Ignatius Onomatopoeia, a faculty member with the University of Richmond who's been a longtime advocate of Second Life as an educational tool, recently had an email conversation with me, where I expressed a recurring curiosity of mine:
I'm not aware of any education application besides the Canadian Border Simulation which have showed concrete, verifiable success metrics for using SL pedagogically... [Does educators' continued interest in using Second Life prove] SL is working with their students, or just that it's working with people (select students and teachers) who are already evangelists for Second Life?
Taking up my challenge, Iggy visited the University of Texas' massive Second Life presence, and went searching for the kind of metrics I've been longing to see. He doesn't quite succeed in the way I hope: The strongest evidence he finds that Second Life is useful for educators is that many of them are renewing their schools' contracts to keep maintain a presence in Second Life:
"It surprised me to hear how many UT campuses were opting in for another year in SL," he reports. That is a valuable data point, but I do think it's subject to a number of possible interpretations: Does that mean these schools' students are getting real value from SL now, or are the schools' metaverse evangelists mainly doing a good job convincing the administration to keep funding them? It's hard to know. Iggy does point out a more concrete example from the UT system:
[A] Design instructor at UT Austin and a Marine Science instructor located 3 hours away... used SL to replace a video link technology that was buggy. At the end of the collaboration, the "result was an underwater classroom and a research vessel that could test water, get data." This simulation has "cool factor" all over it and would be far less expensive than finding an actual research vessel.
That's definitely valuable, though of course, a similar project could have been done much cheaper in OpenSim (a point Iggy also notes.) And do the benefits outweigh the 3-4 hour Second Life learning curve that students and educators must minimally endure, to even access this content? There, I'm still not convinced. This isn't to say Second Life has no pedagogical value, because I certainly think it does, especially when the project is possible only in SL -- like this collaborative machinima project created by students at the Japan campus of Temple University. I just keep hoping to report more compelling evidence -- test scores, peer-reviewed studies, and so on. To paraphrase another noteworthy Texas export, I still want to know: "Is our children learning in SL?"
the more you focus on the "product/service" called "Second Life" offered by Linden Lab the more youll find smaller and smaller ROI for the usage of realtime collabrative 3d media.
and no 'metaverse' pr can solve that.
the more one looks to education/ training/ and collabrative efforts via simulations ..and looks at the full spectrum of offereings and capabilities, the more one will see the trends to adoption by many.
Posted by: cube3 | Friday, July 23, 2010 at 10:18 AM
Yur also looking for established applicational uses for second life, trying to place sl into the jigsaw puzzle of consumerism. SL has transformed people in a way not yet realised or categorised yet. There is no place for educating anyone until the real effects of virtualisation of our experience and it's effect on who we are what we do and how we grow overall is understood,.... I love king prawns
Posted by: Loki | Friday, July 23, 2010 at 12:03 PM
Poke around The Journal of Virtual Worlds Research (full papers are all online and free to access). Lots of pedagogical research and results involving SL and VWs in general. http://jvwresearch.org
Posted by: John "Pathfinder" Lester | Friday, July 23, 2010 at 12:30 PM
Hi, I am registered for a class next fall with my sociology teacher who is going to teach a class in SL about social issues. Should be interesting, I can't wait. College is NMSU.
Posted by: Hannah Yakan | Friday, July 23, 2010 at 01:24 PM
Give our UT researchers time. As I noted in my post about this, higher ed. moves slowly, and that's good because our results have to be vetted at every step.
I suspect we will see the sorts of metrics Hamlet expects, coming out in peer-reviewed journals. And if learning outcomes were not met, we'll see that for sure. I trust my colleagues to report accurately on what happened.
Compared to the private sector, where results are expected quarterly, academic research is a long process. Even if results are now in an editor's hands after the pilot-project year ended, it will be a year before we see publications.
Then I think we'll be able to see measurable results from the UT projects.
Posted by: Ignatius Onomatopoeia | Friday, July 23, 2010 at 02:34 PM
Hamlet,
You seems to have a very limited understanding of learning, which I believe is deliberate since you obviously are pursuing an agenda.
I'll say again, I sure do hope the Linden's aren't listening to you.
Just understanding how to use the technological platform provided by SL effectively for different purposes is an immense learning experience, and sure beats spending hours in front of a TV. This is how SL should be promoted for learning purposes.
Posted by: Mark | Monday, July 26, 2010 at 11:57 AM
The best application for Education is one of Distance Learning. Campuses are expensive to upgrade. Campuses locked into downtown areas (like UT) are doubly so. But if you offered ALL freshman classes in SL cheaper than it would cost to build taller buildings, you'd have scores of parents happy to save a few K and keep (tolerate) the kid home for another year. Students can interact with the prof (teaching assistant) inworld just like in a classroom. Virtual office hours, the same thing. Plus texts and materials can be emailed back and forth instantly. Increased enrollment while not having to build new campus buildings? What's not to like here?
Posted by: shockwave yareach | Monday, July 26, 2010 at 01:50 PM
HI There. John Wiecha (Boston University Medical School) and I conducted a pilot continuing medical education event in SL last June with famly practice physicians. We had some very interesting (and positive) data. You can read the details and take a look at the data in this article we published in The Journal of Medical Internet Research: http://www.jmir.org/2010/1/e1/
Posted by: Robin Heyden | Tuesday, July 27, 2010 at 04:14 AM
They’re a whole lot far more watchful about what they article. Understandably.Seriously good selection. Thanks for sharing
Posted by: retro jordan 5 | Monday, August 02, 2010 at 08:31 PM
I published an article in the book "Learning and Teaching in the Virtual World of Second Life", which includes assessment of teaching and learning in SL:
http://books.google.com/books?id=RRF1t6e5QacC&printsec=frontcover
We have been using SL for teaching since 2007 and I must admit the two biggest problem areas are archiving of materials and feedback (quantitative and qualitative) on effectiveness and results. The two broad approaches; as a means of distribution and communication, and as a tool for student creativity and cooperation are worthwhile. Student motivation is high in those students that 'get it'. Those that don't have really trouble. Distance learning is an obvious area of application.
I think it depends on finding a suitable context for the use of SL in learning and then supporting that learning with other digital and non-digital tools. Teacher motivation and enthusiasm is vital as is a team approach generally.
Thanks for this.
Posted by: Jim Barrett | Monday, August 02, 2010 at 11:11 PM