In Search of SecondLife Nirvana

Pedagogically-driven support for groups is a continuing challenge as we move forward in em-bracing technology in an ever changing educational environment. SecondLife (www.SecondLife.com) is a virtual environment that is receiving global attention and recogni-tion. In this paper, we compare SecondLife to other group support technologies through an ex-tended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) lens. The environment chosen is a virtual team space in which an online book is produced through interactions between graduate students in Hong Kong and the Netherlands. A portfolio of technologies including email, forums, videocon-ferencing, SecondLife, and MSN was provided for team support and subsequently evaluated. Results indicate that SecondLife (at least in its current incarnation) is likely to need some reincar-nation prior to ascent to Nirvana. In that sense, it is a goal hoped for but yet to be attained in sup-porting teams. Suggestions for development and directions for future research are provided. Conclusions are drawn