| Use of Second Life to teach should be closely regulated |
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| Written by Jhericca Johnson | ||||
| Thursday, 19 November 2009 06:20 PM | ||||
  The Shorthorn: Thea Blesener An online graduate nursing class tried a session on the virtual world Second Life proceeded with only one slight issue. Some random person showed up in the class and since no one recognized his name, was promptly asked to leave the island. Using Second Life to teach is a good idea, as long as there are barriers in place to keep it from going from something good to something bad. To me, Second Life is a game because it doesn’t fit any other description. Second Life can’t be called a social networking Web site like Facebook or Twitter, because Second Life uses more complex methods than simple text. It most definitely isn’t a blogging site or a virtual instant messenger program like IMVU, although if anything, IMVU would be a close cousin. A game can be defined as a physical or mental competition conducted according to rules with the participants in direct opposition with each other. In Second Life, users can buy clothes, land and yachts with Linden Dollars, the world’s currency. Using real money to get more virtual money, which fuels the desire to spend. It encourages users to keep up with the Joneses and buy to their hearts content. In my opinion, one’s economic status is a basic form of competition and Second Life supports it. Users create an avatar, an electronic image representing and manipulated by the user, (either a look-alike or an entirely new you) and live a different life inside this virtual world. Within the world of Second Life are islands where players are given the option to do hundreds of things. Players can go to a virtual mall and buy new clothes for their avatar or chat with other virtual avatars at a coffee shop. The university has 3 islands, said Joy Don Baker, the nursing clinical associate professor teaching the course. Each island costs $700 and $1,770 every year to maintain them. There are a few ethical issues since there are mostly adults on Second Life. Virtual prostitution began in the virtual world about a year or two after it became open to the public. Now, it’s in full swing and pimps are converting Linden Dollars to real money. Still, the university is trying to use Second Life to enhance the online learning experience. For the particular course that had a one-time session with it, I’m pretty sure it did just that. The online course in the Nursing Informatics field used Second Life for the first time last month. The course is a combination of computer science and nursing information. For the first session, the graduate students all logged on to their Second Life accounts and teleported to one of the university’s islands. There, they held an hour-long class on the game, brainstorming effective ways to use Second Life for teaching. One idea was to create a virtual hospital on the game, almost like the university’s Smart Hospital and work to solve virtual patients’ problems, Baker said. It sounds good, but should Second Life replace the actual personal experiences and relationships with nurses and their patients, we’ll have a big problem. Taking someone’s blood isn’t like driving an airplane; pilots can train without being in the real thing for a little while but I’m not sure many people want a nurse taking their vitals when he or she has only done it online. Second Life will never be the real thing, nor should it ever be used to replace it. As long as the university remembers that, then the game can definitely be used to supplement teaching. If not, then we should just stop using it right now. –Jhericca Johnson is a journalism junior Views: 605 | E-mail
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| Last Updated ( Thursday, 28 January 2010 01:42 PM ) | ||||
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