Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

8.17.10 | What would kids do if given the freedom to build a new world with only their imagination as its boundary?

Teen Second Life gave us all the chance to find out. Almost. Designed as a youth-run virtual world, the version of Second Life reserved for adolescents age 13 to17 allows only approved adults to enter on a limited basis, usually as educators or with non-profit organizations, and with restrictions about where in the world the adults are allowed to travel.

Teens design their own avatars, who often appear with wings, or fluorescent green skins or long furry tails. They interact with other adolescents from around the world to build an ever-shifting virtual space, complete with rain forests and oceans and concert spaces.

At the beginning of this experiment, educators wondered how such a space could be used to support learning. From scavenger hunts to historical simulations to virtual video -  they’ve been busy ever since with what became a grand experiment in virtual creativity and learning.

But sadly, the experiment is about to come to a close. For now.

Philip Rosedale, CEO of Linden Lab, the company that runs Second Life and Teen Second Life, announced the space’s planned closure at the Second Life Community Convention in Boston over the weekend, saying the space was not growing at a fast enough rate. The company will lower the minimum age of participation in the main Second Life grid from 18 to 16.

From the beginning, the New York-based non-profit Global Kids, the first outside educational institution invited into Teen Second Life, led the way in the exploration of this virtual space for learning. Online leadership program director Barry Joseph tells the remarkable story in “A Eulogy For Teen Second Life” on the organization’s blog.

“Like everyone else, we entered the world confused, calling upon old models to provide guidance to the new,” he writes, describing the organization’s foibles (digital graffiti, projectile lava spewing volcanoes, virtual cigarettes) as well as its successes.

“Teen Second Life welcomed us, [as long] as we followed the rules and, like Gilligan and his crew, never left our island. But more importantly we learned right away that for adults to operate in a youth-driven environment, which offered such powerful constructionist opportunities, we couldn’t deliver pre-formed activities and opportunities. Rather, to properly leverage their interests and the affordances of the word, the development process would need to be much more flexible, and collaborative. More like a dance.”

Joseph discusses why he thinks the space ultimately failed, noting that “it was never provided the resources required to succeed,” and he highlights much of the incredible work Global Kids and their partners have done there in such a short time period:

• The summer camp which inspired existing youth residents to develop leadership skills around global issues and educate their peers about sex trafficking through the construction of an elaborate maze.
• The UNICEF competition that challenged the community to build structures that raised awareness about human rights, followed by a second summer camp, this one to produce, short animated films for UNICEF’s site commemorating the passage of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
• The Virtual Video Project, which over three years led Global Kids Youth leaders to work with community residents to produce animated films about child soldiers in Northern Uganda, child sex trafficking, and racism as an obstacle to education around the world.
• I Dig Science, where Global Kids Youth Leaders in NYC and youth in Chicago’s Field Museum learn about paleontology and global issues while tracking, and communicating with, scientists in the field.
• Playing For Keeps, in which youth developed a simulation called CONSENT! to raise awareness about medical racism against African-American prisoners since World War II.
• The Dream It, Do It initiative, developed with Ashoka, which trained scores of youth to develop entrepreneurial ventures, wherever they were, be it middle schools, the virtual world, or even teen jails.
• Witnessing History, a project with youth interns at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum who used primary source material to create a simulation that raised questions about the role of witnesses to genocide.
• Science in Second Life, a high school level class that taught basic science skills through students visiting simulations of places around the world like Naples, Italy, where they learned about the environmental impact of garbage, and Antarctica, where they flew into the atmosphere to measure the impact of global warming.
• Finally, we brought in public intellectuals, like Henry Jenkins and James Paul Gee, whose work had been lending context and credence to virtual world-based education and interest-driven learning. Jenkins, for example, addressed the topic of Harry Potter fandoms’ social activism through a dance party to the music of the politically-charged Wizard Rock, held within a virtual Hogwarts created by residents. And he did it all while having his avatar wear a Dumbledore costume.

But no doubt, as Joseph points out, this is not the end of online exploration and interest- driven learning.

Universities, libraries and educators continue to have an important presence in Second Life’s main grid, and new virtual spaces for kids are popping up every day. (See ToonsTunes and Dizzywood, for example). 

Who knows what the virtual playgrounds of the future will look like? Hopefully we’ll have the courage to let young people lead us there.

Plus: If you’ve never been to Second Life and want to visit, or want to explore your avatar-side and don’t know where to begin, the University of Westminster has provided a wonderful video tutorial that comes via Anne Collier at NetFamilyNews. The tutorial can walk you through how to set up an account, get started, and learn how to build your own virtual castle.

And for more on learning in virtual worlds, see “Teens in Virtual Worlds Learn Civic Lessons That Are Anything But Dull” and “Classroom Quest: Virtual Space Brings Academic Content to Life”—two stories at Spotlight that shine a light on creativity and learning in virtual spaces.