The website 50 Tips and Tricks to Create a Learning Space in Second Life describes the educational possibilities of Second Life for reaching out beyond traditional classrooms and school districts, connecting with people around the world, having interactive discussions, practicing real-world skills and keeping students engaged in a technologically-driven society. The list offers examples of educational uses of Second Life in a variety of subject areas such as CyberOne: a Harvard Law School course on Law in the Court of Public Opinion or Money and Design, an economics class using Second Life as a virtual platform for future entrepreneurs and business designers to practice their skills. You also can find tips and tools for getting started and then making the most of using Second life. For those who do not want to have to do development work, there are examples of already-created spaces, such as The Wall SL, which is a replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial or the PacificRim Exchange, which hosts a private island that serves as a platform for students from schools in the Pacific Rim to connect and learn about new customs and countries.
I really think the Second Life platform is overhyped for a number of reasons. In Holland, we’ve already seen the Second Life hype come and go. Major banks like ABN-AMRO, and a few restaurants starting using the Second Life platform as some sort of Web 2.0 marketing platform, selling products in the Second Life environment. Newspapers would write about Second Life… the hype continued for like 3-4 months.
Some time after that, a new article was placed in a Dutch newspaper. The banks abandoned their buildings, the restaurants were empty. Hype over.
I’m curious about future developments on the Second Life platform, and would not consider it dead (at all). The hype is over though.