Second Life part I: What is it?

Second Life(SL) is promoted as a 3-D virtual world built entirely by its “residents.” You are told that you will find a vast digital continent full of people, entertainment experiences and opportunity. Everything that we see in SL was created by your “fellow residents,” which can be bought, sold or traded among residents. SL even has it’s own currency which can be converted from US dollars at various Linden Dollar exchanges (very much like exchanging US dollars for Euros when visiting Europe). Okay, I thought this could be interesting so I downloaded and installed the SL client on my computer, created an account and an avatar. So far, so good, right? Sure. I logged into SL and found myself in a deserted city with no clue as to what to do or where to go. So I started wandering around. By accident, I noticed a small window in the bottom left portion of the open window that indicated that there might actually be a point to this deserted city. I “spoke” with several other residents, but since none of us knew what we were doing, we couldn’t even help each other out. Where was the tourist information center to help point us in the right direction? Where were the cues to tell us what we needed to do to get out of the deserted city? SL is not at all user intuitive. Sure there is a progress meter that provides you with information about the progress you’ve made toward learning various methods of movement, but it wasn’t until my second log-in to SL that I “achieved” one of the goals, I learned fly, to put 2+2 together to realize what the purpose of the progress window was. Now I was getting somewhere, but my motivation to continue wasn’t there.

How would I describe my initial visits to SL? Frustrating, confusing, and an un-productive use of my already limited time.

What educational uses did SL provide during those first two visits? I learned a couple of lessons myself in what NOT to do in gaming/simulation/modeling. When I initially logged in, I was very interested in what SL had to offer, but after over 1 hour of time in SL, there was no motivation or desire left to further explore. The creators of SL might want to consider looking at Motivation theory and principles to improve the initial experience in SL more user intuitive and less confusing.

Had the use and exploration of SL not been a requirement of a course I am taking on Gaming, Simulations and Modeling in Education, I doubt I would’ve logged in again…