The Teaching Game

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A compelling case for education

Teaching and learning are fast becoming a significant set of activities in Second Life. Linden Lab, from the earliest incarnation of SL, has been keen to promote its educational application. The virtual world, according to its developer, is now home to the activities of more than 70 real-world academic institutions ^[1] with courses representing a widening range of disciplines.

A community of practice has formed around the web-based support wikis and forums for educators in Second Life that provides illuminating insights on both the impressions gained by those using SL for education and the types of activity attempted.

Almost without exception educators coming into contact with Second life express their admiration for its potential as an environment for learning and teaching.

“There is immense interest within the educational community to find ways to harness its potential,” - Mechthild Schmidt, a professor at NYU-McGhee ^[2]

“This is huge for online education,” - Rebecca Nesson, Harvard Extension School - “and we are only at the beginning.” ^[3]

There is however considerable debate in educational circles, mirroring that among other Second Life commentators, over what kind of MUVE (Multi User Virtual Environment) Second Life is and what it can or will become.

It's massive, multiplayer and online but is it a game?

Second Life is often grouped together with World of Warcraft, Everquest and others as a Massively Multiplayer Online Game or MMOG ^[4]. This type of online game has been around since the mid-nineties and has mostly consisted of role-playing in fantasy or science fiction based worlds. To the casual observer there appear to be many similarities between Second Life and this form of online activity. Common to both are an online representation of a physical world where players are represented by an avatar. Participants can interact in a quite sophisticated manner with other users, with objects and with the environment.

The level of interest in and subscription to these online games has been steadily rising since 1997 but there has been a steep increase in the rate of new subscribers since the launch of World of Warcraft in November 2004 with subscriber numbers at year’s end 2006 standing at over 7.5 million for WoW alone ^[5]. The curve of registration growth for Second Life has followed a pattern that seems to mirror the whole of the MMOG industry with a gradual start eventually building to a very steep increase with the number of accounts at December 2006 passing the 2 million mark ^[6].

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[1] Institutions and Organisations in SL
Retrieved: 8 December 2006.

[2] Wong, G., (14 November 2006). Educators explore ‘Second Life’ online, CNN.com
Retrieved: 19 December 2006.

[3] Avasthi, A., (17 October 2006). “Second Life,” Other Virtual Worlds Reshaping Human Interaction.
Retrieved: 14 December 2006.

[4] Massively Multiplayer Online Games.
Retrieved: 14 December 2006.

[5] Woodcock, B. S., MMOGChart.com: An Analysis of MMOG Subscription Growth.
Retrieved: 29 December 2006.

[6] SecondLife.com.
Retrieved: 28 March 2006.