Responses to impact question: March 2008

“Measuring” the Impact of Second Life for Educational Purposes.

In late 2007, the following question was put to UK academics known for developing, or teaching, in Second Life:

“I have a question. How can (if it can) the ‘impact’ of using SL for educational purposes such as an in-world seminar or tutorial, over not using SL, be “measured” or quantified?

I’m currently a little stumped on this. For the next snapshot, I want to focus more on the ‘impact’. In other words, to come up with more proof or evidence that using SL has some benefits, or positive advantages, over not using SL or using some other practice.

How to do this in a form of questions has me stumped :-(”

This report contains a collection of informal responses to the question.

The Eduserv Foundation facilitated a meeting, on their island in Second Life, for further discussion on this issue. This took place on 23rd January 2008 and lasted some 90 minutes. The question put to the meeting was:

“How can the use of SL to engender learning best be assessed?”

The transcript of the meeting is provided in the report.

Measuring the Impact of Second Life for Educational Purposes. (202Kb PDF document)

This report was one of the deliverables of the Virtual World Watch project and service.