Education-Oriented Research Activities Conducted in Second Life - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 337

how different instructional approaches for the
design and development of courses in SL can
affect students' learning and satisfaction. For
example, there is a need to study how to design a
small quest and task-oriented activities to facilitate
students learning in the SL virtual environment.
In addition, research is needed to investigate vari-
ous ways that SL can be used in teaching, such
as a communication tool and an online learning
environment that mimics real life. The importance
of this type of research is that it can provide a
generic framework to develop SL instructional
models to guide and assist educators to develop
their own courses more effectively.
Secondly, the success of teaching in SL is af-
fected by various factors such as learners' identi-
ties, legal issues, and other cultural phenomenon in
SL. For example, although the literature addresses
many academic advantages and cost-benefits of
implementing SL and how successful learning
can be achieved, there is little information about
students' non-academic needs (e.g., social and
emotional needs) and how these needs interact or
affect learning. This may include learners' cultural
identities and legal and ethical issues in SL. More
research is needed to investigate these factors and
how they impact on learning.
Thirdly, research is needed to investigate how
SL can be used in foreign language teaching and
classifications of foreign language instructional
models. The purposes of foreign language instruc-
tional approaches in SL are to enhance students'
communicative competence of the target language
and help them to know more about the culture of
the target language. Advantages of SL virtual learn-
ing environments are the cultural environment of
the target language and SL for 'communicative
competence' (Canale &Swain, 1980).

learning in SL. Integrating SL in teaching is more
aligned with constructivist learning philosophy
and it can be an effective learning environment
especially for foreign language teaching because
of its unique social interactive nature. There are
legal and ethical issues that educators need to keep
in mind while teaching in SL. Copyright and fair
use regulations are must-know knowledge for
educators teaching in SL.
Second life is generally free, constructed by SL
residents and is suitable for educational purposes
in various settings. Although SL for teaching has
been implemented in the educational arena, espe-
cially in higher education institutions and foreign
language teaching, the future implementation of
SL in education should not be underestimated.
Presently, research has uncovered development,
teaching and/or learning activities which use
Second Life in over 80 percent of UK universi-
ties (Johnson, 2007) and at least 300 universi-
ties around the world teach courses or conduct
research in SL (Michels, 2008) taking advantage
of the platform to deliver a high quality service
to a worldwide audience at low cost. It allows
educators not only to enhance their portfolio of
teaching strategies, but to transform routine class
activities into something that can instill in the
students the values of lifelong learning and inspire
their initiatives in learning, and simultaneously
contributing to the wider community.

ReFeReNCeS

Baines, L., & Stanley, G. (2000). We want to see
the teacher. Phi Delta Kappan , 82 (4), 327-330.

Braman, J., Vincenti, G., Arboleda, A., & Jin-
man, A. (2009). Learning Computer Science
Fundamentals through Virtual Environments.
Online Communities and Social Computing. HCI
International Conference . San Diego, CA, USA

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, we discussed the use of SL in
higher education with a focus on teaching and