Simulation in Your Second Life

As I explored topics concerning learning and video games for this course, I was amazed to find a plethora is videos about how Second Life can be used as a simulation and educational environment. The depictions of such in the videos are really quite amazing, and it is interesting to think is the Internet had never come about in it present form, then perhaps the Internet might later have arrived in an environment looking very similar to Second Life (where, if you wanted a book from Amazon, you would fly over to the Amazon store and walk in and get it... etc.). I saw a snippet from the television show The Office where one of the characters says "I created a environment in Second Life I'm calling Third Life, now my avatar has an avatar. I just wanted to get as far away as possible from my real life" (absolutely hilarious). However, forget the social aspects of Second Life, I am interested in how such an environment does such a good job of creating simulations and then bringing people from every (digital) together to ponder them. Because this has interesting applications for engineering. If you had a very interesting project you were working on, say a "smart house," you could bring engineers from all over the world to show up and ponder the simulation of your latest design (provided Second Life or some other mechanism had solved the language translation). People seem to form strange "clicks" over such projects (Linux and many Open-source projects are a good example of this). However, now you can manipulate the simulated object for all to see (move this angle over here. what happens if we place this here. etc.). The prospects for such processes across a globally wired word shows extremely interesting potential. However, is this a "game." I know many an engineer who would argue that it is a game. Say "The Creation" game, and "fun" for engineers the same way any game is fun for engineers. Engineers might find the idea fun the same way any player on World of Warcraft might find it fun to gather with their friends to take down a difficult creature (i.e. - "gather with your friends to take down an interesting or difficult problem").

Why is this not "a game" and "educational" and "fun" all at the same line. I would argue that it is. There is hidden "competition": who can be the next person to come up with a clever idea. There is "excitement in victory" anytime a important sub-problem of the overall problem is solved. The is "camaraderie" and "social" interaction same as any online game. There "challenge" and "excitement" and "joy in victory" and "agony in defeat." There is the "time pressure" of trying to be the next person to come up with a clever idea. And, perhaps most importantly, such a scenario is very similar to many projects assigned by engineering classes. These projects are designed to show the students what it is like to be an engineer out in the real world, and the projects do succeed in doing that. Such interactions in a Second Life environment could therefore be used to teach the same thing.