What is the real risk to education?

The following is in response to an article I received relating to risk assessments using Second Life for educational purposes. The author identifies various areas of concern in relation to "exposing" students to Second Life.

...I agree to the concern/need of being aware of the environment we are introducing our students to. This of course is our responsibility with any learning environment and is the same issues we balance everyday in the business of education.

I think it is also important to understand the division between responsibility and accountability on behalf of the college. It is the same accountability that dictates we prepare our students for the world they are entering. Simply how do we teach in a vacuum and still remain accountable for preparing our students to work in a world that does not operate in a vacuum? Where do we become liable for not providing the appropriate skills to be successful in today's workplace of which the students are paying large amounts of money? So if we are concerned with responsibility and who is going to get sued, maybe we should look at the goods and services provided to our customers. Are we meeting our end of the agreement by teaching in a vacuum? Can we be held liable for not providing the service our students are paying for?

Another Perspective:
It has been my experience in Second Life that I have the ability to better manage the environment with much less overhead than I can in the RL class room. If you really wanted to get to the level of responsibility the author of this article goes to in justifying not using Second Life, we could easily swing the other direction. How responsible are we as an organization to require our students to get in a vehicle or public mode of transportation, travel a public street or highway to a pre-determined location on a regularly scheduled time table to attend class at a campus that houses large numbers of people? And to what level do we assess responsibility in our public/private educational system? Do we hold the public transit system responsible if there is a wreck involving a student? Do we sue the car manufacturer for building the car the student had a wreck in even though the cause was not from mechanical issues of the car?

Of course the answer to all of this is...common sense. We live in a world that is constantly evolving, it only makes sense that education be dynamic to provide the service we are paid to provide to our students, otherwise we are not doing the job we are responsible for? Ultimately the concern we should have in education is not being sued for providing a service, but being sued for not providing a service...the service of realistically preparing our next generation to join the human effort! How big a law suit is that?...

Welcome to Virtual World Education!

Hello fellow educators or educational enthusiasts. I know it has been a long time coming, but hey better late than never. This site will focus on aspects of virtual world education. The aspects we focus on will primarily be driven in direct relation to issues and/or concerns I come across as my team and I travel the exciting waters of VW education. It is important to understand that the comments made in this blog are my personal beliefs and are in no way official endorsement from TSTC or any other entity. I will use this forum as a personal communication of my experiences and beliefs.

Let's start with an introduction...I am Chris Gibson, and I lead a team of educational artists at Texas State Technical College (TSTC). One of our primary team projects is developing virtual world learning experiences. We currently use Second Life(SL) as the primary delivery platform, but understand the environment is dependent upon need and not any specific virtual world branding issues. My team is dedicated to utilizing whatever tools we feel are the best tools for the job at hand and currently SL meets that criteria.

Most recently we have been recognized for developing and leading TSTC to the head of virtual world education by being the first college (vTSTC) to offer a completely online college program using virtual worlds as the primary delivery method (yes, this means an actual college degree obtained using SL). Now enough with the portfolio, let's get to the meat of this site and that is virtual world education.

What is VW education? First, I will be upfront about the term virtual world education, to me it is synonymous with online education. It is my belief that in the very near future (3-5 years) we will reference the two as one in the same. Yes this means, I believe, we will see a shift in the coming years for educational online delivery methods. This shift will introduce "traditional" online educators to a new paradigm for teaching and learning. This new paradigm will revolve around using 3D environments in an effort to establish a more immersive engaging environment than current 2D delivery methods readily offer.

What are your thoughts or ideas in relation to online education and virtual worlds?