As an elementary educator, I do not see much usefulness in this technology for my students. For one thing, it is definitely blocked in our school district. In looking at the different videos and links provided to learn more about Second Life, as well as doing research on my own, I have learned that Second Life is really for adults and those under 18 are not allowed (I am not sure how they "police" this since I know 8 year olds with Facebook accounts and they are not supposed to be able to do that either!). I also learned that there is a Teen Second Life that is for students from 13-17 years old and that adults have to have special permission given by the SL team to have access to certain areas of Teen Second Life.
That said, I do see some benefits of SL for students at the college level in terms of distant learning and virtual learning in some disciplines. Many colleges already offer some programs utilizing SL. The students can participate in symposiums or take "field trips" without leaving campus. Second Life can allow students to work collaboratively on projects. This would be especially helpful in collaborating on a project between different universities around the world.
To step aside and be a proud mom, for a bit... Last summer, my son who will be a senior in Biomedical Engineering at Saint Louis University this fall, was working at an internship at Virginia Tech University last summer. Part of his project was to build a training module in SL that would allow students to learn how to use a particular type of CT scanner in a virtual manner. He then made a video to describe the SAM-CT facility to explain about the training center. So, while I do not see me as ever needing to use this Web 2.0 application, it does have it's purpose in our world and in education.
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