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This chapter describes pre-service teachers' teaching practices of didactic methods based on cognitive apprenticeship. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate potential of Second Life® as a space for teaching practices of pre-service teachers. The participants were 160 college students who were completing a practicum at Korea National University of Education. These students enrolled in four sections of teaching methods and educational technology, which was one of the requirements for their teaching certificate. The students were placed in groups of three to five students according to their majors. In Second Life, they practiced their teaching and participated in the evaluation of other groups' teaching. They discussed Second Life's potential, such as a space for expanding their teaching experiences and explored possibilities for using it as an environment for teaching practices. The authors believe that readers will find that Second Life can offer a valuable environment to promote pre-teachers' understanding of teaching techniques.

This paper provides a general comparison between the ethos, methodological mission, and theoretical standpoint of the New Iowa School, established by Carl Couch and his students and Second Life, a three dimensional virtual world that invites particular forms of sociation. Despite differences in orientation and purpose, as well as biases in communication, we propose that the methodological and conceptual emphasis underlying the research generated from New Iowa School experimental studies can provide a useful framework for research into the virtual worlds created in Second Life. In the course of citing similarities and differences between the New Iowa School and Second Life, we also note that contrived worlds in laboratories and virtual worlds in user domains not only have relevant analogical processes to outside, in situ social worlds, but consist of social stages for performances that have application to the various social stages constructed by actors in the real world. In conclusion, we suggest that the New Iowa School and Second Life represent different but compatible realities in their own right, that the conceptual depth associated with the New Iowa School can inform research into Second Life interactions, and that each offer insights into the external worlds inhabited by real actors who navigate across time and space in their everyday lives.

Second Life, as a three-dimensional social medium, provides an unparalleled opportunity for people to interact with each other and their surroundings in unfamiliar and innovative ways. After a brief introduction to the discipline of Studies in Religion at the University of Queensland (UQ), this chapter will examine some of the key characteristics of MUVEs in general and of Second Life in particular, with a view to assessing its suitability as an environment for learning based on andragogical and constructivist methodologies. Further, it will explore the original conception and development of the UQ Religion Bazaar project within Second Life.

The UQ Religion Bazaar project was originally conceived in 2007 and developed through 2008. It consists of a Second Life island situated in the New Media Consortium educational precinct and boasts a number of religious builds including a church, a mosque, a synagogue, an ancient Greek temple, a Freemasons' lodge, a Zen Buddhist temple and a Hindu temple to Ganesha. The island was used in two large first-year classes and for supervising distance postgraduate research students.

Using the perspectives of dramaturgy and symbolic interactionists like George Herbert Mead and Carl Couch this study focuses on paid sex work in the hypermodern, virtual world of Second Life. Using seventeen semi-structured interviews and six months of ethnographic fieldwork, I find that the employment of sexual scripts, carrying off a successful erotic scene, and the creative use of communication and embodiment are highly valued in escorts’ performance of Second Life sex work. Escorts craft an online persona that is a digital representation of the self, which is manifested in the embodiment of their digital body or avatar. In addition to digital representations of the physical self, Second Life allows for multiple methods of computer-mediated communication, and escorts are able to re-embody the first life body through the trading of first life pictures, voice cybersex, and web cam cybersex. The data allow the conclusion that most escorts are unwilling to re-embody the first life body for reasons of personal safety and the desire to restrict access to the first life self. I find, however, that there is a porous boundary between first life and Second Life in which the first life self comes through in the Second Life persona. In the concluding remarks, I explore the implications this study has for the negotiation of privacy for new social media actors who are reluctant to fully disclose their lives yet perform a persistent, archived persona for friends and followers on the Internet. This study contributes to a small, but growing, body of literature on Second Life and expands the existing work on embodiment and privacy in the digital realm.

