Second Life is not ready for prime time

No examination of online education would be complete without at least mentioning immersive digital worlds, or "multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs)" (Warburton, 2009, pg 415). The one most commonly used in education at present is Second Life. Many Universities bought property or islands and set up virtual campuses in Second life years ago only for them to turn into virtual ghost towns. There are a few projects utilizing Second Life right now that show promise, especially in increasing student confidence. See more about how the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy is using Second Life at (make sure to watch the video): https://pharmacy.unc.edu/news/a-closer-look/using-second-life-to-help-students-in-real-life

Largely though Second Life is not living up to the dreams held for it in the mid-2000's. Warburton groups the barriers of Second Life into eight categories: technical, identity, culture, collaboration, time, economic, standards, and scaffolding persistence/social discovery (2009, p. 422-423). The technical barrier is the most insurmountable. While technology continues to get better, those that can afford such technology is limited. With education trying to be an equalizer, this presents a very difficult issue. The other side of the technology problem lies in the server capacity needed to maintain the virtual environment. The more popular it become, the larger the network load, the slower it becomes, the more it freezes and drops.  Another aspect of technical barriers to MUVE adoption is the technical ability of the user and their comfort level when “interacting through avatars” (Petrakou, 2010, p. 1020). Warburton posits that “increasing levels of connectivity, bandwidth and disposable personal time” will play a role in MUVE adoption.

We have some time to go before MUVEs become ubiquitous in education. All of the aspects of technical issues must be resolved. “Further research and practice is needed in order to develop, design and evaluate asynchronous interactivity within the virtual world” (Petrakou, 2010, p. 1027). Further evaluation will be needed to demonstrate the instructional value of "utilizing the spacial dimension" (Petrakou, 2010, p. 1024) otherwise a massive video chat platform would be just as effective. The value of WUVE will need to be established and I assume research having to do with the use of it to mask the perception of race and/or disability may become conversation point. At any rate, it is my opinion that Second Life is not ready for prime time.

Warburton, S. (2009). Second Life in higher education: Assessing the potential for and the barriers to deploying virtual worlds in learning and teaching. British Journal Of Educational Technology, 40(3), 414-426. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2009.00952.x

Petrakou, A. (2010). Interacting through avatars: Virtual worlds as a context for online education. Computers & Education, 54 (4), 1020-1027. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2009.10.007