Online education has revolutionized in the recent years and in the recent development several UMass professors and graduate students have assembled at the common place called “Second Life” to modernize the online education a little more.
“Second Life” began in 1999 when entrepreneur Philip Rosedale founded Linden Lab with the intention of creating “a new form of shared 3D entertainment,” according to the firm’s website. Rosedale envisioned a kind of immersive social network, and unveiled Second Life in June 2003.
“Second Life” has set it self apart from other Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) in that it isn’t so much a ‘game’ as a virtual playground. Users create avatars – 3D representations of themselves – and travel around the “Second Life” world interacting with other users at various locales. Unlike other MMORPGs such as “Everquest” and the popular “World of Warcraft,” all content in the “Second Life” universe is user-created.
“Second Life” has gained a huge popularity among users. The blog has been tracking every hour since its inception and the statistics shows that residents logged 124 million hours in the game, and its virtual economy topped $120 million U.S. in the first quarter of 2009.
In 2008, the University of Massachusetts first entered the virtual world of “Second Life” and bought its own islands with university funds. They were so impressed by “Second Life” so that professors Florence Sullivan and Claire Hamilton from the Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies had introduced “Second Life” in their classes.
Indiana University’s Quest Atlantis aims to provide “a powerful new learning environment that combines academic concepts and meaningful play with disciplinary practices with the goal to create socially committed citizens.”
According to Sullivan, this is only the beginning.
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