Second Life - Are you for real?

This past week I was introduced to a virtual world I never before knew existed, and it kind of freaked me out. I know there is some intended educational value in it, but I wasn't a huge fan of the entire thing. I felt like it was just another forum for people who have a lot of time to spend sitting on virtual benches to do just that. As Second Life exists right now, it seems to me to be a difficult forum to access and put to use as an educational tool. I can understand using it as a tool to try and engage students on another level, and I can see how it might work for homework assignments and possible scavenger hunts, or utilizing things that others have created (such as the genome project) to try and expose students to educational material, but I think it is difficult to try and use Second Life in the stage it is in now as individual teachers. It seems that to create a forum on Second Life would take a lot more work than using more traditional forums. Honestly, Second Life kind of freaks me out. I am old-fashioned and don't really enjoy the online computer forum in which all of our work takes place nowadays. It was interesting how during the presentation from the Computer Services guy, we talked about how the idea of using a virtual world and the computer to ignite interest in your students, and I find it interesting how it has the complete opposite effect on me. The idea of having to post a blog or create a wiki to me takes away from my interest in the subject, because I don't like to have to use a computer to learn. I think it is interesting the turn our education system is taking in terms of technology. And, at the same time that I find it absolutely excruciating to have to blog and wiki, I appreciate the value of knowing that these forums exist because they are going to be important in being able to relate to my future students. Another thing I thought was interesting was the idea of commercialism and corporations paving the way for the educational market. By this I am referring to how corporations and organizations with a large money basis create these forums which can, when developed, be utilized by people for educational purposes. Educational organizations are consistently underfunded, so it becomes necessary for monetary resources to come from other places. This can in a way be related back to neoliberalism in that a big problem in education is the funding, and where it will come from, how it will be spent, and who decides all of this. Will it come from taxes? Will it eventually come from corporations if education is privatized? Who will be the governing body of education in the years to come? These are all questions that are raised in my head. But for now, I will resist the technology movement in my schooling and do what I can to preserve the old literacies of education in which I put so much value.