Second Life as a Surrogate for Experiential Learning

Second Life is increasingly being used as a venue for education, especially for delivery of online instruction where social presence and community building are essential components. Despite its robust 3-D modeling tools and powerful scripting language, many educational uses of Second Life are limited to passive forms of content delivery that often mimic some variety of Victorian style lecture setting. This article demonstrates a series of exercises designed around a more active learning model for my geography courses based on Kolb’s (2005) theory of experiential learning. Active class exercises encourage hands-on interaction with components of the virtual world, but are linked explicitly to real subject matter content. By providing fun pre-exercise training and promoting learning by discovery, the exercises are designed to encourage the four fundamental components of the experiential learning environment: involvement, reflection, analysis, and problem solving. Beyond providing an excellent educational environment, such approaches can act as surrogates for real-world experiences that are either impossible or logistically problematic.