Second Life: Online Virtual World πŸ’»πŸŒ

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Second Life is a 3D virtual world that allows users to create different kinds of animated avatars, places, communities, etc. The avatars that are created on Second Life can travel to worlds and lands. participate in role-playing games, create and sell products, and socialize with other Second Life residents. So, I started by visiting the Second Life website, created an account, and downloaded a program to my computer to launch the Second Life application. Then, I created my first avatar! 


Exploring A virtual world through Second Life was a different and fun experience for me but I was also very interested to explore and learn more about the educational side of that virtual platform. So, I tried to do some research about that topic to find out the possibilities. 


So, when I'm searching for the education side of Second Life, I found out that many universities around the world have built an online version of their campus within Second Life (not all of them public) and use this to give lectures, teach new skills or to enable students to work together on projects. So, I decided to check out some of the institutions' virtual campus on Second Life. 

Some universities' virtual campus destinations in Second Life


I took my avatar to National University of Singapore's campus and went through some of their virtual classrooms! It was like a virtual campus tour and I really enjoyed it. 



The idea of having a virtual version of our school/university campus is really exciting. I think incorporating these kinds of new education models into our regular instructing methods can be helpful because it is different, appealing, engaging, and it definitely would allow students to acquire knowledge in new and exciting ways that they may not even imagine! Second Life provides some unique and varied opportunities for education and I think especially language learners can benefit from this type of virtual way of learning a lot. They might search for objects in the different virtual worlds that have definitions attached to them, and it can be a fun and interactive way to build vocabulary. There are so many different possibilities! 
So, it was great to experience the virtual world of Second Life and think about the roles of these kinds of virtual platforms in education.

P.S. I can start a blog series about different virtual learning platforms in the future, so stay tuned!  

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