The ability for learners to interact online via their avatars in a 3-D simulation space means that virtual worlds afford a host of educational opportunities not offered by other learning technology platforms, but their use also raises several pertinent issues that warrant consideration. This chapter reviews the educational use of virtual worlds from a design perspective. Virtual-world definitions are explored, along with their key educational characteristics. Different virtual-world environments are briefly contrasted, including Second Life, Active Worlds, Open Sim, and Minecraft. A wide variety of virtual-world uses in schools and universities are examined so as to understand their versatility. Key educational benefits of virtual worlds are distilled from the literature, such as the ability to facilitate 3-D simulations, role-plays, construction tasks, and immersive learning. Emergent issues surrounding the use of virtual worlds are also analyzed, including cognitive load, safety, and representational fidelity. One higher education and one school level vignette are provided in order to offer more detailed insight into the use of virtual worlds in practice. Recommendations for learning design and implementation are presented, based on the thematic analysis of contemporary virtual-worlds research.

This paper aims to examine how media play a role in community responses to disaster. The authors explore how communication technology may allow new relationships between community groups and emergency agencies. The authors examine the context within which warnings and risk communication are interpreted by media services. The authors observe how, in an emergency context, the thinking about media may change from that of a linear framework of information provision to one of shared resources.

The authors focus on Second Life, a shared, online space which uses 3D graphic images to simulate a virtual environment. Second Life is posited as a media tool with clear advantages for the training of emergency services professionals and citizens in the community. The authors observe emergency training scenarios and advantages for training for critical thinking and decision-making.

The authors observe then how virtual worlds such as Second Life provide an online forum in which participants can interact, communicate and simulate action in a complex 3D graphic environment. Second Life may be a useful medium for simulating and testing geo-physical and social manoeuvres using the modeling tools. This may allow for collaborative decision-making in simulations which can prepare or rehearse people for emergency conditions. It may be useful in an emergency with information streamed and coordinated at a single online site. A shared network like Second Life may be shared by many people co-synchronously or a-synchronously, despite their geographic distance. Second Life applications may also be useful in the aftermath of emergencies for design and rebuilding, for analytical and educational purposes.

It is clear that social networks like Second Life provide a valuable tool with which to learn about and share data and information about bushfires, community emergencies and safety precautions in a social setting. It can also provide, at the local level, a forum for community information and discussion, as well as for counselling and reconstruction in the aftermath.

The authors suggest that the range and flexibility of tools and their excellent geographic visualization and social networking functions may in future allow for learning and decision-making among diverse and disparate groups who can come together in virtual space. It is especially useful in remote communities as a means of uniting people who are otherwise isolated by distance or trapped in emergency situations. Second Life is useful for sharing information, organizational and local knowledge about disaster and mitigation management. This media-rich platform is valuable to a community that is increasingly adept with shared, 3D graphic computer interfaces.

Applications like Second Life may provide a space where users can access a range of tools as a means of informing, educating, empowering and warning participants in emergency scenarios, both real and simulated. They are more than virtual spaces; they are also social spaces. A platform like Second Life may provide a virtual solution for such communication challenges especially where communities are too remote, too dispersed or even too many in number to be easily accessible in the field.

This paper contains new and significant information about emerging communication systems and platforms that may be of use to those researching and planning around disaster management, mitigation and resilience. It addresses the use of new techniques which are the result of innovation in technology, software design and network design. It applies a discussion of these techniques to several hypothetical and real-life scenarios to explore the potential for virtual tools as a way of providing enriched information, mapping and communication tools across a range of disaster response scenarios.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the ongoing issues and concerns of Second Life librarians who are attempting to balance both their virtual library tasks and assignments along with their real world library tasks and assignments.

Members of the Library and Information Technology Association and, in addition, members of the Second Life Librarians group are invited to participate in an online survey during the summer of 2008. In addition to sharing issues and concerns of balancing their work lives in both virtual and real life worlds, survey participants suggest solutions for problem resolution.

Data from 161 survey participants show that virtual world librarians are passionate about their commitments to virtual world libraries to the extent that most librarians completed virtual library work at home and are not compensated by their libraries for this work. Issues and problems shared by respondents include inadequate computers and slow internet connections at work, lack of support by library administration, blocking of virtual world software by network technicians, and little response to requests for scheduled time for virtual world library tasks.

