About Second Life

Imagine being able to travel to any time period, any place, or for that matter to any world all from the comfort of your computer chair.  Second Life provides not only this but real life experiences.  Viewers can witness first hand a tsunami and going through a hurricane via the hurricane hunter plane.  However, I can understand if questions are currently rolling off the tip of your mind right now and maybe by understanding both the positive and negative side to this, those questions will be answered.

            Firstly, the positives of Second Life and what it can do for the educational system and the general computer user.  Let’s imagine your child sitting down at the computer directly after walking in from the front door.  The power is switched on and within seconds War Craft III is up and running as the lonely school bag lies on the floor next to him.  Now imagine a day has gone by and your child walks in the front door only to repeat the same routine.  The power switch goes on, except this time he is logged into Second Life and exploring the world of 1984 (based off the book “1984” by George Orwell).  Today so many children are immersed in games, so why not bring education into the gaming world?  Second life provides users literally with a hands on experience by the click of a mouse.  Students can explore new worlds, new technology, experience things for themselves, and explore a college campus.  Second Life is literally a virtual world that provides a new wave of learning for a new generation of minds.

            Secondly, the negatives of Second Life and the many problems it could potentially cause.  Seeing as how it is an internet based world, you must take into account all the same problems we experience online.  Just some of these include:  bugs, crashing, identity theft, online harassment, online predators, poor internet connections, lack of internet within the household, and much more.  Listing just the internet problems almost makes this seem an impossible task, but what about the social problems.  Many people today argue that mostly teenagers and young adults prefer chatting online to friends than meeting with them face to face.  These same people also think because of this we are beginning to lack social skills and proper communication, it’s where all our “ummmm’s” and “like’s…” have come from.  We also have health educators complaining about America’s overwhelming obesity problem and how moving to a virtual world to live in will only just fuel this problem more.  So with black there comes white, with light there comes dark, and with good there comes bad just like all things in life, but honestly why not give it a little try.

            Finally the importance of Second Life within a classroom is almost endless.  I will eventually be teaching high school earth science, so to see the NOAA had actually made an island dedicated to learning about weather and weather instruments made me super excited.  I must specify that it wasn’t the, “awesome I have something I can use” excited but rather the, “I can’t wait to try this out myself, how cool would is this (while I’m smiling at my computer screen giggling)” excited.  Honestly I am twenty-one years old and one of my ultimate dreams has been to fly on the hurricane hunter planes into the middle of a hurricane just to see the eye of the storm.  Now just imagine what dreams younger students have and how excited they would get about this.  I mean seriously if a twenty-one year old is sitting here giggling at her computer screen imagine a thirteen year old jumping up and down anticipating, and unable to wait for their turn to explore this world.  If something like this can spark the interest in students, then why shouldn’t it be used within the classroom, why shouldn’t students be excited to learn, excited to explore.  If we can’t take them to that place then let’s do the next best thing and bring that place to them!