Extending the Classroom through Second Life

1. INTRODUCTION Over the past few years, Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs), which provide graphical spaces for social interaction, have attracted the interest of a number of researchers, especially for those interested in learning. Second Life (Linden Lab, 2008) is one example of a MUVE, which has gained a lot of exposure recently. According to an estimation published by Gartner Group (2007), 80 percent of active Internet users will have a virtual presence in the form of an "avatar" in at least one virtual world by the end of 2011. Following the same trend, the number of academics using some form of a MUVE as a platform for learning has grown at a rapid pace due to the success of Second Life (Livingstone and Kemp, 2006, 2007). For example, the University of California (UC), Irvine started an experimental distance learning initiative for the purpose of supporting courses so that they can use it as a platform for computer design projects; under supervision of Service Learning Projects with San Jose State University's Master of Library and Information Science (SJSU MLIS) program, a hybrid course in Second Life is offered at UC Davis, and Harvard University's Berkman Center built a virtual version of Austin Hall in Second Life and holds meetings there (Lester, 2006). As educators move their teaching platforms and adapt pedagogy towards the technology and culture of the information age, we can observe a shift in educational strategies. Today's students are more familiar and comfortable using technology as a learning tool. Online and hybrid courses have been around for many years; now however we are seeing a growing interest and increased usage of education within 3D virtual settings. Hundreds of universities and educational institutions have reportedly owned/rented land to hold classes or sessions in Second Life (Linden Research, 2009), and coupled with the myriad of related projects and initiatives related to Second Life and education (e.g., The Schome Community, 2007; Roussou, Oliver and Slater, 2006), we believe a need exists to further study the effectiveness of such a medium as a learning environment. From the author's preliminary investigation, the following research questions need to be addressed: RQ1: What are the advantages and disadvantages/ problems of involving Second Life in classrooms? RQ2: How to adopt virtual world technology to teaching and learning in universities effectively? RQ3: How to design effective activities for learning in an environment like Second Life? In an initial effort to explore the potential of Second Life in education and to answer the above research questions, a series of field trials were carried out involving Second Life activities in a classroom setting. This paper reports the series of field studies we conducted. It is organized as follows: in the next section, a brief introduction of Second Life is presented. Attempts of using Second Life for educational purposes in literature, the research methodology utilized, and field trials using the Second Life environment are discussed in sections three to five and our main study in section six. The findings of these field studies are summarized and future research directions are discussed at the end. 2. WHAT IS SECOND LIFE? Second Life (SL) is an Internet based three-dimensional virtual world, created by San Francisco based company Linden Labs. Originally released in 2003, Second Life has seen a large influx of users over the last few years, now totaling over 16 million registered accounts (Linden Research, 2008). Other similar virtual environments do exist, such as Twinity (Metaversum GmbH, 2009), Active Worlds (ActiveWorlds, 2009) and There (Mekena Technologies, 2009). While these other spaces remain competitors, Second Life still has a strong user base and strong attraction for new users, with some attributing its popularity to the large amount of varying in-world activities (Wagner, 2008). …