I heard of Second Life for years. I knew companies used it for marketing purposes and as a testing ground for new products. People use it as social network and can get involved too much to the point to where they actually confuse their second life with their real one. Here are some examples: a Woman Charged With Plotting to Kidnap Boyfriend She Met on 'Second Life' and in the Japanese virtual world of Maplestory: Woman in jail over virtual murder.
First experience in second life
June 13, 2009 was my Second Life avatar's birthday. I spent hours to hunt for her clothes, hair, etc. I didn't like any of the wired looking stuff so she ended up still look like a plain neighbor girl.
I was OK when I was with our first month course team. We talked, typed and moved together. We sent out one or two of our members to explore the unknown world. We kept on talking while the "pioneer" was finding the new lands. It felt like 2 or 3 of us stayed in Huston base and our astronauts were there on the moon. Whenever they found something interesting, they teleported us immediately so the rest of us could see their new discovery. I love adventures but short of sense of direction limited me to stay in the familiar places. With our team, I could ask them to rescue me whenever I got lost.
I need a tourer guide in second life
I went to the Second Life again to visit the places our professor wanted us to go. I was thinking if I knew nothing about Multiple Intelligence, will I get the idea when I visited this SL Multiple Intelligence place http://slurl.com/secondlife/Koru/58/212/0 ? I didn't and still don't get it. By using the same amount of time, I could get ten times the information by searching on the net verses walking around in this place. I guess I don't have the right intelligence to live in Second Life. ...
By accident, I went to the University of Central Florida's accounting course. That place was buzzing busy. People were chatting in group and some kind of strange creatures were flying around and dropping boxes labeled homework, into mailboxes. I received a card assignment when I was there.
This is a new way to give students assignments and promote discussion within a group for the assignments. Students are freed from the limitations of meeting in a location but are still limited time wise because they all need to meet at the same time. By telephone function, students need to meet in the same place in Second Life, it's not a big issue at all.
I also went to Princeton University Second Life. It was nice to fly around and observe the 3D campus but I was the only one there Friday 3 pm Second Life time. Where was everybody?
I tried to find groups but most of the groups have no activity. Most of the last posts were one or two years old. I need a tour guide to lead me and show me around. I need a tour guide as a friendly avatar to convince me why I should spend my very very limited time in SL. I already read several articles about using SL for education but after spending so much time there, I still think the other methods can reach points of productivity much faster and more affectively.
Second Life vs. Real Life
Zhongzi, a Chinese philosopher who was about one century younger than Confucius asked himself a very serious question after dreaming he became a butterfly. He said he dreamed of butterfly, but how could he be sure in reality that the butterfly in actuality was dreaming of him. He essentially asked the question, what was real? How do we know for sure that we were not somebody's dream? It sounds like the movie Matrix, doesn't it? Zhongzi was born about 2300 years ago. I wonder if the Matrix movie production came from Zhongzi's question.
Suggestion for Second Life
I guess I need to give Second Life more time in order to agree that it is a powerful tool for education. In the Full Sail quick paced online course format, I have very very very limited time. Can somebody send his or her avatar to be my tour guide? It would be great if Second Life had tour guide avatars available like some great museums do. In those museums, tourists could meet at the front desk at a certain time and the volunteer shows up and brings the tourists to explore from one place to another.
Links:
BBC News, (Oct. 24, 2008), Woman in jail over virtual murder, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7688091.stm
FoxNews.com US, (Aug. 28, 2008), Woman charged with plotting to kidnap boyfriend she met on "Second Life', http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,410781,00.html
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