Pros/Cons

I believe the strength of Second Life lies in the ability to increase interaction between students and students and the instructor however I believe this would also come at a price.  While we know that interaction is of the utmost importance in online education when it comes to student engagement and motivation (Paloff and Pratt, 2007 and Holder, 2005), Second Life offers students the chance to be someone of their own creation and to interact in a semi-anonymous way. I am concerned with the authenticity of the interactions this would generate.  If students are interacting via avatars, then are they inclined to be genuine?  Perhaps avatars would allow students to express controversial ideas or counter points that they would otherwise be too restrained to do (much like the literature suggests online learning in general is able to do) but could it not also blur the lines between authentic scholarly work and plagiarism?  Could students be inclined to explore alternative methods of knowledge creation (aka copying another’s work much like an identity could be copied) if they were engaging in classwork via avatars?  How would this impact learning communities and student engagement?  It seems as though Second Life raises more questions than it answers in regards to its applications in distance education.