Second Life Exploring Virtual Worlds for Social Work Education

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Second Life Exploring Virtual Worlds for
Social Work Education Dr. Bob Vernon, Indiana
University School of Social Work Dr. Darlene
Lynch, Ball State University Department of Social
Work Dr. Paul Freddolino, Michigan State
University School of Social Work Dr. Lorrie
Greenhouse Gardella, St. Joseph College Ms.
Susan Tenby, TechSoup.org Contact
http//hsmedia.biz
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Today

• Just what IS Second Life
• You and your avatar
• Communications in SL
• Potentials for Social Work Education
• Implications and findings so far
• How to function in a virtual world
• Potential conversations

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Just what IS Second Life

• People voluntarily create online virtual worlds...

Travel
Art/museums
Fantasy/role play
Nasties
Shopping
Sports
Theater
Worship
Agencies/Services
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You and your avatar

• You can change your avatar at will

Control over Dress Gender Age Race
Ethnicity Ability Species!
This is the same avatar!
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You and your avatar

• You can move your avatar at will

Gestures Walking Flying Teleporting
This becomes easy with practice.
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Communications

• With individuals, groups, and objects

Chat/Typing
IM
Voice
Languages
Meetings
Groups
You can record everything through copying and
pasting text, taking pictures, and making movies
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Potentials for SW Education
Diversity
HBSE
Justice and Risk
Values and Ethics
Research
Policy and Services
Field and Training
Practice
There are potentials for all of the eight EPAS
curriculum areas!
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Implications so far
Adaptable to multiple teaching agendasmicro-macro
, generalist or concentrations, training, (?)
field Practice diversitylocal-global-virtual Acce
ss issuesconnection, hardware, ADA Liability
riskuncharted territory The universitylocal-glob
al-virtual  
How ya goina keep em down on the farm
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Functioning in a virtual world

• Remember what the Web was like in 1994? This is
  about as challenging!
• Be prepared for a belligerent learning curve
  with crummy documentation!
• Cut yourself some slack! Your students too!
• Get a mentor! Make friends with librarians,
  teckies, and gamers!
• Connect in both SL and RL peers,
  listservs, wikis, blogs, youtube!

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Potential conversations

• Theoretical concepts Social and individual
  identity, neighborhoods, control
• Practice concepts Professional boundaries,
  self-awareness, professional use of self
• Research concepts Participant observation,
  reflective ethnography
• Degrees of abstraction The medical textbook
  illustration issue
• Implications for distance education Many
  distance education possibilities

Second Life http//www.secondlife.com