I don't know if it's been mentioned in this forum or not but there's an
interesting discussion taking place at Sylvia Martinez' blog on her
experiences with using SL as an educator.  It's worth looking at for
some of the issues that she raises. You can read through her original
posting as the responses at
http://blog.genyes.com/index.php/2007/07/21/second-thoughts-on-second-li
fe/  Again, as David notes, my position is not one of saying one should
use or not use Second Life but rather what would it take to get to the
point that educators would want to invest their time to make this
technology tool practical for the students they work with.  Speaking as
one who is extremely pleased to get something as basic as an email
message from a student, it would take some doing to expect my students
to be creating avatars and visiting educational sites on SL on their
own.  I'm not convinced yet that my time is well-spent on encouraging
that endeavor.  

Barry Bakin
Pacoima Skills Center
Division of Adult and Career Education,
Los Angeles Unified School District

-----Original Message-----
From: technology-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:technology-bounces at nifl.gov]
On Behalf Of David J. Rosen
Sent: Monday, August 13, 2007 11:31 AM
To: The Technology and Literacy Discussion List
Subject: [Technology 1210] Re: Prosessional Development Design &
Developmentfor the 21st Century


Hello Mark, and others,

Thanks for your thoughts on the use of Second Life (SL) for adult  
literacy education. I hope you will share some of your group's  
research on "under what conditions and for what purposes 3DVR might  
be more appropriate or effective than other tools/environments for  
learning" and what you see as some of the opportunities and  
limitations of using Second Life. I would like to learn more about  
what  "we need to advocate *for* educators *to* vendors like Linden  
Labs, so they build in more education-appropriate features." What  
features on SL do you think are worthwhile? What other features  
should we be advocating for?