ABSTRACT

Shaiffadzillah Omarali

An Introduction to Teaching and learning in SecondLife

Virtual reality has long been utilised in education where experiential learning is imperative. Pilot

training, military warfare, and even engineering, all make use of virtual simulations to certain

extents. However, the socializing and interacting activities that routinely occur in classrooms or

university lectures, and the discovery learning involved in field-trips, are rarely replicated in

virtual reality. Nonetheless, recent technology advancements, particularly in communication

and graphics, have made virtual reality into commercially available environments, dubbed as

virtual worlds. SecondLife is one such virtual world, and is the closest replication of reality to

date, whereby its inhabitants are portrayed as humanoid characters, able to interact verbally,

visually and even through gestures. As a result, teaching and learning has been occurring in

SecondLife on a daily basis. Not surprisingly, Second Life houses hundreds of world renowned

universities and companies, including Oxford University and the Microsoft Corporation, some

carrying out international seminars, conferences, and workshops within SecondLife. This paper

illustrates how SecondLife is used to educate in several disciplines, such as architecture,

psychology and language, in hopes of inspiring those who teach these disciplines. Accordingly,

SecondLife is an optional environment for educators in general to teach their students if the

atmosphere of a class lesson is desired, or where emphasis is put on certain pedagogies such as

experiential learning, discovery learning or the socio-constructivist approach.

Keywords : Virtual reality, SecondLife, experiential learning