A Second Life for Your Museum: 3D Multi-User Virtual Environments and Museums: "This paper presents a selection of the results from our work that attempts to understand the nature, diversity and evolution of current museum and museum-like activities in Second Life. Drawing on the experience and lessons learned from past museum virtual environments, non-museum collaborative spaces, and recent research on learning in multiplayer on-line games, this research can serve as a guide for museums interested in establishing a virtual presence in Second Life."
While at a recent conference I made the statement that "Second Life does more harm than good for games and learning". Quite simply, SL is a simple tool to get started with games, but for those who have participated in truly collaborative games, it's a pale representation of what is possible. Games are so much more than what we see in SL - in fact, effective games for learning don't even need to be technology-based. If I controlled an organizational budget for training and learning, SL would not be on my radar. Yes, it's a neat tool and has a high "coolness factor"...and Mark Oehlert is correct is saying: "So stop carping about it being boring and create something interesting." But as a financial investment, SL is in the category of "experimentation", not "deployment". For implementation of games and learning, many other, more developed and effective tools, are available. The value of SL is the simplicity of getting started and demonstrating "what is possible" with virtual worlds. But I find more compelling learning in an email conversation than spending a few hours sprucing up my avatar (though my SL identity is now sporting a fashionable new outfit). Perhaps I don't focus well - and I find SL too distracting...whereas single modality mediums like blogs, wikis, and emails don't pull on my attention as significantly. I have a 3 month habit with SL - every 3 months I go in, hang out, chat, and then don't come back for another three months. I'll keep trying. Maybe the bug will yet bite.