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WHAT KILLED TSL? Teen Second Life
Posted by James Fullerton on August 19, 2010 at 11:30am
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As a Second Life Community Convention (SLCC) participant and
a presenter, Experiential Learning Meets Market Research on the Teen Grid, the
wind in my sails was quickly taken out by Philip Rosendale’s keynote address
that Saturday by his announcement that Linden Labs will be closing Teen Second ABOUT
Life (TSL) this year (December 31, 2010), thus discontinuing a wonderfully
James Fullerton
flawed version of a multi users virtual environment (MUVE) platform. Any
educator involved in this virtual world will tell you that there are/were many created this Ning
shortcomings to implementing the platform into the actual classroom learning Network.
environment. Yet, it is/was the leader in providing a functional 3D MUVE
Create a Ning Network! »
platform for in world virtual learning for 13-17 year old students, compared to
OpenSim, ReactionGrid, and a few other Second Life-like worlds. Online 2D
course management systems – no comment.

What Killed TSL?

Of the near 100 educational sims created on the Teen Grid (TG) a majority were closed to all but that particular
institution’s students and teachers. The availability to educators of such a vibrate world, rich in collaborative and
immersive learning possibilities, and then creating a walled
garden within an institution where particular students could interact within
the institution, thus restricting access to all others within this world, was a
contributing factors to the downfall of TSL.

Philip Rosedale’s primary concern with the closing of the TG was not creating a secure environment for teens, for that worked well. It wasn ’t that the
platform was restrictive by nature, for the creative possibilities were endless really. No, educators strangled the TG by not
convincing their local constituents, parents and ultimately the school boards,
that TSL is as safe of an environment to learn in as say, well, their own
middle school or high school classrooms, or a field trip to an urban or rural
landmark. By not communicating a total vision to their stakeholders of the
immersive educational possibly by creating an open sim, thus encouraging
collaboration between teens of many countries, and educators from many types of
diversified settings, the TG was suffocated, deprived of the rich educational
nutrients needed for growth - content. Rosedale understood this. He also
understands, as does Bill Gates now that the institution of public education is
difficult to change – no impossible, in any larger context than displaying a
Barry Joseph or even a Peggy Sheehy and stating, “See, look at what they are
doing; we can change how students learn. ”

Really, using Global Kids, a non-profit organization, as an example is not fair. For they actually only used TSL as one of many components of their
successful program in New York City. The other few educational “SLebraties” within the TG needed to either blog about their escapades, and we
all know how bad educational blogs are, or capitalize off of conferences and
keynoting. While creating an interesting narrative for sure, and many are good
storytellers, no one has offered a fundamental idea on how TSL can improve student
learning in the classroom.

Virtual worlds are about collaborating with others not within our immediate face -to-face (FtF) realm. There was always something incestuous about the
few activities shamefully marketed as being good pedagogy within TSL. By far, using technology like TSL in the classroom should
only be used when FtF is not available. For that matter, technology like the
sorts mentioned, should only be used when FtF is not readily available. Asking
students to log into TSL and then having them communicate with each other, at a
spitballs distance, is really the tragedy and outright failure of using
computer technology in classroom learning. Computer technology has
revolutionized business because they actually do things differently than
before. Within a matter of 20-years an entire world economy, involving tens of
thousands of institutions, hundreds of governments, and tens of millions of
individuals actually do things differently than before. A single institution,
public education, still widely uses chalk on blackboards, still lines up desks
in rows, still thinks a teacher is the content expert in a classroom.

As an educator who has ever tried to involve “experts” in a long-term project-based learning assignment, 4-8 weeks, it is difficult. I ’d rather heard
cats than coordinate and then create an extended collaboration with experts. Being a conductor of information and knowledge, rather than a sage in
the classroom, is hard stuff, if it’s done right. Yet TSL is/was a relatively
easy medium to use to bring teacher/students/experts together for authentic
learning experiences – once Linden Lab support approved the adult in
question…weeks. To bring together experts from New Zealand, Kansas, Germany,
and Pennsylvania, and then have these experts available to a small team of
students who are involved in gathering data on preserving natural habitats in a
local wetlands area is powerful stuff!

Who killed TSL? Educators killed TSL by not creating a collaborative environment for students and teachers to share ideas. Rosedale gave us all the
platform, we all failed to market it’s capability to change how students learn in school.

