Report on first Irish Conference about the potential of Second Life for educators

I attended the above event on Tueday (27th) evening. It was a perfect mix of usefulness and chaos that neatly sums up second life. Over 40 delegates from Ireland and around the world turned up. The image to the right shows them gathering. There was standing room only long before proceedings got underway as demand far exceeded the organisers expectations. The conference opened with a video of how second life (SL) is used in Harvard. While some delegates had technical problems at this point (this related primarily to them not having QuickTime on their PCs) most of us were able to enjoy this interesting example of how one of the Ivy League's finest is at the forefront of adopting SL. Streamed speech was used at this stage to address delegates. Following the video delegates were divided into two groups (students and educators) to discuss the potential benefits and pitfalls of using SL. This part of the conference was conducted using the text-based messaging which forms the bulk of SL communication. A bizarre upshot of this was that the streamed music usually playing in Dublin in SL was audible again. This incongruous sound track included the Corrs, Enya and Irish 'rebel' songs. The debate that took place to this was as diverse as it was interesting ranging from theoretical issues to practical concerns. For example one delegate explained that exam boards in his institution would not accept SL work for assessment purposes. Another informed the group that he was successful in having SL work accepted as part of a portfolio of work students prepared. A major focus of the debate was how SL related to existing Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs). Moodle and Blackboard users reported that they have successfully integrated SL into both. After an enjoyable debate lasting about an hour most delegates retired to the Blarney Stone for a virtual drink. This is where things started to get a little peculiar. SL slowed dramatically as the number of 'drinkers' soared and eventually I left. Outside I bumped into two academics from a UK university that had attended the event. We were having a useful discussion (including trading presentations we have given about SL) until we were rudely by a large naked man giving away free cats. After bidding farewell to my two colleagues I simply flew off to Cybrary city. It’s all part of having a second life!