Learning About Second Life

I’m very much hooked on Second Life at the moment. That means I’ve subscribed to a number of Second Life and virtual reality related blogs, and have been watching some videos on YouTube to find some places I haven’t visited yet.

One such place was Princeton University, which has been recreated in Second Life. Princeton has created one of the biggest areas in the virtual world, spanning seven “islands” and encroaching on MIT’s land. It was fun walking around and looking at the buildings, but there didn’t seem to be anything particularly interesting happening there. Hopefully though, that will change in the future:

Computer science professor Ed Felten, who directs the Center of Information Technology Policy and has examined the potential applications of Second Life, said the program has practical uses as well as entertainment purposes.

“Some colleges have experimented with using it for teaching classes inside a virtual world, which is called distance learning,” he said.

Though the University has no plans to use Second Life for hosting lectures because it is sometimes unreliable, Temos said the program eventually could be used as an alternative to precepts held in physical classrooms.

I’ll probably revisit the topic of virtual classrooms in the future, but I want to leave you with this promo video, giving an overview of Second Life and what it’s capable of.

If you can’t view the video, you can see it here on YouTube.

If you like, you can find me on Twitter at @nick_ramsay. I'd love to hear from you!

5 thoughts on “Learning About Second Life

  1. There is another side of Second Life and it sounds like you might not have seen it yet. Even if you haven’t seen “the other side”, there’s a lot more to think about than “user generated content” and “virtual meeting spaces”. Even people from Princeton understand the detrimental effects of the platform.

    1. Fair enough, I’ll admit it has its sordid side, but I’m surprised anybody would got to such lengths as to set up a site called “Second Life Sucks dot Com”.

  2. I just feel that it sucks “that bad”. Not any huge lengths to go to, either. Registered the domain and had it set up in under ten minutes. There’s plenty of content to fill the site with. That’s for sure.

    1. I don’t like eggs, but a lot of people do. I don’t go around trying to convince people how disgusting eggs are. Besides, Second Life is free so let people try for themselves.

  3. Yes there is so much to learn about on that site! Its crazy! Its an interesting idea and it amazes me how much thought and planning has gone in to it!

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