Using Second Life

Module #4: Using Second Life

Please see the U-tube posting of this video

When I was first introduced to Second Life, I was skeptical. I have two teenage sons, both into gaming, and it has always seemed like an alien world to me. However, the more I learned, the more I saw the potential of virtual world environments, like Second Life, to support teaching and learning. As a teacher and media specialist, I must prepare students to function in the 21st century: a “media-suffused environment” requiring students to possess advanced technology skills, be able to collaborate on a local and global scale, and use higher order thinking skills. Because this environment is constantly changing, learning goes beyond the schoolhouse doors.

However, one of the biggest problems I see is that the majority of students are not invested in their education. They don’t see how it connects to the real-world. They are also frustrated that the typical school is set-up to appeal to students with a narrow range of learning styles, using a narrow range of resources. So it is ironic that a virtual world has the potential to engage students, meet the needs of diverse learners, connect students to the global community and help them become literate in multiple literacies. Virtual worlds, like Second Life offer an alternative to traditional education, one that engages students, provides instruction in multiple literacies, and brings the real world into the classroom.

Expand the Edges of Students’ World
At the rural high school where I work, many students have limited experience outside the area where they live and have limited access to technology at home. Not only do they struggle with traditional literacy, but they are way behind their peers in multiple, technological literacy. Literacy used to be defined as the ability to read and write, a far too limited definition for young people today. According to Nancy Taylor, Scholastic Reading Specialist :

Adolescents today navigate through multiple formats of literacy — films, web sites, television, CD-ROMs, books, magazines, music, videos, and newspapers. Not only do educators recognize Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences; we also address the realm of multiple literacies with today's adolescents.
However, studies show that “approximately 40% of U.S. adolescents cannot comprehend specific factual information.” Second Life can expose students to a variety of environments (naturalistic), multi-sensory experiences (visual, kinesthetic, auditory, musical), simulated interactions (linguistic, interpersonal and intrapersonal) and invite them to engage in problem solving (logical-mathematical).

For many researchers, this potential is:
“…the strongest attraction [of virtual world environments, like Second Life] …the extent to which the environment serves as a legitimate surrogate for the real world, allowing users to inhabit personas and situations that are otherwise unavailable to them. …”
http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7038.pdf

Between budget cuts and the small size of our school, we have difficulty offering all of the courses our students would benefit from: foreign language, upper level classes, and specialized subjects all suffer. Second Life offers the opportunity to offer these classes, taught by a certified, reliable instructor. Thus the courses in German, detective fiction and the Civil and Revolutionary Wars could be offered even though we only have 12 students participating (instead of the 18/20 required by the county). These and other classes can be enriched by visits to foreign countries, museums, battlefield sites and experts in the field—all meeting in Second Life, all free.

Foreign language instruction is offered in Second Life through programs like “Avatar English”, founded by Howard Vickers. Every class offers a virtual experience involving language acquisition, immersing language learners in a language rich environment, thus increasing learning.

Our teachers often struggle to give students the global perspective required to thrive in the 21t Century. For example, students complain that they don’t care about the Holocaust, book burning, the violence in the Middle East or endangered species. Second Life has the potential to take students to the site of a concentration camp, speak with a Holocaust survivor, experience daily life in Afghanistan, and see an endangered species in its natural habitat, interviewing the scientist working to save the species and the habitat.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Involve have created a virtual space on Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass) when the Nazis destroyed
Jewish businesses, burned synagogues and books, and arrested and murdered Jews and put 25,000 to 30,000 people in concentration camps. Reading about these events makes little impression on students—experiencing them in a virtual world may help them appreciate the reality of historic events.


Financial Literacy is a new requirement for CCPS: a course that could be energized by virtual visits to sites established by business schools: shopping malls and how to manage money, the stock exchange, people who have lost everything when their business downsized or the market crashed. Games like Credit Union Island, launched by Ohio University and Members United Corporate Federal Credit Union and the Filene Research Institute allows students to guide their avatars through real-life financial decisions such as taking out a college loan, making car payments and buying a home.

At least half of the families in my school community have not attended college. The fact that many colleges and universities have developed a presence in Second Life introduces these young people to the unfamiliar world of higher education—minimizing fear of the unknown. Schools like Case Western Reserve University allow perspective students to visit the campus, meet professors and students, sit in a classroom, eat in the dining hall and sleep in the dorm. Offering courses in a virtual world may also be a way to make college affordable for more young people.





Our school has a large vo-tech program for students not college bound, including nursing, auto repair, engineering, computers and culinary arts. Second Life has the capacity to allow role playing as an educational tool while students are immersed in a virtual world. One can offer training simulations in Second Life: “practice makes perfect.” Students can practice driving skills through simulations, repeated exposure to difficult driving situations such as merging, what to do when a car pulls out in front of you and how to change a flat tire.


Nursing Skills Support Education, students can practice their interactions with patients and repeat skills, like interviewing patients, drawing blood and recording vital signs.

When it comes to Second Life, I have moved from skeptic, to enthusiastic supporter. In my school system, the challenge will be to get our administration and our technical capabilities to the point where virtual worlds like Second Life can become a reality in our schools.