An article in the current journal of online education, titled “Why Professor Johnny Can’t Read: Understanding the Net Generation’s Texts”, explores the way generation net uses technology to learn and socialize. The article sites the web site Second Life as an example of the use of dynamic text as an alternative to the linear text that teachers are accustomed to.
Second life is a virtual world inhabited by avatars; graphical models of young men and women with clothing, body parts, and gender identity that can be modified at any time. Each avatar has a unique name that a user may pick from a list of random name options. The user controls the avatar with mouse and keys to manipulate the avatar’s movements through the graphical interface of 3-D objects and scenes, ranging from buildings, to trees, to highways. Second Life sells space to users who create these scenes. With the purchase of “land”, an instructor builds a classroom that student avatars can enter. The student avatars interact with each other using a chat type format.
I found the second life experience to be eerie and death-like. This may have been because of the dark dream quality of the graphics, or because the avatars can be made to fly above the scenes. Second Life is like a supernatural out of body experience. Other avatar “ghosts” wander the web site from place to place, chatting with each other. For me, the most remarkable thing about Second Life is the freedom to wander in a body that cannot be assaulted or killed. As a female, I feel somewhat frightened by the solitary experience of meeting up with strange avatars. I really noticed my apprehension and reflexive desire to stick to well-lit public places.
Apparently many gen-n are accustomed to experiencing social situations on line, and probably don’t experience Second Life as I do. That is exactly the point. My own perceptions and sensations while playing with this technology are quite different from the perceptions of someone who uses this technology as an everyday tool, much like a telephone or a word processor. Second life has an element of unpredictability that the pod casts, video and print media lack. When was the last time those media talked back to you? Second life can be used as a virtual classroom for on-line courses, to enhance the textual interactions that lack the social proximity of the avatars. Second life tricks the brain into thinking that the avatar is an extension of one’s own body, giving a physical nature to what would otherwise mainly involve the intellect. Second life has the potential to bridge the social gap between the college classroom experience and the online classroom experience.
My own discomfort not withstanding, teaching tools like avatars can bring older instructors and students in line with the digital native’s way of experiencing and interacting with technology. If we are to use technology as a teaching tool, it behooves us to choose the methods of delivery that student are comfortable with and accustomed to. Besides, I could probably get used to invincibility. My avatar can leap from tall buildings, and teach physics in the process.
