Second Life as an Opportunity for

Learning Communities

Janice Gilmore Henry

EDUC 8841

1 October 2011

The Future of Edutainment

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.“

~Alan Kay

Need Dr. Rod Paige, Secretary of Education noted in his

introductory paragraph of the Visions 2020 Report that,

“….Schools remain unchanged for the most part despite numerous reforms and increased investments in computers and networks. The way we organize schools and provide instruction is essentially the same as it was when our Founding Fathers went to school. Put another way, we still educate our students based on an agricultural timetable, in an industrial setting, but tell students they live in a digital age.”

Need

This environment supports a community of students who have to mastered logic and problem solving beyond traditional classroom and the real-world constraints; one of the fundamental characteristics supporting DE.

Currently DE is not the optimally used in traditional teaching, taking advantage of cutting edge technology.

ResearchResearch has demonstrated that we are at

a”... point where learning could be radically altered through new E-Learning instructional design, technology, openness, personal learning environments, & unprecedented access to information. Older correspondence-style methods & classrooms adapted to the web approaches are often ineffective and do little to harness the transformational potential of technology and thus deny unforeseen possibilities. “ Noted in a presentation by Professors: Leslie Moller & Jason Huett for “The Next Generation of Education: Unconstrained Learning” A report from the 2010 AECT Summer Research Symposium

ResearchAccording to Gabelnick, F. and J. MacGregor,

R. Matthews, and B.L. Smith, it is in human nature as social beings to communicate and share amongst themselves; this is the foundation for all types of social, academic and religious communities. As such this element needs to be present in all situations, especially asynchronous distance education to create a collaborative learning community.

**Gabelnick, F. and J. MacGregor, R. Matthews, and B.L. Smith. (Spring 1990) Learning Communities: Creating Connections Among Students, Faculty and Disciplines. San Francisco: Jossey Bass New Directions for Teaching and Learning, Number 41

DevelopmentAs we enter the age of distance education

and educational technology, we need to explore this software is and its potential as an educational tool.

The use of SecondLife will:◦ create a sense of responsibility to other

community members  ◦ create a collaborative classroom or

learning environment can be a worthwhile opportunity notwithstanding it innate challenges/dilemmas.

◦ Provide an equal or distributed senses of control amongst members leading stronger community bonds.

DevelopmentTime and cyberspace be one of the mediums

dedicated to interpersonal development for a productive community

CommercializationTechnology is expanding from a delivery

system to create dynamic interactivity Rather than viewing distance as a barrier to

overcome… We view the “space” as an opportunity to harness the power of cognitive processes of knowledge building.

CommercializationSecondLife is a three-dimensional modeling

tool based uses simple geometric shapes to allow residents to build virtual objects, change their appearance. This level of interactivity will allow residences to have a truer sense of community. The avatars have textures for clothing or other objects and animated gestures that add to the interpersonal experience. Most importantly the Second Life Terms of Service provide that users retain copyright for any content they create, and the server and client provide simple digital rights management functions.

Five Stages of Rogers’s Innovation-Decision

Innovation-Decision Process:

Second Life was initiated based on the employee of the Linden Lab desire to add an extra dimension to their collaboration as a hardware company geared towards the research and development of haptics

◦ Knowledge – The former CEO of Linden Lab, Philip Rosedale dreamed about virtual worlds since his childhood, in 1994; 1999, Rosedale first thought of connecting computers via the Internet and creating a virtual world

◦ 2001 Persuasion – After he founded Linden Labs -2001 Linden launched a private world for the company employees

◦ Decision – The innovation was quick embraced and grew in popularity; February 11, 2002, Linden Lab Debuts, Company Dedicated to 3D Entertainment

Innovation-Decision Process:

◦ Implementation – 2006 SL is used to offer courses through various models and facilities, both for profit and non profit

◦ Confirmation – In January 2008, residents spent a total of 28,274,505 hours "inworld", and, on average, 38,000 residents were logged in at any particular moment. The maximum concurrency (number of avatars inworld) recorded is 88,200 in the 1st qtr. 2009 copy cat chat formats like IMVU, Smeet,

Diffusion StatisticsThis was pulled from a site that tracks the weekly median user-concurrency for Second Life from May 2006 through May 2010. Judging form this chart the innovation for this version has reached maturity.

Early Adopters of InnovationsWe anticipate that the likely

innovators and early adopters in my organization would be “fresh outs” as they are still very eager and open to technological advances

In order to persuasive the remaining population to adopt the innovation we must convince them that there is an economic advantage to this leading edge technology.

Laggards of InnovationsThe laggards, in terms of rejecting the

innovation would include the population of employees 55+ who feel that they are on the down side of their career and do not or should not have to embrace this medium… “why fix what isn’t broken?”

The best to way to help these individual move them toward adoption would be to tie the use of this to P4Ps

Which combination of perceived attributes would be best for helping your innovation meet critical mass in your industry?

Roger’s Attribute of Innovations A combination of the adoption of Relative advantage and

Observability would be the most relevant strategies for online professional development in a corporate environment.

Relative advantage is important because companies tend to encourage innovation or rather technological change through the linkage to improvements in efficiency, productivity, quality, competitiveness, and market shares; economics that support an increase in the organizations bottom line is primary.

Coupled with observability or the perception of the community that this innovation yields a positive result or an opportunity for improvement would also assist in making the organization more willing to support and perhaps participate in the innovation.

Because these attributes are is in line with an organizational context or motivation of professional development, they would be invaluable in helping this innovation meet critical mass in the corporate environment

References1. Nino, T. (August 2009) Second Life Statistical Charts.

Retrieved from http://dwellonit.taterunino.net/sl-statistical-charts/

2. Rogers, E. (2003). Diffusion of Innovations (5th ed.). New York, NY: Free Press.