Launched in 2003, Linden Lab’s Second Life differs from other massively multiplayer online games in one critical way; it does not have game play at its core. Second Life is a virtual world where the residents do $2 million in business every day. In this environment cyber land is bought and sold, markets selling virtual goods thrive and a new currency the linden dollar has been created.

The people who are coming to this online universe aren’t just socializing, they’re also doing business, collaborating on research, teaching courses and meeting new people. It is this open exploratory experience that may be key to the usefulness of Second Life as a training platform.

While other more game based online experiences promote communication between participants as part of a cooperative or competitive gaming experience, the purpose of Second Life is essentially to do nothing more than explore, make friends, gain status and build up a whole new persona in the process.

Social worlds really function more as large-scale online community centres that use elements of gaming in the service of a larger goal of developing a community. It is well known that developing a community promotes interest, engages the learner and reinforces learning objectives. With companies like IBM and Intel taking it incredibly seriously as a platform it has become profoundly global and not just a game. IBM alone has 5000 staff meeting in second life daily and even mans a business centre during office hours.

Activities in social worlds revolve specifically around avatars, who are also a crucial part of socializing as well. Whether avatars mirror their creators’ offline physical appearance or not, their creation engages users in the process of online identity formation and they must decide how closely they want their virtual bodies to resemble their offline bodies. The avatar will often play a major part in role playing exercises.

3D worlds are very often criticized for being a solitary experience with negative press stories of people spending 16 hours a day alone in a virtual environment with no human contact. This reality exists, but we shouldn’t let fears from such stories affect our willingness to test and innovate in new areas of training.

The key question is whether online virtual worlds can offer a good means to collaborate. Research at the University of Minnesota shows that groups using Second Life confined to text-based communication and having to learn how to master the complex keyboard strokes required for avatar movement were not deterred from completing assigned tasks, however, the teams using Second Life took the longest to finish. The face-to-face teams felt most confident of their performance, yet the Second Life teams provided the most accurate answers in the task. Thus 3D virtual worlds allow us to communicate effectively with other people.

Not playing having played games much, I found the virtual world that is Second Life represents a complex social network that takes time to understand. It is essential to understand its limitations, freedoms, what works and what doesn’t work to use it. Like many technologies, those supporting virtual worlds seem to be ahead of the learning theories on how best to use them. Virtual Worlds are increasingly being used for education. Like any component of a blended learning approach virtual worlds should not be seen as a complete package, but as an integral part of a broader solution.

Second Life is the most widely known online virtual world, there are various other environments created more specifically for training purposes, from the US military’s Simnet, to others such as ActiveWorlds and even Google is in on the act with its low key social networking platform lively. Emergency preparedness training to a wider audience of health care professionals and emergency responders, are two of the key reasons behind Play2Train ,A great roundup can be found at Virtual Worlds Review. There are some excellent sources of up to date information and opinions on the topic from the likes of Chris Brannigan over at Caspian Learning where Chris discuss and debate all things Serious Games, Immersive Learning Sims and Virtual Worlds.