This life V Second Life - some thoughts!
This week I enjoyed an 'innovations session' as part of an inset day at a secondary school in Gravesham. The gathered teachers, fresh from their Summer break were presented with an excellent 'reduced shakespeare' history lesson on the world wide web. Amongst other things, teachers were introduced to Second Life. For those who don't know, second life is a 'virtual world' where users can decide what they want to look like (an avatar), can trade in a virtual economy, take part in virtual fun and develop properties and islands. (I have a tentative presence in this virtual world, although still haven't got used to flying). Second Life even has its own economy based on the Linden Dollar.
The Second Life economy offers a virtual world that mimics our own; economy; travel between islands, some places are great, others ... challenging. I was quite surprised at the response of the gathered teachers to the idea of virtual worlds. Most teachers enjoy the prospect of travel to far off lands in the real world. They take risks! Teachers seem willing to take risks to travel to other countries; different cultures, currencies; social structures; economies. Yet, the same people seem reluctant to travel and explore a virtual world, even though its far cheaper, greener and safer and easier. (No airports). It is just as stimulating.Perhaps teachers should view virtual worlds in the same way they do their exploration of the real world, with anticipation, expectation and excitement. As in the real world, the virtual world is a place of exciting interaction and cultural exchange. Both the real and virtual worlds can be anarchic and unpleasant. We can be sworn at in the classroom or the street as effectively as in the virtual world.
The gap between teacher and taught needs to narrow. The virtual worlds children inhabit are growing at a phenomenal rate, and we need to be part of them. I've entered ... there's nothing to be scared of really.
The session also highlighted the activities of 'gold traders' in the game World
of Warcraft. This is typically where Chinese 'Gold Farmers' work in sweat-shops for long hours to accumulate virtual gold which is
then traded for real money to allow lavy westerners to advance in the game.
A
point was made by one of the teachers that set me thinking. On hearing about the gold traders, her strong reaction was that virtual economies encourage exploitation and should be banned. One
can feel a sympathy with this view; exploitation is wrong, but an
economy is generated by the presence of markets, and markets are simply
places, (real or virtual) where buyers and sellers transact. Is the economy that involves sweatshop creation of virtual gold any worse than the sweat shop exploitation of children in developing countries to
provide cheap clothes to the West?