form. Bernard SchusterArrive2.net
11272784 - March 1, 2010 at 4:13 pm
I’d be happy to get our faculty to stop using worn-out markers on a whiteboard and projecting documents created in 12-point fonts.