Second Life and
Other Virtual Worlds
As a general rule, virtual worlds, whether Second Life or something else, are for students 16 years or older. They are complex, somewhat unragulated for content, and potentially unsavory. The sites geared toward younger studetns tend to be very commercial (ie Club Penguin by Disney). These sites are for teachers or designers who will be working with senior high school age students and older.
Many people critize Wikipedia, but I find it very helpful. Here are some articles you might find informative that give a general overview to some of the currently more popular virtual worlds and virtual worlds as a topic:
- virtual worlds
- Blue Mars
- Club Penguin
- Gaia Online
- Habbo
- IMVU
- Kaneva
- OpenSimulator
- Second Life
- Whyville
- World of Warcraft
I found VirtualEnvironments.info and it has a lot of very good information; the only problem is I'm not sure how often it is updated or when it was last updated. My sugestion is follow the links and see if they are still active.
Second Life |
|
Second LifeThis is where to get started with Second Life. Join (which is free), learn about it, and just dive ine! While I love SL and feel it, or something like it, has an important place in education, Linden Labs, the creator of SL, tends to love their own PR. They are in it to make money and as long as you realize they are not in it for the love of being creative, you will not be dissapointed. While I make snarky comments about SL, there is one thing to keep in mind: it does cost money to own an island in SL, but Linden Labs have the headaches of servers, upgrades, technical issues, etc. There is something to be said about a "convience tax" for the ease of using SL's hardware and human resources. |
|
Second Life Educationhttp://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Second_Life_Education This is Linden Lab's Wiki covering education in Second Life. At one time, there was a link on the Second Life home page that connected to information on education and the support of educators; this one is buried several layers down. One has to ask if it is Linden Lab's way of saying we just don't care as much as we use to. However, if you are going to us SL for education, it is the place to start. |
|
Wright State Island IISLURL to Wright State Island II If you have never been to Second Life or would like to look at Wright State's area, follow the SLURL (a kind of URL for Second Life locations) to Wright State's island and look around. Wright State Island I was lost due to price increases from Linden Labs; it "sank" in June of 2011. NOTE: this SLURL does not work in Firfox, but it does in IE; go figure. |
|
| top | Creation Portalhttp://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Creation_Portal "This portal is about all things related to creating content within Second Life. Whether it is learning the user interface, to build better, or discovering resident-created tools to ease the complications of developing something. It should all start here. Since content creation is such a vast field, our community is always progressing, so please feel free to add resources you find helpful as we welcome all contributions in complience with the Wiki's Editing Guidelines!" (From instroduction to this page.) |
Other Virtual WorldsI am woefully unfamiliar with virtual worlds other than Second Life. The links and any descriptions below are quite superficial and will be upgraded as soon as I delve more deeply into the various places. Also, not all of these are for education; some are just social gathering places or roleplaying games. |
|
Blue Mars |
|
Club Penguin |
|
Gaia Online |
|
Habbo (formerly Habbo Hotel) |
|
IMVU |
|
OpenSimulator or OpenSim |
|
Whyville |
|
World of Warcraft |
|