Second life: The future of education is here today

Abstract

Participation in online courses in both traditional universities and newer for-profit organizations is burgeoning. Indeed, students entering higher education increasingly have experienced online education at the secondary and even primary levels. Students have immense wherewithal with digital media use through messaging, gaming and mobile platforms. Reference librarians in the epoch of Wikipedia and Google are experiencing a steady decline in the number of in-person reference questions. However, disruptive innovations in teaching technologies such as multiuser-virtual-environments (MUVEs) now enable quasi-face-to-face consultations by librarians with students. The use of virtual environments might well be bolstered by the unsustainability of the traditional brick-and-mortar based educational facility grounded interaction due to the new financial strictures on many educational institutions and their stakeholders. In many ways libraries and other elements of higher education are evolving away from physical onsite usage to an online interface that in many ways reflects gaming interfaces. That is, geographically separated learners can meet with librarians together as teams to get informational and technical support through a variety of platforms and interfaces. This chapter is a report on providing the support of an experienced reference librarian through the Second Life virtual world interface. Included are descriptions of Second Life sites and resources and how they might be utilized for library functions. Educational venues in Second Life are describes and explained, as are learner avatar use and Second Life educational experiences. Second Life is a technology that invites experimentation and growth for those in higher education.

Citation

Livermore, P.C. (2011), "Second life: The future of education is here today", Wankel, L.A. and Wankel, C. (Ed.) Higher Education Administration with Social Media (Cutting-Edge Technologies in Higher Education, Vol. 2), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 71-84. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2044-9968(2011)0000002007