Warburton article reviews social –technical environment of virtual worlds, specifically the analysis of Second Life (SL) as a learning tool for higher education. The importance of this concept is the notion of the learner acceptance of being there in the environment of the virtual environment. This includes persistence of being in a continual scenario, simultaneous participation with others, avatar selection, interactions with the programming, immediacy of action in real time, and finally similarities of geographic terrain. These are indicating factors for numerous virtual users worldwide. Three components of SL were explored: technical infrastructure, immersion, and socialization. Technical infrastructure deals with the amount of programming necessary for bandwidth issues. Immersion entails the live action aspects and interaction with other avatars in the virtual world. Finally socialization deals with the personal bonds that develops with environment and the other avatars in the virtual simulation.
My thoughts: The virtual learning environments like Second Life would be very beneficial in the secondary education curriculum. Students attending school in these ages of 7-17 could have a new media to focus their attention on. I say this as they often develop characters or reference video game material daily. Many have online personality characters for themselves as a alternate being. However school districts finding the necessary funding and the actual scope of lessons to be developed would have to be arranged by the teacher. Many teachers could feel overburdened by the added work of developing curriculum.
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