New Life for Corporate Training - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 446

pass that knowledge on is a key attribute when
arguing for the participatory nature of Second Life.
It should be noted that there are a great number
of reasons to a great number of people as to why
corporate training and development programs
should begin the earnest examination of Second
Life as a training tool. What has been provided
here is by no means comprehensive, but it serves
to demonstrate valuable points. Second Life is
well suited for incorporating instructional materi-
als that require visualization, involve movement
and interaction or the replication of environments
that otherwise could not be replicated in real-life.
Also, there are currently numerous resources
available to instructional designers within Sec-
ond Life, both those inherent from Linden Labs
and those created by other residents that make
designing training within Second Life a unique
experience. And lastly, because of Second Life's
inherent collaboration and communication ability,
peer-learning and social networking is heighten
and helps to deepen the learning experience. But
even with all this there is still hesitancy by the
majority of training and development profession-
als to use Second Life.

4. Security concerns

Learning Curve

One of the primary objections to using Second
Life for developing and delivery learning activi-
ties, regardless whether you are in academia or
the corporate world, is its learning curve (Baker
et. all., 2009; Taylor & Chyung, 2008; Werner,
2008). This learning curve is felt by students,
instructors and developers. While it only takes a
few minutes to create an account and go in-world,
once logged into Second Life is takes hours to be-
come comfortable with the environment, controls
and everything Second Life has to offer (Stoerger,
2008). Students and instructors alike must learn
to move, communicate and manipulate the vis-
ible environment. For many, entering Second
Life will be the first experience of this kind and
it could prove to be a total alien experience. As
such, it will require time for participants to adjust
and become accustomed to the tool and environ-
ment. Only once learners become accustom and
comfortable to Second Life should the educational
activity take place. To do so any sooner, proves
to be too distracting and ineffective as learning
is marginalized while dealing with other issues,
like movement communication, and interaction.
Taking it a step further, instructors, designers
and developers have the additional challenge of
learning a new software tool. People working in
these roles must learn to use the more advanced
tools of Second Life to build, script and conform
the learning environment. While building is not
difficult it does require time and patience to master
this ability. Scripting, on the other hand, is harder
to learn and takes someone comfortable with
computer programming to work with. If one is
unfamiliar with programming then you have the
added challenge of learning the basic concept of
that as well before working with Linden Lab's
proprietary scripting language. To use both of
these skills together, as one would have to while
building any type of interactive training, will

Hesitancies towards Second Life

As we just discussed, the affordances Second Life
provides make it an extremely appealing training
tool. Yet, as shown previously, corporate training
and development programs are not using it. This
section summarizes the main objections profes-
sional have stated as reasons they are not inclined
to use Second Life and then point out ways these
objections can be minimized or seen in a larger
context so they do not become stumbling blocks.
These hesitations are:

1. A steep learning curve for both instructors
and students
2. Ongoing maintenance/administrative costs
3. Required technology resources to access/
run Second Life