I'm not sure I understand the hoopla about Second Life. It's certainly a neat interface, and I kind of like flying around. And I suppose if you like chat rooms, Second Life provides you a glorified chat room experience.
But Second Life is being touted now as where ed-tech is going. You can hold Second Life seminars. Make Second Life displays--a Second Life Rome, if you want to. This article is about how a couple of professors at the University of Plymouth are now teaching sex education in Second Life.
But if you watch the video, it all just seems like more of the same: written texts on billboards. Instead of flipping pages in a book, you walk up to a billboard and read it there. It's novel for about five minutes, and then it very rapidly loses its appeal.
There are also seminars you can take in Second Life. But again, it's like watching the scroll-down bar below the news stations....instead of live interface, you get a text. Why is this better? What do we gain from it?
Part of my dissatisfaction may come from the fact that I'm so very addicted to video games. And video gaming technology far outshines Second Life. When Second Life introduces artificial intelligence that can interact with you, narratives and role-playing capabilities, and opportunities to problem solve, then we'll have something.
In the mean time, though, you'll do better with Caesar III.
1 comment:
Well yes it doesn't compare to a video game, and that's the beauty and the challenge of it for learning and play. Role plays do exist, narratives are those you co-author and problems to solve abound as you engage with the above. Nothing is prescribed, scripted or scaffolded as in a video game is. The SL game space is fundamentally emergent, creative and social. :)
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