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Second Life is a global phenomenon. Reuters estimates that only 31.2% of active Second Life users are U.S. residents. The majority of active users (more than 54%) are from Europe. Second Life usage is so pervasive in Korea, for example, that it is beginning to impact the country’s social agenda, according to virtual world expert Edward Castronova.

In a recent interview for National Public Radio Weekend Edition (www.npr.org, Feb. 9, 08), Bloomfield described the basics of the Second Life economy and the real financial losses from the recent Second Life banking crisis. (The currency used for economic transactions in Second Life is called Linden Dollars. Linden Dollars can be exchanged for real U.S. dollars at a rate of approximately 260-to-1. Last year, Linden Lab banned online gambling operations that had become popular in Second Life. Early this year, Linden Lab banned unregulated banking operations in Second Life because several banks were reneging on unsustainable high interest rates on deposits.) Bloomfield attributes his initial interest in Second Life to its potential use as an economic simulator in which reactions to new financial regulations could be studied by FASB.

Professor Steven Hornik, of the University of Central Florida, is another accounting professor exploring accounting education applications. He created a Second Life location called Really Engaging Accounting and maintains a blog about his efforts at www.mydebitcredit.com. In his financial accounting course, he uses the social networking capabilities of Second Life and interactive 3-D objects that he creates. The objects demonstrate basic accounting principles. One simulates the effect of transactions on the basic accounting equation. Another simulates the use of T-accounts to record changes to account balances. Students use their avatars to manipulate the models. Videos of his Second Life creations are available on YouTube (search “second life accounting”).

SUMMARY Second Life is an immersive and engaging 3-D virtual world with economic implications and opportunities for the real world. CPA Island is the current center of the public accounting profession in Second Life, but this won’t be the case for long as other CPA firms choose to use it as a tool for meeting, connecting, sharing and collaborating with others. Where business activity goes, it seems certain that CPAs will follow.

"I call Second Life an engine for creativity," she said.

L'Amoreaux cited a team of students in an internship program studying museum creatorship, who partnered with others for a Second Life activity that involved a recreation of the Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht), an anti-Jewish pogrom in 1938 Nazi Germany.  As participants, the students assumed the roles of reporters, exploring the events for themselves. 

Still, Trevena cautioned that teachers, administrators, and technology staff must work together and be prepared to support a Second Life program.  Identifying sustainable funding sources, upgrading computers and investing in hardware, and having a backup plan if the Second Life platform is down are all necessary.

A 2006 NCES and University of Michigan study found that by age 21, the average youth has watched 20,000 hours of television and played 10,000 hours of video games, said Ntiedo Etuk, the CEO Tabula Digita, which offers games centered on pre-algebra and algebra. 

"The reason that [gaming] is successful is obviously that it's relevant to students--it allows for the notion of competition, which gets students going, there's an opportunity for socialization, and there is instant feedback on what they're doing right or wrong," Etuk said. Video games also foster collaboration, because instead of a teacher standing in front of a classroom, students begin to help one another and become teachers themselves, he added.

Teachers can set difficulty levels and receive reports on student data, including the last time a student played their game, what their score was, right and wrong answers, and the topics they covered.

"We found that students in our project have improved their self-efficacy in science,"

Video games engage students and help foster some of the 21st-century skills, such as problem-solving, which may be more difficult to acquire in a traditional classroom with a textbook.

"When you think about the skills that students need when they leave school, like creativity and curiosity...identifying problems and solving them--these are skills that [can be] hard to teach in the traditional face-to-face classroom," Clarke said.  "And a lot of these technologies are being used in the corporate world--IBM is now using games to train its employees, so you see simulations and games emerging outside of K-12 education."

Our growth has come at a cost which you felt, and still feel - platform stability, viewer performance, lag, inventory management, etc. It’s important for you to know that we are ALL OVER these problems and that we’re making progress.

We have redesigned and rebuilt the registration process to make it easier for new members to join. Although it is still in testing, we’ve seen a significant improvement in registration levels. Significant. That, plus press attention outside the US have allowed us to hit some new registration records for the year. Very exciting. In addition, we are reworking the first-hour experience for new Residents to help them become more quickly acclimated and connected to Second Life and able to enjoy the richness and experience earlier.

m top to bottom – recognizing that new users don’t need such a dizzying array of features, and experienced users, land and business owners and content creators need better tools that are more thoughtfully designed and organized for their needs. Everyone needs better inventory management and search is due for an overhaul. We hear you. We’re on it.

Our next viewer, when it comes in full release, will offer a much better inworld experience. With more than 50 crash fixes, you’ll have fewer viewer failures and we’ve fixed some irritating elements in the interface.

In addition, Torley Linden has produced a library of 150 video tutorials designed to make it easier to do everything from teaching new Residents basic skills to putting media on their parcel. The videos are currently displayed on the blog and organized by category for easier consumption.

Support continues to expand its services to the Residents; in the last quarter we have redesigned the Support Portal interface in response to your feedback, to bring key components of our service front and center so they are more accessible.

Lively keeps things simple and does those simple things well. The television in our sample room is playing the trailer for Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. A few clicks is all that is required to link a YouTube video to a television object -- but as far as we know, no other embedded video formats are supported.

All content that is currently in Lively is made by Google-approved developers, and is presently free -- though it looks very much like the majority of content in Lively will be pay-for before long.

If you want to interact with an object (sitting down, for example), single left click on the object. If you want to play an animation, single left click on your avatar, and select an item from the animations tab (different lists of animations are available depending on whether you are sitting or standing). And ... that's actually about it. Lively is simple, and straightforward, and focuses on doing one thing well: The furnishable 3D chatroom. It can be embedded on a webpage and your avatar can be in multiple rooms at once via different browser windows or tabs. If you've got a group of up to 20 people (who all have Google accounts and are running Windows), and want to share a Youtube video or sit around and shoot the breeze in a lightweight space, and having your own content isn't for you, then Lively is for you.

But a rival to Second Life? No more so than corn syrup is a rival for sea salt.

Some worlds are demonstrating the precursor to photo realism and smooth motion while others have as much ‘immersion’ by providing intimacy with your friends in more cutesy environments

It is important for those who are supposedly representing or blogging about ‘the metaverse’ to get in there and try these services - beyond registering and wandering around for only 10 minutes (I could name several who haven’t a clue!) but…