My initial 'pre-action' (thought before action) of Second life is, I suppose of the classic “I’ve got my hands full in my first life." type of mindset. I kind of think that I haven't been on Second Life. Of course being greeted with a 'Can't sign up now' advisory isn't winning me over.
I can't see second life being a big deal for primary educators like me. For starters kids under 18 can't use it and the bandwidth requirements aren't possible for a school to support. It was slow on my 1.5 megabit ADSL connection. Of course the big question for me about citizenship in the VL world - is what's the point, the world itself is open ended which sounds like great pedagogy but I can only manage one open-ended life: My first life. However, there appears to be real possibilities for virtual meetups and collaborative efforts - but if I wanted to achieve a 'real-world' outcome I'm not so sure that I'd want to use this sort of virtual world in preference to a Skype meeting or a Gmail Chat or even a Facebook group - all of which require less bandwidth and don't require as big an install as Second Life does.
Of course Second Life offers the opportunity to collaborate and foster meaningful (i.e. proactive and engaged) citizenship in the real world- for example EnergyTeachers.org sustainability Energy Science Lab. But this seems to bring me back to the idea that online involvement is really only an adjunct to real world involvement. Citizenship online doesn't mean much unless you're willing to practice out in the real world.
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