Second Life: A High Potential Educational Delivery System for Higher Education

Abstract

Abstract

From times immemorial, man had always been fascinated by the concept of travelling to and living in another world, another life, second life or having many lives. Innumerable stories and novels have been written and movies made in scores of languages to whet this fantasy of ours, which remains unsatiated. Now, in this post-modern civilization with its ubiquitous digital technologies, we have taken this fantasy of ours even further, to actually create a virtual world, where we can live another life ? a second life. ?Second Life? (SL) is a 3-dimensional online virtual world, which is actually a social networking site, where anyone in the world can join as a member for free and become a resident of this wondrous digitally created world to explore, build and use it to form or join groups or indulge in any activity, we normally do in real life. This virtual world caught the imagination of the young and the adventurous and expanded exponentially to encompass all human activities, be they ? education, arts, sciences, religion, relationships, role-playing, competitive entertainment or therapy. This paper attempts to understand this evolving medium and its promising attributes that can be used for effective educational delivery in Higher Education.