In about 30 days I’ll have been in-world for a year. In that time I’ve run a relatively successful real estate business, joined a community of educators, created a promotional presence for my novels, and worked with some groups to realize their objectives in-world. Some trends and ideas are emerging.

One of the things that drew me to SL to begin with was the increased educational presence in-world. A year ago, SL was very much in evidence in blogs and other media as a kind of new frontier. Colleges and universities were investing in their own islands, SL created a teen grid for the 13-to-18 year olds, and professional organizations established programs to encourage and mentor new residents. As a long time participant in virtual worlds, I was interested in how this presence was playing out — in seeing how the educational establishment was adapting to the environment.

First, while I am not a lawyer, I believe that any college or university which accepts US federal dollars and requires students to use second life as a classroom space is in violation of regulation 508 because SL is not accessible to individuals who are blind. The viewer does not appear to be accessible and the value of the environment solely as a chat room is so small as to be asinine. The argument that “we have no blind students so it’s ok” is merely a blank check for the first blind students who wants to retire without finishing his/her degree. The creation of an inaccessible school is a de facto violation of US laws governing accessibility including IDEA, and regulations 504 and 508. The much bruited installation of “voice chat” as accessibility option is merely an indication of how very little the educational establishment actually understands the issue of accessibility.

Second, the main instantiation of educational activity in SL seems to be the recreation of the classroom in virtual space. Touring campuses and educational spaces reveals instance after instance of lecture hall and virtual classroom dedicated to displaying 2D data in 3D space. Powerpoints, audio (voice and mp3 streaming), and video screens appear to be the main mechanism for education in the space.

Third, efforts to introduce games and problem-based instruction as educational strategies have focused on adding a “game layer” on top of the SL environment rather than using the environment itself as a game. This is particularly ludicrous when dealing with subject matter such as marketing, economics, mathematics, history, and literature. It underscores a reality that educators are still in the “doing the same old thing with new technology” stage of adoption. I’ll be anxious to see how long it takes the educational community to realize that SL affords capabilities that transcend and exceed the capabilities of the classroom.

Fourth, my sense is that educators are generally tourists — outsiders looking in, just visiting — in the environment. Few hold jobs. Comparatively few even “get off the island.” This is especially true of those educators who participate through the auspices of a private island. They’re very busy controlling the environment to suit their own purposes without really taking the time to understand the culture and environment. It’s no wonder they’re unable to recognized the inherent value of the space.

Fifth, everybody is interested in the space as an educational environment and almost nobody is looking at it as a learning environment. Ask the average educator what they’re interested in and you’ll get a variation on the response, “I want to find the best way to teach here.” Contrary to popular belief that is not the obverse of, “I want to find the best way to learn here.” It’s not surprising. They still think that there’s a direct correlation between teaching and learning in RL as well. That bias has been brought in world.

Sixth, research in SL is actually NOT exclusively “media comparison” which was a surprise. There are actually people looking at some interesting things like how embodiment choices in SL effect one’s RL thinking. Much of the social research on gender is flawed because it’s based on self-report. Almost all the “personal space” research is based on the flawed assumption that people stand where they intend to stand (and not the last place a movement left them). I’m still trying to figure out what a valid “educational research question” might look like in SL.

Conclusion: Teachers want to use the space. Most of them want to use it for the wrong reasons. Many don’t have a clue what it means to be “in the world” in any real sense, instead focusing on imposing RL constraints on SL constructs — even when those constraints are irrelevant.