Here is the paper I am working on:

Educational Uses of Second Life in the Teaching of Child and Youth Work.

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Josh Malone

Thompson, L. (2012). Educational Uses of Second Life in the Teaching of Child and Youth Work. Relational Child& Youth Care Practice, 25(1), 43-51.

Atkinson, T. (2009). Instructional resources. TechTrends. 53(4)

            Students in Second Life can explore this 3-D virtual learning environment to broaden their knowledge in subjects like math, science, history, art, and so much more. SL offers students a chance to connect, chat, and interact with other students from around the world, which makes SL an ideal setting for implementing the principles of constructivism (Thompson, 2012).  When carefully developing and designing classroom lessons, teachers can create group activities and apply constructivist content and social interactions (Thompson, 2012). Students have the ability to chat with one another in SL as they work together to complete group projects and assignments. SL also allows for students to discover and explore this virtual environment independently, at their convenience.

            Simple Life also provides students an opportunity to role-play rather than share experiences openly within a classroom. In one study, avatars with specific health disorders were created for a licensed clinical counselor and graduate student to “develop their mental health interviewing and diagnosis counseling skills” (Thompson, 2012, 48). These role-playing methods allowed students to fully engage, collaborate, and interact with other students in this realistic environment. This allows the students to develop and gain a sense of identity through their avatar (Atkinson, 2009).

            Students who engage in constructivist activities and role-playing in SL will eventually develop a sense of community. This virtual interaction with other students from around the world, or even within their own classroom setting, contributes to this newly developed community that nurtures one’s learning experiences. SL is an ideal tool for on-campus and distance learning courses in any college setting (Thompson, 2012). 

This is just my start:

Research and Theory Review of 

When educators attempt to introduce new technologies or classes to the curriculum, frequent objections from administration are the costs or scheduling. Endeavoring to work within the constraints of minuscule budgets, educators have begun to explore the 3-D virtual world of Second Life. Virtual worlds can help the educator overcome most restrictions imposed by costs because these 3-D virtual environments allow the end user to build, grow and simulate almost anything the “resident” wishes to develop. Scheduling class meeting times is expanded to include any student that can “log in” at a proposed meeting time; as opposed to traditional methods: insuring a classroom, security, and parking is scheduled, available and all the infrastructure and overhead that goes into having any actual face-to-face class. The 3-D virtual world of Second Life has numerous, diverse educational groups established within the computer based simulated environment. Some areas within the virtual world are referred to as “islands” that the avatar “teleports” to and many have been developed their inworld campuses to tutor, teach, engage the students as well as allow for simulated – or virtual online collaborative meetings or classes. Many virtual schools and universities participating in the Second Life platform have gone so far as to have built virtual offices, classrooms, libraries, conference rooms, museums and other features of the actual, physical campus that they are from or representing within the online world that is their community.    

Educators analyzing the various “educational affordances of SL” attempted to correlate these to courses they have implemented or adapted for use in SL.

A programming course demonstrated: 

The experience of developing objects, tools, buildings and various other items within SL utilizing its programming language allows the learner to “observe” the virtual world and “reflect” upon what they have “created” as the learner has visualized as compared with their idea or plan.

In a variation and more detailed model, educators looked for “educational affordances of SL” within the 8 Learning Events Model:

Recent feedback from the tech cognoscenti observed that despite the formally prodigious efforts by every college and university to invest in Linden Labs SL (Second Life), that the “virtual real estate bubble has burst,…” (Ramaswami) Educators admit that while SL had/has the capability to address the expanded ways in which we learn, there has been a significant drop in interest, attendance and usage in the 3D virtual world. In the journal article by Mayrath, Traphagan, Heikes, and Trivedi, the group determined that the student’s perception of SL was that it was “…unintuitive or ‘not very user-friendly and not good for self-learning.” In further analysis the group observed that many educational failures were due to the fact that there was not a clear learning objective, whereas the course context was not directly relevant to the use of SL. The university faculty at UT determined that in order to adapt course content into a 3D virtual environment/world there may be a “steep learning curve” as well as a need for great technical support in order to maintain these virtual environments.

