Applications?

As the semester is drawing to a close I'm wondering what the future is for SL and Web 3.0 in general. Are the kids who are growing up now going to need to be literate in these technologies to be successful? Even if the platform isn't SL, it seems that kids are going to have to know everything from internet lingo to collaborative tools as more and more of the world is moving online. Today's kids will have more and more interaction with digital classrooms and will use the 3D space of places like SL to learn in a way that was unavailable in the past. 

But, will they be ready for it? I worry that we take it for granted that today's children will all just automatically know how to use these technologies by virtue of being young. And, of course, there is the issue of the digital divide: are only the priviliged children becoming digitally literate? And even if they know how to use the tools, are we giving them the skills to be able to absorb the information that is being presented to them? In many ways, the information landscape is changing, and I think we take it for granted sometimes that everyone is changing with it. 

Even if SL isn't around in the future, I feel that it will be our responsibility as librarians to promote Web 3.0 tools and their potential for collaborative learning, information dissemination and exploration of ideas. For example, one SL educator was telling me about how much easier it was to map ideas in 3D space in SL. There are so many ways that SL and similar platforms could be used that it would seem like a shame if the great ideas that are coming out of SL research weren't fully realized. And, as the technology develops and worlds such as SL become more and more accessible to everyone, librarians will have a role in teaching the world how to use it.