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Second Life is a disruptive technology because as Thornburg discussed it came onto the market with more beneficial qualities that obseleted other technologies had. One that immediately comes to mind is Sims City, a virtual world that was created by the user but recently has not been heard of.
I believe Second Life will continue to grow in the business and educator sectors but do not think 5-10 years from now it will be used for individual socializing as it is now used for. Although, Philip Rosendale, the creator of Second Life states it is a world much like Space where you can create your own identity and make anything possible. I still feel like it is fantasy and although it is a "social space" there will be fall outs. You can connect with people but you still are in reality sitting alone. I can see tremendous benefits for use in k-12 education. I wouldn't be surprised if virtual schools replaced traditional schools in the future. Here is one site where Second Life was used in a Middle school. Review the powerpoint presentation it is real look at what worked and what didn't work.
http://site.aace.org/conf/site/sessions/index.cfm/fuseaction/PaperDetails?&presentation_id=50309
Jeannine, my kids will tell you that the Sims are still very much alive. Though they skirt the trashy side of Second Life enough to keep teens interested, they offer enough of a buffer to ease the minds of parents (or at least the ones my children have). Watching social networking swiftly move from MySpace to Facebook has led me to believe that the staying power of these technologies lies in the hands of a fickle public. MySpace was THE social network space until somehow it became yesterday and associated with hook-ups and booty calls.
ReplyDeleteJeannine,
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I agree with you on the 5-10 years for it to grow in the business and education fields. What benefits do you see for the K-12 classroom using Second Life? Do you feel that there will be social issues as there has been with other social networking?
I think conversations, and especially the discourse, on Second Life (SL) should take on a mature character in order to attract more people to the technology as well as its potential to become a disruptive technology in reality. Proponents of SL, from personal experience, do a disservice to the cause when they describe SL as something in which people can be reborn as something else in the metaverse. It's a bit reminiscent to those of us of a certain age of the Dungeons & Dragons afficionados in the 1980s whose zeal for the game, perhaps, made the rest of us a little nervous. Reality is the best asset SL has going for it and this aspect ought to be exploited, and let the SL fantasists put their energies into the entertainment prospect of this technology of such great potential to revolutionize instruction and learning beyond anything that has yet been.
ReplyDelete@Jodie, Funny how certain sites evolve so to speak. I feel it has to do with the content that is allowed and the monitoring or should I say lack of monitoring by the web host moderator.
ReplyDelete@Lynne, Benefits will be that teachers will not have to deal with discipline issues as they do now. I believe education is a priveledge and those who don't want to be there should not have to be. Although I know their will be fallouts...
@Marlon, I agree in regards to its potential, like everything else there must be buy in. Thanks for the comment.
Great post Jeannine! I would agree that Second Life needs to do some shifting in order to live up to its praise and potential. The students that I teach are very tech savvy, and after an informal survey this week very few of them use SL. When I asked why, they responded that they could do all of their socializing in Facebook. Maybe the creators of SL need to take a look at FB and see if the two could merge.
ReplyDeleteJeannine,
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post! Thank you for including the link to the powerpoint. It provided a view of the pros and cons of using Second Life in the middle school classroom. As I look at incorporating Second Life into instruction, this is a wonderful resource to consider. There were also technology tools included in the study that I was not aware of including using Google to create a site for students to communicate and collaborate on their final projects. I wonder if this is different from Google docs. This part was not clear in the presentation. Overall, this is great resource!