AAUW Dialog

Distance learning took on a whole new meaning for me when I attended a conference on Saturday, “Virtual Praxis: A Conference on Women’s Community in Second Life.” I didn’t even know what Second Life (SL) was until a few weeks ago, when I read a conference invitation in the AAUW Facebook community. When I started asking people about SL, I received generally negative comments, ranging from, “They need to get a Real Life!” to “Isn’t that where perverts and desperate, lonely (fill in the blank) people go?” Well, those reactions admittedly added to my skepticism of SL, but I had agreed to go, so off I went.

Was I in for a surprise! My introduction included learning how to dress myself (or should I say, my SL alter ego, my “avatar”), picking new hair after I inadvertently detached mine and went around bald for a few days, and finding out about SL etiquette. Fortunately I had given myself about 10 days before the conference to figure out how to navigate around SL, meet people, text, talk, teleport, fly, and actually make friends. I found using a headset and actually talking to people helped validate their gender, nationality, and approximate age — things I knew to be skeptical about in SL. At one point, an astounding 67,342 people were signed on at the same time I was. I later found out that 52 percent of SL users are women, with an average age of 34, and that the Gartner Research Group predicts that by 2011, 80 percent of Internet users will be engaged in some form of virtual world activity. Who knew?!

As I went searching through SL, I soon found that many colleges and universities have actually established “campuses” in SL, including Harvard and Stanford. Many libraries have set up SL branches, and the numbers of legitimate interest groups are almost limitless. This “Conference on Women’s Community in SL” was hosted by the Department of Women’s Studies, Ohio State University, and was held on “Minerva,” their SL “teaching and research space.” The introduction to the conference is worth repeating:

As teachers, librarians, artists, health care workers, and as volunteers in the many charitable and activist organizations in Second Life, women are a very visible element of our virtual community. The number of women’s groups and community centers is increasing, supported by an informal network of committed individuals. Those who come here out of curiosity often find themselves in these community activities, and those who come for professional reasons often find that their interests have widened and diversified as they have come into contact with SL society. Is what we do here just relaxation, a metaphor for what we do in real life, or do our SL activities have importance for our home communities and for society in general?

In a follow-up blog posting, I will talk about the conference itself. One key take-away from this experience was the recognition that we can’t ignore the potential power of the virtual world. Some universities are teaching real-life graduate classes using SL as their sole classroom. Obama gave a speech here. Using an example from the conference itself, one participate told us of a campaign launched in Scotland a few weeks ago. “This Is Not an Invitation to Rape Me” focuses on the domestic rape crisis, where apparently only 2.9 percent of domestic rapes lead to a conviction. A myriad of participants immediately offered to post publicity and fundraising notices in their SL communities with links to RL fundraising. And, one last example, an AAUW participant told me the story of how she met someone at an SL event who is now a real-life member of her branch. Stay tuned …