Sixth and final class of the online course I'm doing on Second Life which takes place in Second Life. Run by the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, it's been very interesting. Both in content and at a sort of meta-level as I look at online learning and how I interact with a distance/virtual course like this.

As I expected, the class sessions were fine for my attendance (barring missing one whilst on vacation) and concentration and engagement. But as usual, I found the self-directed ("I'll fit it in when I have time") participatation in the Virtual Learning Environment difficult. I need to learn to schedule time but what is clear to me is that I do benefit from attendance with people as it were.

And in fact, I'm sure I got a lot more out of this course because I was attending 'with' a couple of colleagues from TheOldPlace who are also interested in the possibilities of SL for library provision to students.

If there were downsides to the course, it might be the slight frustration in not meeting the rest of the class in reality. Somehow SL still seems 'second best' in terms of reality despite the advantages that it conveys. I had expected to learn to build things, but apparently that's th Intermediate course which I'll have to sign up for. Then, too, I think the classes could have been a bit more interactive and hands-on but I didn't mind the sitting in class too much - perhaps because I made my own fun by Instant Messaging others in the class to keep it interesting. Sometimes it would be about class issues, sometimes it wasn't (such as today when the subject of the advert for the job of my former boss at TheOldPlace coming out).

One curious thing I noticed was that reading the transcript of the class I missed was NOT the same as being there even in SL. You'd have thought it would be very similar given that you're just reading on the screen (no one attempted using voice as it's still so iffy for so many people - even just hearing voice apparently). But no, I'm not quite sure what it was, but it's not the same. Although you could read the session much faster than the two hours they took, you just didn't get the pacing and the understanding of what people were saying - particularly when conversation was going on - in such a clear way. Obviously, you couldn't contribute as it was after the fact, and obviously you couldn't look at the instructor(s) - or the other participants - as you might in a real SL class. But I was still surprised at how different it felt.

I think the quote from the forums, however, that summed the whole experience up for me best was something I'd been thinking but which was said much more succinctly by S, than I'd have ever put it: (I trust I can use the quote verbatim - if not let me know and I'll paraphrase.)

"I've been wondering about the role of academic libraries in SL. Initially I was thinking of it mainly in terms of what we could build and link to. A sort of 3D website concept. Since I've been in SL longer I've been thinking of it more in terms of community and social presence and communication. What goes on in the space in terms of interaction between people."

Just so.