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Teaching and Learning in Teen Second Life:

Erik Van Dusen, Marcel Lorenz, and Garnet Gleim

This being my first “seminar” here at the 2009 IT
Summit, I did not know what to expect.  A small throng had already gathered in the Michelangelo C room as I silently made my way to the table at the back of the room with my overheated laptop.

The presentation was about a program called “Teen Second Life.”  Simply put, it is an interactive 3-D virtual world.  Users can create “avatars” (characters), which can talk, role play, or do nearly anything.  It is a spinoff of “Second Life,” and is restricted to teens only.  The only adults involved are education affiliates who have passed criminal record checks.  There are no missions or levels to pass.  Users can do whatever they wish to do, or are instructed to do.  There are some limitations and rules; all interactions are logged, and weapons and violence are forbidden.

So, how could this possibly be an advantage to learning in the classroom?  (At about the ten minute mark, I was wondering myself!)  Well for starters, TSL is a prime example of experiential learning.  Students can collaborate, build and share knowledge, and simply make learning more fun and interesting.  For example, the “guinea pigs” were a Grade 8 Social Studies class in
Regina, the content described by the presenters as “boring.”  With a different medium, the curriculum (consisting of cultures, economics, religion, etc.) could be made more stimulating to children.  Students were assigned one culture to study, and had to make a single plot of land that accurately resembled the culture.

The presenters had the statistics and videos to prove it.  Student engagement was way up.  Throughout the duration of the project, students spent an average of 53 hours per person using TSL.  In fact, a number of students spent their Friday evening on Halloween on TSL!

All in all, I was quite impressed.  It did not flow nearly as smoothly as it may have, hindered by technical glitches here and there.  However, after intensive creation and development, a complex virtual world can be established.  Capabilities were nearly limitless.  The practical applications are fairly simple.  The goal is to stimulate students while helping them learn, which was successfully accomplished.  I feel that especially with younger tech-savvy kids, the learning experience could be very beneficial.  As long as guidelines are enforced (which is actually easy for teachers to do via the virtual world), students have some leeway to learn in ways that are enticing and familiar to them. 

The students’ project can be visited at http://tinyurl.com/slculture/.