Classroom in Second Life - The Future

This week's reading assignment was about communication conventions in a class chat, which got me thinking about our class time in SL. We brought up the point in class last night that the person who types the fastest tends to rule the chat, which is a problem for those who can't type very well. Using SL for class instruction, seeing the avatars in SL, may help to get around this problem, as anyone in the class can see when anyone else in the class is typing and have more patience as the typer gets their message out. Elluminate has tried to do this, with the chat bubble next to everyone's name in the session - it lights up yellow when someone it typing something. But this can be due to a small pet accessing the keyboard, or someone accidentally hitting a key, and once someone has put something in the text box, the bubble remains lit up until it is cleared - meaning that the bubble could be lit up and the student not even know it.

In SL, this problem isn't an issue. Whenever the person stops typing at the computer, the avatar also stops typing. While it would still be unknown if the person is hunting for the next keystroke or if they have thought twice about what they wanted to say, at least the rest of the class wouldn't be sitting around waiting for the person to share what they were typing.

The article this week mentioned "students may find it easier to orient themselves when surrounded by familiar, albeit virtual, structures like classrooms, libraries, cafes and faculty offices" (Murphy & Collins, 1997, para. 18). It is true - the first time a student is in a virtual classroom, be it a simple chat or multi-media "room", that student is bewildered and unsettled. I well remember my first chat - it was in a simple Blackboard Java chat, and I was so afraid that I wouldn't be able to keep up. Everyone else had been in a virtual class before, so they knew all the rules, and I was bewildered when people started saying "!" with no explanation. Now in my 4th semester, I am an old pro at virtual classrooms.

Second Life could easily help alleviate the stress of learning how a virtual classroom works for any student. Having the avatars sitting in any space the instructor decides to provide, being able to tell when the professor is getting ready to continue the lecture, being able to raise your hand when you have a question or comment, rather than having the learn the chat shorthand, would all be beneficial to any student, especially the student new to virtual classrooms.

Even though there are issues with the software and students' computing ability, I think seeing classrooms in SL isn't too far off, especially at an institution such as Florida State University. There is already a team in place to recreate the Shores building in SL - it would be very simple to create classrooms within the SL Shores building and have the students sit there with their avatars. The immediacy of synchronous chat combined with the visual presence of a classroom and other students would make for a very successful class indeed.