SECOND LIFE

The virtual platform, which allows you to work, play and have relationships with digital avatars, is now also the forefront in the world of virtual education.

From a technological perspective, the process of globalization has also had a profound impact on the lifestyle of our society, one that until now has only developed in the material or real world (everything that is outside the Internet, our daily lives). on social media.What we considered “real life” until recently our daily life, and our way of approaching knowledge, education and information, are increasingly involved, disrupted and modified by the virtual or immaterial world of the Internet. This process has promoted the reformulation of paradigms, currents, scientific theories and ways of understanding and constructing reality from different activities that are daily for people in the 21st century.. A clear example of these new ways of understanding and constructing reality is the one offered by the Second Life platform, which was created by Linden Lab in 2013 under the configuration of metaverses, designed the existence of stories, settings and characters that do not physically have mass but do exist in the virtual world. It is an already massive virtual parallel world in which digital avatars work, have fun, have relationships and modify their identity. Second Life aims to encourage the construction of social and human relationships in virtual reality. Once a user accesses the platform, they assume the role of resident; From now on, you will have the opportunity to explore, socialize, meet other residents to manage or carry out a set of group or individual activities just like in real life, but something different.

Recently, several universities and companies in the education sector worldwide began to use the platform with the intention of expanding the educational offer on the Internet, and encouraging the construction of participatory learning and teaching scenarios that students can live a complete educational experience in the virtual world. .It should be noted that what differentiates the learning experience of Second Life from other types of educational platforms such as Moodle, edX or Blackboard has to do with the fact that SL Learning enables the 3D "reconstruction" of training scenarios; that is, you can build a.classroom and interact with students and teachers directly.In other words, Second Life allows users to recreate physical learning scenarios with their respective architectural features in the virtual world, which becomes a possibility to generate a more attractive, innovative and technological learning environment. Likewise, it is believed that SL Learning stimulates user participation and learning through interaction with people who are part of different cultures and training centers. Finally, at present, different universities and research centers, both public and private, have begun to use the SecondLife platform to expand their virtual campuses, and find new, novel and powerful forms of teaching.

In our university, we are asked to experience SecondLife as well. I can say that it could bring the classrooms more efficient and innovative learning acivities while having fun. Above you can see an image from my own experience. I chose a more fantastic character as my avatar. If you desire to know what Second Life platform looks like, here you have the link to check out.