In the analysis by the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, Authentic Learning for the 21^st Century: An Overview, we read how the numerous features that can be found in a 3D virtual world could theoretically elicit a combination of learning events for virtually any number of various learners, when the fact of the matter is implementation of technology into the classroom sometimes moves slower than the advances in technology itself. Students were said to have a “cognitive or cultural disconnect” with the “real-estate model” that is a part of Second Life. “Cutting-edge” technology was developing in the real world, within games, the internet and other online devices while the SL platform seemed “stagnate” and slow as opposed to graphics and real-time motion capture devices being utilized within Microsoft’s Kinect system and other similar technologies.

References

Lombardi, Marilyn M. "Authentic Learning for the 21st Century: An Overview." EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (2007 ): 1-12. Documnet.

Mayrath, M. A. (2011). Instructional design best practices for Second Life: a case study from a college-level English course. Interactive Learning Environments, 19(2), 125-142.

Ramaswami, Rama. "Is There a Second Life for Virtual Worlds?" Campus Technology (2011).

Ralph:  Research and Theory Review

Understanding a need to promote 21^st century educational collaborative efforts, a statewide institution led the charge towards meeting this need.  In an effort to create a statewide online learning community, serving almost 200,000 students and 7500 faculty, the University of Texas (UT) System “funded the creation of a virtual 49-island archipelago in Second Life (SL), Linden Research, Inc.” (Eaton, Guerra, Corliss, & Jarmon, 2011, p. 44).  This was an effort to create a learning environment complete with simulation. 

Faculty reported using Second Life in several courses with impressive results.  One of the positive results referred to “a collaboratively supported environment and established peer relationships” (Eaton, Guerra, Corliss, & Jarmon, 2011, p. 50).  From the administration to students, all members associated with the project touted the opportunity Second Life provided to collaborative learning.  The only drawbacks noted on the project were faculty’s lack of enthusiasm for learning new technology most likely due to time.  From the student’s perspective, uninhibited exploration of Second Life fostered learning potential.  All segments of this project gained valuable insight in the uses of online interactive collaborative programs.  Second Life with its limitations, still serves the purpose of inciting learning.

Reference

Eaton, L. J., Guerra, M., Corliss, S., & Jarmon, L. (2011). A statewide university system (16 campuses) creates collaborative learning communities in Second Life. Educational Media International, 48(1), 43-53.

Crystal:

Many teachers are in search for new ways to engage their students and some teachers have turned to a virtual community program, Second Life, to interact with their students. Second Life has become an educational tool for several higher education institutions, as it has the potential to “engage students in interactions with the instructor and others in the class as well as with their environment…[and] build a sense of community” (Baker & Wentz et al., 2009, p. 59).

Just like any other typical virtual world, Second Life as some advantages and disadvantages. Using this platform, professors gain the opportunity to simulate “face-to-face student-faculty and student-student interactions” (Baker & Wentz et al., 2009, p. 61) within every class, which is especially helpful for online classes. Second Life can be used as a lecture hall and a meeting place for classes as professors and students utilize the built-in chat feature. Once familiar with program, students can contribute to the virtual learning experience by generating content such as “objects, buildings, furnishings, and landscapes” (Baker & Wentz et al., 2009, p. 60). An average classroom encompasses a variety of personalities including extroverted and introverted students. Interacting and navigating through Second Life as an avatar could potentially spark more participation from those reserved students. Most students are unaware of how to navigate and converse through Second Life which initially poses problems and could discourage those students who are reluctant to embrace new technology.  

Baker & Wentz et al. (2009) gives a few pointers to instructors considering implementing Second Life into their curriculum. They first suggest having a justifiable educational objective before introducing Second Life to the students. It is also suggested that students work in pairs as they explore various environments and as tasks are assigned.

Baker, S. C., Wentz, R. K., & Woods, M. M. (2009). Using Virtual Worlds in Education: Second Life® as an Educational Tool. Teaching Of Psychology, 36(1), 59-64. doi:10.1080/00986280802529079