THE USE OF SECOND LIFE IN EDUCATIONAL FORUMS

Since its release in 2003, the numerous industries that have integrated the use of Second Life (SL) by Linden Lab has made it a very popular web-based, multi-user, virtual reality tool used by educators all over the world to support opportunities for interaction, a sense of community, and self-building capabilities amongst their students, creating a venue for examination regarding the actual benefits realized through use of 3D MMOGs (Buckless, Krawczyk, & Showalter, 2012; Zhang, 2007). In educational forums, aspects such as retention of information and improved comprehension depend on attributes relative to tacit and explicit knowledge in order for benefits to be realized when using SL as an educational tool (Foster, 2008). The research methodology employed used a 24 question survey that used a combination of multiple choice, 'Yes/No,' and Likert scale questions ranging from 'Strongly Agree, Somewhat Agree, No Opinion, Somewhat Disagree, and Strongly Disagree' for the response choices. The survey results showed that tacit and explicit knowledge both influenced the retention and comprehension of the information and SL improved student outcomes in education over traditional classroom or online methods.