In Survey of Educators Using Virtual Worlds, Second Life the Overwhelming Preference

The New Media Consortium, arguably the largest education non-profit involved in using Second Life, OpenSim, and other virtual worlds as a teaching platform, has the interesting results of an informal survey they recently sent out to educators on its contact list and networks. While there's been some talk of educators moving to other virtual worlds, Second Life remains the largest preference of worlds by far at 76% (OpenSim barely registers, and others aren't even mentioned), while 59% of those surveyed say over the last few years, their virtual activity has remained at the same level, or increased:

In another question, when asked where virtual worlds were on Gartner's Hype Cycle, most (61%) said they had not yet reached the Slope of Enlightenment, when they begin to be embraced by the mass market.

To be sure, the survey isn't representative of educators in general. "[I]t is most certainly weighted towards people who are or were active in virtual worlds," NMC's Alan Levine acknowledged to me in a message. "And in fact, we were most interested in people who had been in virtual worlds for a while (e.g. at or before the media attention to Second Life) to ask them what their current level of activity was." Judging from the results, they're still actively involved, but believe general adoption for education remains some distance away -- and that outcome depends for the most part on the fortunes of Second Life.

Comments

[Kiwini Oe]

As long as Second Life is the only virtual world that has substantial cross-platform support, it will continue to predominate in education.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

Not a surprise, Hamlet. SL still offers the most stable environment for us as well as a working economy and--key--a community of peers.

Reaction Grid shows a lot of promise in these areas, however, and it is much cheaper for building stuff and owning land. Rezzable's Heritage Key has made remarkable strides since my class bumbled about in it last semester.

I hope that NMC will repeat this survey annually.

In my blog, I'll report on our first group visit to Reaction Grid by the VW Education Roundtable. We're set to visit this Friday.