Why might we want to learn in a 3D world? Is learning through an avatar any better than learning through discussion boards?
This sense that our digital identities are different from our 'real life' identities and even the idea of having a digital identity seems to have emerged predominantly from the notion of a mind-body split. There is an overarching sense when operating in cyberspace that there is a feeling of disembodiment and of not being present, a sense of being present and yet not being there. For many people this sense disembodiment appears to be troubling because it prompts us to consider the nature of our identities in cyberspace and whether they are the same or different from our other identities, and the ways in which we position ourselves in face-to-face encounters.
Learning in and through Second Life does have a different sense of embodiment: more a sense of being there, possibly because of the opportunity to create oneself as an avatar, a bodily manifestation of oneself in the context of the 3D virtual world.
Digital spaces have changed, and continue to change, both the nature of higher education and the way in which learning is enacted within it. Whilst digital spaces have brought new freedoms in terms of the ability to co-author texts across the Atlantic, engage in e-conferencing, (re) create identities through avatars and games and provide access to a diverse range of knowledges, such freedom is not unproblematic.
Second Life could change learning and curriculum practices in ways that engage students in the classroom and in ways that fit more readily with the ways they seem to be learning outside the classroom.
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