Accounting education in the Second Life world: opportunities for students, faculty, and businesses

Article Type: Abstracts From: Development and Learning in Organizations, Volume 26, Issue 4

Buckless F., Krawczyk K. and Showalter S.The CPA Journal, March 2012, Vol. 82 No. 3, Start page: 65, No. of pages: 7

Reports the research undertaken by the department of accounting at North Carolina State University (NC State), and funded by the Ernst & Young Foundation, to explore the benefits of using Second Life, a worldwide-web based online virtual world, where client programs (viewers) enable users (residents)to interact with each other through avatars, as a tool to enhance the educational experiences of accounting students. Describes how, over a two-year period, NC State’s accounting department initiated several activities through Second Life, including: creating a Second Life working group and developing its site; training Masters of Accounting (MAC) students, accounting faculty, and staff in the use of Second Life; creating project-based learning experiences incorporated into the classroom; and assisting faculty with opportunities to interact with individuals and groups outside NC State. Concludes that Second Life allows accounting educators to create virtual worlds that resemble the real world more than textbooks, lectures, or in-class case studies and exercises, and it allows students to be immersed in a real-world environment to gain hands-on experience with common accounting professional tasks. Notes that Second Life allows educators and professionals to provide realistic scenarios where students can make mistakes without suffering real-world consequences, and these mistakes are themselves excellent teaching tools.ISSN: 0732-8435Article type: ViewpointReference: 41AH338

Keywords: Accountancy, Accountants, Computer based learning,Computer based training, Software tools, Students, Teaching aids, Teaching methods, Universities, United States of America, Virtual reality