Second Life in higher education: Assessing the potential for and the barriers to deploying virtual worlds in learning and teaching

Second Life (SL) is currently the most mature and popular multi-user virtual world platform being used in education. Through an in-depth examination of SL, this article explores its potential and the barriers that multi-user virtual environments present to educators wanting to use immersive 3-D spaces in their teaching. The context is set by tracing the history of virtual worlds back to early multi-user online computer gaming environments and describing the current trends in the development of 3-D immersive spaces. A typology for virtual worlds is developed and the key features that have made unstructured 3-D spaces so attractive to educators are described. The popularity in use of SL is examined through three critical components of the virtual environment experience: technical, immersive and social. From here, the paper discusses the affordances that SL offers for educational activities and the types of teaching approaches that are being explored by institutions. The work concludes with a critical analysis of the barriers to successful implementation of SL as an educational tool and maps a number of developments that are underway to address these issues across virtual worlds more broadly. Introduction The story of virtual worlds is one that cannot be separated from technological change. As we witness increasing maturity and convergence in broadband, wireless computing, British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 40 No 3 2009 414–426 doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2009.00952.x © 2009 The Author. Journal compilation © 2009 Becta. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. video and audio technologies, we see virtual immersive environments becoming more practical and useable. In this article, I review the present socio-technical environment of virtual worlds, and draw on an analysis of Second Life (SL) to outline the potential for and the barriers to successful implementation of 3-D immersive spaces in education. Virtual worlds have existed in some form since the early 1980s, but their absolute definition remains contested. This reflects the general nature of a term that draws on multiple writings of the virtual and the difficulties in attempting to fix descriptions in an area that is undergoing persistent technological development. The numerous contextual descriptions that have appeared, from the perspectives of writers, academics, industry professionals and the media, have further complicated agreement on a common understanding of virtual worlds. Bell (2008) has approached this problem by suggesting a combined definition based on the work of Bartle (2004), Castronova (2004) and Koster (2004), drawing the work together using key terms that relate to: synchronicity, persistence, network of people, avatar representation and facilitation of the experience by networked computers. But perhaps the most satisfying and simplest insight comes from Schroeder (1996, 2008) who has consistently argued that virtual environments and virtual reality technologies should be defined as: A computer-generated display that allows or compels the user (or users) to have a sense of being present in an environment other than the one they are actually in, and to interact with that environment (Schroeder, 1996, p. 25) In other words, a virtual world provides an experience set within a technological environment that gives the user a strong sense of being there. The multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) of today share common features that reflect their roots in the gaming worlds of multi-user dungeons and massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), made more popular in recent times through titles such as NeverWinter Nights and World of Warcraft, both based on the Dungeons and Dragons genre of role-playing game. Virtual worlds may appear in different forms yet they possess a number of recurrent features that include: • persistence of the in-world environment • a shared space allowing multiple users to participate simultaneously • virtual embodiment in the form of an avatar (a personisable 3-D representation of the self) • interactions that occur between users and objects in a 3-D environment • an immediacy of action such that interactions occur in real time • similarities to the real world such as topography, movement and physics that provide the illusion of being there. (Smart, Cascio & Paffendof, 2007) These are features compelling enough to attract more than 300 million registered users to spend part of their time within commercial social and gaming virtual worlds (Hays, 2008). Second Life in higher education 415 © 2009 The Author. Journal compilation © 2009 Becta. From MMOs and MUVEs to SL What marks a significant difference between MUVEs and MMOs is the lack of a predetermined narrative or plot-driven storyline. In the worlds exemplified by SL, there is no natural purpose unless one is created or built. Here, social interaction exists not as a precursor to goal-oriented action but rather, it occurs within an open-ended system that offers a number of freedoms to the player, such as: the creation and ownership of objects; the creation of interpersonal networks; and monetary transactions that occur within a tangible economic structure (Castronova, 2004; Ludlow & Wallace, 2007). It is primarily this open-endedness, combined with the ability to create content and shape the virtual environment in an almost infinite number of ways, which has attracted educators to the possibilities afforded by immersive 3-D spaces. A typology of virtual worlds Within the broad panorama of virtual environments, we can find offerings from both open source projects and proprietary vendors. These include the worlds of OpenSim, Croquet Consortium, ActiveWorlds, Project Wonderland, There, Olive and Twinity. We can identify a number of approaches to platform development and delivery each defined by their perceived target audience. For example, Olive specifically markets itself towards large institutions and enterprise-level productivity. MUVEs, therefore, can be categorised in a number of ways. In the typology shown in Table 1, a number of extant 3-D virtual worlds are grouped by their narrative approach and 3-D representational system. There are several alternative categorisations that have been suggested. Messinger, Stroulia and Lyons (2008) builds their typology on Porter’s (2004) original typology of virtual communities where the five key elements of purpose, place, platform, population and profit models are identified. Messenger uses this alternative typology productively to help identify the historic antecedents of virtual worlds, their future applications and topics for future research. What both these typologies demonstrate is that there is a range of virtual worlds, which offer distinctly different settings in which to site educational interventions. Within the typology outlined in Table 1, concrete educational activity can be identified in all four of the virtual world categories listed. The boundaries between these categories are soft and reflect the flexibility of some virtual worlds to provide more than one form of use. This is particularly true of SL, and has contributed to this platform’s high profile in comparison to other contemporary MUVEs. Although often defined as a 3-D social networking space, SL also supports role-playing game communities and some degree of cooperative workflow through the in-world tools and devices that have been built by residents. SL as the platform of choice for education SL represents the most mature of the social virtual world platforms, and the high usage figures compared with other competing platforms reflects this dominance within the educational world. The regular Eduserv virtual worlds survey conducted among UK tertiary educators has identified SL as the most popular educational MUVE: 416 British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 40 No 3 2009 © 2009 The Author. Journal compilation © 2009 Becta. Ta bl e 1 : A ty po lo gy of 3 -D vi rt ua lw or ld s (a da pt ed fr om M cK eo w n, 2 0 0 7 ) Fl ex ib le na rr at iv e So ci al w or ld Si m ul at io n W or ks pa ce G am es (M M P O R G s) an d se ri ou s ga m es So ci al pl at fo rm s, 3 -D ch at ro om s an d vi rt u al w or ld ge n er at or s Si m u la ti on s or re fle ct io n s of th e ‘r ea l’ 3 -D re al is at io n of C SC W s W or ld of W ar cr af t N ev er W in te r N ig ht s