I have to agree that the introduction videos about Second Life is very cool. Just think about the fact you are able to experience the world without even going into the world is very exciting. After a rather simple design and tutorial about how to walk around, chat, sit and fly (!!) in the world, I directly started my exploration.
The first impression of mine about this game is that it is not as easy to get started as you may imagine. One of the main concepts in the game is to communicate with other people. This is actually a great point that can be integrated into foreign language education. However, when I start talking to other virtual people, I was not responded warmly. The reason is rather simple, people tend to be less bounded by the morality in the virtual universe, and thus are more cautious about conversation with each other.
The second thing I noticed about this game is that the lagging is quite problematic. The internet speed in my house is not very fast, so the problem might got aggravated. I wonder if other people are experiencing the same problem. However, judging from the animation in the welcome videos, everyone might be facing the same problem. It it not logical to require a free online software to be as fluent as a PC game that is from a disc or downloaded to the local computer. The only point here is that it might not be easy for students to use this program to practice language.
In summary, I would like to say that Second Life might be a good choice is the goal is to relax and kill time, but it was not designed to meet the needs of educational purposes. Having students going into Second Life community to practice language might seem like an interesting idea in the beginning, but turns out suffering from serious problems mentioned above, beside the possibility of getting addicted to it and abandon study, which is the last thing we would like to see.
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