Overcoming Challenges in Learning Communities and Second Life

The educational scholarly community has identified Second Life (and virtual worlds in general) as harboring a place in the future of education. Unfortunately, the body of literature surrounding this topic largely focuses on theoretical development of this use, rather than empirical examination of its uses and subsequent effectiveness or ineffectiveness. This study seeks to fill in this gap in understanding by examining the best practices of connecting students in a virtual environment. This discussion seeks to address the following basic questions: Do virtual world spaces (like Second Life) allow for the effective formation of online learning communities? How do these virtual experiences compare to currently existing offline learning communities when implementing pre-service student teaching community groups?