You say: “The relatively steep learning curve of SL in particular, especially when contrasted with the high level of usability of alternatives such as Metaplace and commercial games.”

Which sets me thinking that there is a difference though in these environments, how they are used, what activity they are aimed at, and maybe even who the intended, or expected, audience are (and these may very well be 2 different things, as we know).

Commercial games are very ‘guided’ (in my limited experience ), whereas the VW Second Life is as open and ‘free’ as is possible to be at this stage of technology development. Remember Linden’s tag line, along the lines of “built by its residents for its residents”. SL is an empty world, with an extensive tool kit, and a few ‘raw resources’ thrown in (i.e. you are provided with clothing, and an inventory with example textures, one or two scripts, etc. to start you off). Other than that and your own curiosity, motivation, or outside influence (wishing to visit a particular island or attend an event that you have heard about) you are given nothing else. It is up to you, it is what you make of I.t So, you stand there, wondering what to do, how to do it…

In a commercial game the beginning may be similar. Provision of an initial ‘bag of stuff’ is common in a game such as World of Warcraft(WoW), where you also start with some basic kit, a little food, a weapon and ammo, some spells…

But this is where the difference lies. In, for example, WoW, you are presented immediately with a story line (a setting, a context), and then you are given tasks (a Quest). You are given some guidance on what to do in the narrative of the Quest (who to speak to, directions, general hints, or instructions of what to collect or kill). In reading that you begin to gain clues as to what to do, and in carrying out a Quest you have to learn to move, walk and interact with the environment pretty quickly.

As a newcomer to WoW I would disagree entirely that ‘commercial games’ do not have steep learning curves! The Quests start you off, but you still have to learn many controls, how to initiate communication, how to open an item to collect what it contains, etc. It is *very* complex.

We perhaps have to distinguish between learning how to interact with the interface, and learning how to ‘be’ and carry out specific activities, in these worlds?

In my experience, when initially I had staff create avatars and log in to SL, they would then stand there and say ‘now what?’. Students do the same. So, we begin to provide activities for them that not only teach ‘how’ to use the world, but teach ‘about’ the world. I would draw a direct parallel between learning activity in SL, with early Quest activity in WoW. They are both complex environments that require initial scaffolding. If we do not provide this scaffolding in SL, students will be lost.

This goes for any new technologies that we look to employ in education, of course. It is what we *do* with it, and how we design learning activity for them, that is all important. We know that if we give students discussion boards in Blackboard they will not use them, unless we link their use, initially, to specific learning activity!

On saying all this, I would agree that on seeing Daniels demo of Metaplace it did look simpler and easier to use, and my thought, I think like most of us there, was that such an environment may be better suited to many of our students at this time as they do not yet have the literacies and skills required to make effective use of a full 3D environment. Metaplace seems more ‘contained’, much less complex, where as SL is quite complex, and WoW incredibly so!

On a personal note – I found the SL interface easier to get to grips with than I have as yet with WoW!

This issue certainly needs further investigation. Something for the VIEWS forum to take on too, and share our experiences of such things, whilst we are looking at shared induction materials?