What Can Save TSL?

As Philip Rosedale bluntly stated during his keynote address to the SLCC’s participants, concerning the closing of the teen grid on December 31, 2010 –
content on the TG failed to grow as quickly as on the adult main grid (MG). Sure, it would have been nice of him to carry the TG through out the
entire school year. It also would have been nice of him to gather educators
around and gently announce Linden Labs decision last month. And in would have
been nice of him and LL, to create an educational sim, where educators of
teens, 13-15 years old, can call their home – a sort of Grand Teen Archipelago.
He did not. Probably because our pedagogical interpretation of the TG is stuck
in old world learning, not experiencing the necessary paradigm dialogs to move
forward.

For all the surprised passion of a few educational SLebrities, Rosedale understands that to change how public education does its business will take more
than the efforts of LL. Looking at his face during the day as he made his cursory stops through out the convention reminded me of a
line from a 2002 movie, “The Mothman Prophecies” - John Klein: “I think we can
assume that these entities are more advanced than us. Why don't they just come
right out and tell us what's on their minds?” Alexander Leek: “You're more
advanced than a cockroach, have you ever tried explaining
yourself to one of them?” Rosedale is no god, but maybe a demigod.

TSL was closed in part over revenue, of course, but as Rosedale stated clearly, the TG was a technological drag on the potential growth of the entire in-
world community. It is difficult for LL and it’s investors to consider the TG when it’s simply not carrying its own weight in
revenue support to justify additional scrums. Can you imagine a capital
investors meeting with the likes of Jeff Bezos types, Amazon CEO, trying to
rationalize the continuation of TSL with its average user-concurrency nearing
200 at times, and on a good day, and maybe 1000 active teens. While a few
educational institutions might be bragging about their student enrollment in
the thousands, how many are really active in the TG community creating content?

So, what will save TSL? Here are a few summarized items pulled from the many blogging pudits thinking about what will save TSL.

n Use an OpenSim-based Teen Grid platform operated by SL or use a trusted subcontractor that offers security, currency and grid standard, lower

costs to educators yet keeps them with LL.

n Rewrite the licensing agreement to allow for region backups and archive retrievals. As instructional units pass, so do historical builds, like a
theatrical set. And while we’re at it, allow educators to share entire

regions – teachers are the biggest moochers.

n Using OpenSim server software will allow LL to outsource the entire operation to a favored subcontractor – volunteers? Thus encouraging LL to
focus on its
community, depressed economy, great Vivox voices, and mostly brand

recognition.

n Allow all educational TG sims to operate their own RegAPI, thus allowing institutions to created hundreds of “limited” accounts, bound to their own
island on the OpenSim-based TG. (My sim on the TG had a similar one a couple
years ago, and it worked easily. Sparta Island subsequently changed to an
open sim, and LL closed the RegAPI for lack of usage, so it’s very

doable.)

n Class 5 avatars for all educators – it already exists. Allow educators to create their own educators access list for visiting teachers that they vouch
for.
While I have not used my “class 5 status” in the TG, for obvious reasons
mentioned earlier, this would allow teacher to collaborate. Education is

all about collaboration, not isolation.

 n Stop CopyBotting of teen created content. Next to closed sims being the hidden culprit behind the death of TSL, not enforcing a strict copybot policy
acted as a cancer to the TG economy – I was eyewitness to this for the
past year with an open sim. It would be as if all American ’s were allowed
for copy and then print our currency at home, freely, and use it in the

economy – imagine that economic mess.

Linden Labs has the potential of creating a standard for MUVE – I know, don’t laugh. Dissecting and cutting out a creative part of the educational
community can only do harm to the experience known as Second Life.As mentioned by Maria Korolov in her blog, the educational community folks help
drive innovation, adoption, and creativity. After gamers, educators were the
first to use personal computers, the first to switch to graphic user
interfaces, and the first to implement virtual world environments.
Historically, Apple, Inc. stuck with educators when there was little revenue
bumps available for that then struggling company. Now the educational community
is a large pie sector in their quarterly bottom line. As educators did with the
MAC, they collaborated, they shared, they created, and they slowly implemented,
both good and mostly bad pedagogical instruction (that is another article) into
the classroom-learning environment. It can happen with Teen Second Life as
well, or not.

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