Cypris Chat: Emergent Design for Language Education in Second Life

Technology stewards are individuals who assume responsibility for the development and maintenance of online digital habitats suited to a community of practice or affinity group. Though guidelines for effective stewardship exist, most focus on serving the needs off offline organizations and individuals through now canonical online resources such as forums, blogs and text-based chat, they may not be applicable to emergent online groups in which the dialectic of negotiation plays a much stronger role. As part of a larger ethnographic study, this paper introduces Cypris Chat, a language learning community in the online virtual world of Second Life. Through examination of its design evolution from 2008-2012, Cypris proves itself an exemplar of digital habitat design negotiation in entirely virtual communities, as well as opens up new possibilities for both independent language learners and instructors interested in innovative and cost-free learning environments.