Second Life

Virtual learning environments - Second Life

Virtual learning environments refer to a special group of Internet learning applications. There are a number of learning environments in which teachers and students operate for learning purposes by taking advantage of the Internet based online presence and the specific environmental function. "Moodle" is one of the most widely known Learning Management Systems (LMS) that helps create such an environment. The term Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) is also often used to illustrate that there is no real physical interaction between teachers and students and the activities are not carried out in a real classroom environment.

Virtual learning environments, however, create a specially designed virtual world where real actions are performed by avatars controlled by real users. In such an environment users can find themselves in situations very similar to real ones, allowing them to do activities similar to those in reality, such as attending lectures and classes with other avatars, and to visit various locations.

The most widely known online virtual world is Second Life, created in 2003. You can enter the world of Second Life after registration and installation of the player application. Your avatar starts your virtual world from the very first moment with a name and an appearance configured by the user.

 

Virtual Tour of Nanotechnology Island (http://www.screencast.com/t/d1tQ8emk)

In terms of learning, Second Life offers a number of opportunities unavailable when using a real classroom environment and traditional web-based tools. A few examples from teaching science:

  • Visits to museums of technology or natural science
  • Virtual lectures, classes, and consultations
  • Visits to hazardous sites or those closed to visitors
  • Learning about and studying laboratories and lab equipment
  • Virtual study of scientific experiments
  • Completion of assignments and tests in a virtual leaning environment

There are a number of interesting learning locations on the Second Life website at http://secondlife.com/destinations/learning. Prior to use, you should check whether your computer meets the minimum hardware requirements because Second Life Viewer is rather resource intensive. This software enables you to move your avatar around on so-called islands and perform various actions.

 

Virtual Tour of Areva Nuclear Power Plant in Denver - http://www.screencast.com/t/oQJ1p87nzX6q

 

Virtual worlds similar to Second Life may be developed using Open Simulator, an open-source software. You can tour the OpenSim worlds using the Imprudence software. This solution is completely free but the content offered is far from that of Second Life.