Texas Trends in Art Education, 2010 Page: 37

                                
Carpenter  I  Real  W orld  Reflections

13 . S t  p hn    Ca  r p c n    t c
As the professor in charge of the course, I came to the
experience with my own set of expectations, most of which
were formally presented in some way in the form of the
course syllabus. Prior to using Second Life as an instructional
site, I resisted actively the notion of engaging learners in
meaningful, in-depth interpretive and creative pedagogical
experiences through distance and computer technology. I was
dubious that they could match the levels I had become
accustomed with in real world, face-to-face engagements.
Furthermore, while I had taught this course previously, I had
only used Second Life sparingly as a supportive rather than
primary instructional tool. Our experiences with Second Life
during the spring 2009 semester were inspirational to me;
often, they were the kinds of experiences that seemed difficult
to replicate in real life, given the inherent limitations and
restrictions inherited from traditional modes of instruction
(Herold, 2009; Vasileiou & Paraskeva, 2010).
I informed the dozen students during the first class
session that the course was not about Second Life, but rather
it was a course about the complex, interdisciplinary discourse
of visual culture supported through the virtual world of
Second Life. As such, we examined course issues and themes
through our collective common experiences. Issues and
themes of identity, representation, body image, visual
metaphor and visuality seemed to be explored with more
flexibility and playfulness by students in the virtual world than
typically happens in face-to-face encounters in university
classrooms. For example, one of the affordances of Second
Life is that the user becomes aware of multiple and
simultaneous perspectives or visual subjectivities: the user,
her/his avatar, other users' avatars, and the inworld
perspective that is disconnected from both users and avatars.
Recognizing the presence of multiple visual subjectivities in
this way encourages students to (re)consider how such
subjectivities are constantly at play within their own corporal
experiences as learners and educators. That is, the visual
culture of Second Life is a means of informing learners about
the visual culture of their own lives.

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rom an autobiographical perspective we have provided
some thoughts about the benefits of using Second Life
for instruction and some affordances of the virtual world.
Through this brief set of personal accounts, we have offered
some of the benefits of using Second Life for instruction. In
addition, we pointed to some of the affordances that Second
Life provides for art education, particularly through the
content of visual culture, that are not necessarily available
through other media or modes of instruction. As students and
educators, we are encouraged, individually and collectively,
about the type of new media art education (Bastos, 2010)

Second Life makes possible and the possibilities Second Life
makes available.
Our focus here has been on our own experiences with a
graduate level university course, but we recognize the
limitations our example offers for K-12 instruction. While we
mention briefly a few virtual worlds and online experiences
better suited for elementary and secondary school users,
numerous others are available for this age group. Simply, the
field of art education deserves examples and recommend-
ations for age appropriate uses of virtual worlds for K-12
users. We look forward to the future of art education, virtually
and otherwise.
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