Tim Wang's eLearning Blog

I am back from 2 months of holidays. And I feel great! Too bad this is not a travel blog otherwise I wouldn't mind to share some great "road trip" stories. Anyway, one thing I would like to mention is while Second Life is catching more media's attention in the western world, not too many people overseas knows what it is yet. I mentioned this to two of my best friends, one is a director of a well know Chinese university's distance learning division and the other is a owner of a game company in China who just launched a national wide game in December 2006. These two people had different thoughts over Second Life product. The elearning friend questioned:
1).the amount of interest from the academics. From his experience, there will be lack of interest from the professors, especially in China. Because the academics are pressured to produce research papers every year and therefore, they won't spend extra energy on the new technology which is aimed to enhance students' learning experiences.
2).the true value of the 3-D virtual class experience. He questioned other than the limited subjects he can think of such as: architecture, theater and engineering, what else can the platform do that the other existing platform won't. He means why would people use a much more complex platform like Second Life while they can easily use products like Breeze to have a synchronous online teaching experience.

My game developing friend (more like a professional business man) immediately smelled the money from the idea. But he challenged the technical difficulty of creating a “virtual world” that has no theme, no particular regulation, and most importantly – no guide lines. “the world will be swamped with hackers and people whom won't follow the rule”. He also questioned the players' interest. From his experience, the younger generation would rather play games like “The Sim” or “Desperate House Wives” where there is a theme and goal. Why would they spend time learning how to build houses and trade virtual merchandises that not making their avatar “more powerful”? But he does admit Second Life may catch a large crowd of female audiences where there are lack of games designed for them.

Anyway, both of them promised to look into this new phenomena and stay in touch with me with their new thoughts. I, on the other hand, agrees with D'Arcy Norman's thoughts on Second Life, it is too much involved with the $ sign. I am doubting it's sustainability for educational use in the long run.