New Life for Corporate Training - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 435

Figure 1. Looking down onto Aloft Nonprofit Commons in Second Life

Residents can also choose to join, or form, a
group. Groups are formed in Second Life when
two or more residents maintain membership be-
cause of similar interests. Groups members can
communicate with each other over long distances
through the use of Second Life's communication
tools, build a space for group activities, hold
meetings or just hang out together. Groups can
also share resources, such as property, materials
or inventory items. This allows for the group to
work collaboratively on projects, just as they
might in the real-life. Educators working in Second
Life often choose to form a group around each
specific course or class they are teaching. This
allows them to quickly communicate in-world
to that group just like sending a mass email or
communicating via a list-serv. It is also a way to
separate different classes and distribute informa-
tion to specific audiences. Because of its unique
blend of communication tools, both voice and
text based, and its group collaboration features,
Second Life could be considered a visual social
networking tool.

The primary distinguishing feature of Second
Life, from other MUVEs, is that everything within
Second Life is created by a resident. Many other
virtual environments may provide participants
all the building resources or allow users to select
from pre-made template items. Second Life is
unique in the fact that while the building blocks
in-world were created by Linden Lab, it is up to
residents to use those blocks, or prims as they
are called in-world, to build everything from the
ground up. In certain areas residents can even
terraform the landscape to create whatever type
of environment they desire, from mountains to
beaches to open seas. In response, residents have
created every imaginable item including, clothes,
furniture, homes, pets, vehicles, human organs,
office buildings, theaters, medical equipment,
airports, dance clubs, parks, coral reefs and much
more. Indeed, building an item in Second Life is
only limited by a resident's interest, creativity
and talent.
While building in Second Life is not diffi-
cult it does require time and patience to master;