The Affordances of Second Life for Education - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 106

instructional video to teach their parents a new
technical skill.
Data visualization is another aspect of repre-
sentation that has value for education. One SL
example is a dynamic 3D graph that represents
the market value of stock in the Standard & Poor's
500; the display includes a field of columns, each
representing a different stock. The columns grow
or shrink according to the market value, and color
changes indicate whether the price is rising, fall-
ing, or staying the same (see Figure 3). Another
example we have seen is a 3D pie chart, showing
the relative proportion of topics searched in a
library database over time. The cool thing about
that chart was that you could climb it, like a
staircase, giving a uniquely kinesthetic encounter
with the data that would be nearly impossible in
another setting.
On Biome I you can see a 3D model of the
Revised Bloom's Taxonomy for Learning, Teach-
ing, and Assessing (see Figure 4).

Simulations are representations or imitations
of real-life objects, processes, or events. Models
are a form of simulation that shows a real-life
object or process in miniature or in a way that
simplifies reality. Simulations offer a way for
students to experience things that they would not
otherwise have access to, either because the events
took place in the past or at a remote location, or
because the events are too small, too big, too slow,
too fast, or too dangerous to be experienced di-
rectly. Often, a simulation or model will also
simplify a complex situation, so that its major
elements can be more easily understood, or will
highlight the ways in which certain aspects of the
situation change over time, for example by show-
ing a simulated meter or graph that shows the
value of key variables.
Simulations certainly can take place in the real
world (for example, when a group of Civil War
re-enactors put on a simulation of the Battle of
Gettysburg), but computerized environments—
including SL—afford unique opportunities for

Figure 3. The S&P 500 market value, visualized in a 3D graph in SL