A Whole New World

There are many ways of meeting up with people and sharing your skills and knowledge these days: you can opt for the traditional face-to-face model with all its advantages of food, wine, good company and stimulating conversation or you can (more often than not, for many reasons) do it online.

The choice of tools there varies, of course – from the quick fire Twitter model to the more considered discussion forum with all its advantages of encouraging deeper critical thinking. But for a real social experience, why not try Second Life? Gavin Dudeney investigates…

Second Life (SL), is a three-dimensional online synchronous environment, otherwise known as a Multi-User Virtual Environment, or MUVE. Think of a video game, where you can take on a three-dimensional character (or avatar) and visit an entire “world”, populated by real people who are accessing SL from their own computers all around the globe.
Founded in 2003 by Philip Rosedale, a pioneering web developer with the California-based company Real Networks, SL is a virtual world that currently has more than 15 million members, each with their own avatar, a “cartoon” representation of their real self.
The SL world has parks, shops, schools, museums, islands and beaches all designed and maintained by the residents. It is also supported by an economy fuelled by “Linden dollars (L$)” – if you want to look good in SL, then you’ll need to buy virtual clothes, designed by one of your fellow residents. You can buy virtual land, build a house (or have an SL architect design one for you) and fill it up with virtual furniture.
Harvard University are running classes there, and so are Trinity College Dublin. Suzanne Vega and U2 have performed there, and Kurt Vonnegut talks about his writings ‘in-world’. You can take a class in creative writing or Tibetan, learn how to run a business or become a video director, all from the comfort of your own home.
It is this versatility that is prompting people to move from more traditional networked communication tools, such as Microsoft Messenger or Skype (and expensive time-bound options such as videoconferencing), to a place where they can (quite literally) invite their friends round to ‘their place’. And this new means of communication is also attracting the attention of educators and language teachers who want a more visually-rich and stimulating environment in which to get together and talk, share, discover and invent.
Recent gatherings I’ve attended have included a chat by Scott Thornbury and Luke Meddings on their ‘Teaching Unplugged’ book, a visit to Dennis Newson’s ‘DOGME garden’ and the regular SLexperiments Friday afternoon meetings where teachers worldwide get together to chat and swap experiences – sometimes about SL, but more often than not about pedagogy and approaches to teaching.
And, as manager of the three EduNation islands, I’m also responsible for running training and development events including the annual SLanguages Conference (now in its fourth year) and the successful ‘A Coffee With…’ series that has featured (among others) Scott Thornbury, Jeremy Harmer, Pete Sharma and Leon Cych this year.
These are warm, cosy meetings and have the advantage of allowing teachers worldwide to come together and share best practice without the expense of flights, hotels and everything else that accompanies a visit to a more traditional conference-style event.

Perhaps one of the most significant differences between a MUVE and other online communication tools is the opportunity it gives to incorporate non-verbal forms of communication. SL meet-ups can often appear more ‘real’ and warm – one has more of a sense of the person behind the text or voice – enhanced by the clothing they have chosen and how they behave, where they choose to sit and how they communicate (in  both spoken and written forms).
And, of course, you’re not staring at a dull chat page of scrolling text or avoiding eye contact in a video-conferencing application – in SL everything is in glorious Technicolour with movement, animation and a sense of space. You can even take your meeting off to virtual Paris, Rome or London – just for a bit of variety. Or, as we did on Friday, sit in a beautiful garden and use the flowers and trees for peaceful inspiration.
SL is particularly adept, too, at handling media, supporting a variety of audio and video formats. One can listen to podcasts, watch videos view images and webpages from a variety of sources. This can be done as a group, so allowing for follow-up discussion, and is a good way to incorporate slightly more formal training or development opportunities into the repertoire
Groups can also get together to watch PowerPoint presentations, with audio commentary by the presenter. Users can communicate among each other using public text chat (which everyone can read), private instant messaging, or even voice chat. All these tools offer a rich environment for teachers looking to meet up and share knowledge.
In short, SL is somewhere between the lively nature of Twitter (which often hampers longer, in-depth discussions due to the 140-character limit) and the more austere discussion forum (which, whilst promoting deeper critical thinking, is often hard-pressed to promote the more social side of sharing and learning).
SL’s strength lies in the ‘recognisable’ environment, the shared space, the sense of community, and – perhaps most importantly – the notion of ‘presence’. For me it’s the closest thing to actually sitting in a room with teachers and chewing the fat, and feels exactly like it does when I get together with fellow professionals in the bar at a conference and we put the world to rights. The only real difference, sadly, is that the beer in SL is virtual too!

To find out what you’ve been missing, check out the SLanguages Archive and see if it’s time you got a MUVE on…

Gavin is co-director of The Consultants-E and owner of three islands in Second Life. One day he hopes to own one in real life too! Check out his blog at http://slife.dudeney.com

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