This is an introduction to Second Life for instructors who are new to it. This is the prelude to "Teaching in Virtual Worlds" to be held afterwards at the same conference on Teaching and Learning here in Spokane, WA.
Second Life is currently being used by many colleges and universities as a teaching and learning environment. I would like to talk a little about why that is and then on how to get started. As an educator, you will want to pay close attention to how you experience Second Life. If you are signing up for Second Life for the first time, you are in a unique position to gather information for your students that will be very helpful later on. If you are already involved in online learning, for instance you will have a good idea of the kind of technical support need to support an online course.