Second Life is a three-dimensional, multi-user virtual environment, or MUVE. Think of it as a sort of online videogame, except that all the other characters within the environment are also real people, each sitting in front of a keyboard somewhere in the real world. Every user designs an on-screen name and character, known as an avatar, to interact and communicate with fellow residents of this online universe, a place where they can form societies and clubs, buy and sell items and services, and even create buildings and neighborhoods.

Second Life is not the first such online digital playground, and considering the promise this technology holds, doubtless it will not be the last. However, at this moment at least, Second Life has managed to capture the imaginations of major corporations, the mainstream media, and some 2 million plus registered users.

With these varied inhabitants developing virtual land and making electronic connections, Second Life offers something for everyone. Educators are no exception, and many have taken the initiative in designing Second Life simulations that reflect real-life curricula. Johnson and Wales University, for example, has created a “Virtual Morocco” environment, in which users can click on objects within the simulation to learn about mosque architecture, or which spices are included in Casablanca’s cuisine. A heart murmur clinic simulation allows visitors to make a diagnosis for virtual “patients” after listening to audio of real heart murmur defects. And if a trip to the National Air and Space Museum in the real Washington, D.C. is too costly, users can visit Second Life’s International Spaceflight Museum, where aerospace fans recently gathered to watch a live NASA video feed of the launch of the space shuttle Discovery. Second Life offers nearly limitless potential as a resource in providing an immersive, custom-tailored education experience, without the constraints of budget and practicality imposed by real-life classrooms.

Oh, and one more thing: the kids dig it. The company responsible for Second Life’s creation, the San Francisco-based Linden Lab, has enacted protocols to keep minors safe within the Second Life experience – users under 18 are segregated into the “Teen Second Life grid,” in which adults, including educators, are restricted to their own private islands, environments that teens may choose to visit, or not. Simulations on the adult platform – including the Morocco, heart murmur, and spaceflight applications – can serve as examples to educators in best practices for utilizing Second Life’s resources for instruction, lessons educators can implement later for their own students, on teen grid private islands.

Many ISTE members are active with their own Second Life projects, environments crafted specifically with professional development for educators in mind. Eugene, Oregon-based Mark Horney is a SIGTE (Teacher Educator) member, and a senior research associate at the University of Oregon’s Center for Advanced Technology in Education (CATE).

Known as Irving Gyllig while “in-world,” Horney and the CATE staff are developing their own headquarters in Second Life on the aptly-named EduIsland, with plans to offer UO continuing education and graduate credit for K-12 teachers interested in the navigating, building, and scripting that expands the Second Life universe. What’s more, these classes will all be taught within the virtual environment. “The first phase is to incorporate Second Life components into more traditional classes,” says Horney. “I’m thinking mostly about what sorts of classes and activities might best be conducted in this environment.”

CATE’s Second Life simulation is designed primarily by Horney’s fellow UO senior research associate Jonathan Richter, who goes by the handle Wainbrave Bernal while in-world. Horney describes Richter as his department’s “Second Life champion.”

“I've been interested in applying ‘serious games’ to education for a few years,” states Richter, who recently attended a Second Life “town hall” meeting for educators by telecommuting in from the deck of a real-life holiday cruise ship tour. The ease and speed of Second Life communication appeal to Richter, as does the versatility. “Fun is a big part of learning in SL,” he adds.

That aspect of fun isn’t lost on Lindy McKeown, a SIGTE (teacher educator) member based in Bundamba, Queensland, Australia. McKeown is known as Decka Mah in-world, and her project’s private Second Life island features fun touches such as a submarine docked in the bay, and beautiful mountain terrain scenery. McKeown is even planning to add kangaroo chaperones for her guests. Like any real world developer, McKeown is proud of her new innovations, such as breakout classrooms that launch into the air and hover above the earth, for group privacy and to avoid distraction during meetings. “Why look like a school when you don't have to?” asks McKeown. “Boring and rigorous are not synonyms.”

Second Life’s private islands do not come cheap, however. The vision and dynamic thinking incorporated into McKeown’s design is made possible through a grant from the state Queensland Government and the University of Southern Queensland, forward-thinking agencies investing in “the social and technical affordances of the 3D environment for the pedagogy of Action Learning,” as McKeown puts it.

In December, Lisa Perez, area library coordinator for the Chicago Public Schools Department of Libraries & Information Services, completed her own department’s Second Life office, a homey, intimate space in the media-themed Cybrary City, featuring a slideshow, computer terminals, and even readable books, all virtual. These materials feature professional development opportunities for educators and librarians, and demonstrate technology use in Chicago’s schools.

In real life, Perez is a SIGMS (media specialist) member, as well as the coordinator of an after-school book club established in almost every high school in the Windy City. So it is no surprise that the Second Life environment she designed is filled with books. Clicking on bookcases full of tiny, on-screen tomes allows users to download poetry by the likes of Frost and Longfellow. An oversized coffee table book even details Chicago’s after-school book club project, giving Perez one more method of disseminating information about one of her department’s major programs.

Perez is excited by Second Life’s outreach potential, and corrects the common perception that the program is essentially one gargantuan toy. “It's not gaming,” Perez says of Second Life, “it's communication, creating, teaching, and learning.”

Perez’s passion about the application is a sentiment shared by many educators, and that just about says it all.

Well, virtually.

ISTE members interested in registering for Second Life, in order to visit any of these ISTE member-created environments, can contact general membership director Jennifer Ragan-Fore at jraganfore@iste.org.  Members already registered with Second Life can send an instant message in world to Kittygloom Cassady.

All interviews for this article were conducted avatar to avatar, within Second Life.