The number of respondents is comparatively small. The authors feel a larger percentage of members may have participated if the survey was conducted during either fall or spring semesters of the academic calendar year. A second survey may be conducted in spring 2009 to compare findings and to track solutions and concerns.

Librarians may have more time to devote to real life library work and will not need to complete virtual world library tasks at home if they are provided adequate computers and Internet connections at work and are also scheduled for virtual library work.

This paper provides empirical data on the perceived allocations of virtual library work time for virtual librarians and also discusses suggested solutions for better time management of virtual work.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a study into how a three‐dimensional (3D) virtual world (Second Life) can facilitate socialisation and team working among students working on a team project at a distance. This models the situation in many commercial sectors where work is increasingly being conducted across time zones and between multiple teams. Collaboration in these geographically distributed teams is virtual rather than through face‐to‐face interactions. The paper investigates how a virtual world such as Second Life compares to other collaboration tools such as instant messaging or Skype; and the challenges that students experience in becoming acquainted with and working in Second Life.

The paper has employed a qualitative research methodology involving data collection through group interviews, epistolary (email) interviews and semi‐structured individual interviews. The data have been analysed by applying the inductive analysis technique.

The analysis is presented through answers to questions which educators may have about the effectiveness of virtual worlds in supporting collaboration in virtual teams.

The paper highlights the pedagogical role of 3D virtual worlds in supporting communication, team working and community building. The methodology will be of interest to researchers in the area of virtual worlds as there is little guidance in the literature about how to evaluate student experiences of these environments.

The research reported in this paper is timely and significant in view of current business scenarios such as the challenges of a globally distributed work‐place, the need to offer training to develop employees' skills of working in distributed environments and to meet changing market needs. Furthermore, the research will support the development of a coordinated response to the Leitch review of skills in the UK, which identified issues of resource‐intensive travel, global warming and the need for businesses to be seen as “green” for customer attraction and retention.

The paper discusses the role of 3D virtual worlds in supporting student team projects involving students who are geographically dispersed. The sense of visual presence and of place in a 3D world can make socialising in a virtual world, a more “human” experience than in 2D environments such as web sites, e‐mail, wikis and blogs, and even phone or video‐conferencing. The research reported in this paper could enhance uptake of 3D virtual worlds by organisations facing the challenges of facilitating socialisation and knowledge sharing in a distributed workforce.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a selective bibliography for librarians and adminstrators in all types of libraries, with sources that can help them understand virtual worlds and their applications for libraries. Second Life is used as an example of virtual worlds.

The authors describe a range of primarily recent publications (2004‐2006), which aim to provide practical advice and information, to aid librarians and administrators seeking to understand and utilize virtual worlds.

Provides information about each source, indicating content and how the information can help. Acknowledges and explores the lack of knowledge among many librarians and administrators of expanded Web technologies like 3D virtual worlds and their reference, collections and information literacy applications, and provides an annotated list of helpful publications.

This is not an exhaustive list and is particularly limited in numbers of research publications due to the fact that this technology is new and research in this area is only just emerging.

A useful source of information for librarians and administrators in all types of libraries considering exploring and experimenting with library services within virtual worlds.

This selected bibliography fulfills an identified information/resources need by offering a varied list of publications which can provide practical help to library workers supporting and venturing into the rapidly developing and high profile virtual worlds arena.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the fast‐growing virtual world, focusing on the appeal of these environments for the “digital native” generation and the growth of Second Life.

The paper examines the latest research on virtual worlds and Second Life, examining the corporate presence “in‐world,” as well as the economic, technical, legal, ethical, and security issues involved for companies doing business in the virtual world.

The paper shows that Second Life and virtual worlds hold great opportunities, along with significant downsides, for companies.

The research is limited by the very fact that this is a fast‐developing, fast‐changing area, constantly generating both new opportunities and new issues/challenges.

With projections that 80 percent of all internet users will be involved in virtual worlds by 2011, it is important that executives and academicians be knowledgeable about these 3D internet environments.

The paper traces the development of virtual worlds in the larger context of the growth of online gaming as a form of entertainment and interaction. It takes an objective look at the benefits and pitfalls for organizations looking to engage in Second Life and other virtual worlds.