Couple of interesting points of view on Second Life last week: firstly, Jen McCabe Gorman from Health Management RX came to the 23andMe presentation on Second Nature as a newcomer to Second Life and seemed impressed by it

Jen lists five things that make Second Life a worthwhile place for collaborative learning, all of which I agree with, but I was especially interested by:

More Interesting Q&A: People asked wackier questions and really pushed the envelope during the post-chat Q&A portion. Interesting questions = more valuable, revealing answers.

I think that certainly was true for the 23andMe presentation, the questions were certainly very robust and also varied. I think possibly having to write down your question forces conciseness and really thinking about what you want to know. It obviously also helps people who are not confident of their spoken English. But I wonder if it goes further than that: does Second Life really loosen the tongue and let you ask things you wouldn’t ask in person? And if it does, it is because of the pseudonymity? There’s been a big discussion over at Henry Gee’s blog about pseudonymity in blogs, and I wonder if the same applies in Second Life, even though you are actually “with” the other people, not protected by a time lapse and a chance to think about your answer.