Universities are beginning to look at online 3-D virtual worlds such as Second Life as a nexus for both research and teaching. Sometimes also referred to as a Massive Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game (MMORPG) or a s a Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE) , these worlds are attracting individual courses, students, instructors and researchers.
Recently a Campus Island - "virtual real estate where educators can use an acre of land free of charge for the duration of a class" - has been created by Linden Labs: http://secondlife.com/community/education.php
Harvard announced it will be offering its first course "CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion" in this virtual world through its extension school. According to an article in the Boston Phoenix http://www.thephoenix.com/article_ektid20561.aspx, an instructor at Ball State plans to teach "English-composition undergrads in real life one day of the week and in SL on another." For both courses, Second Life offers a unique setting for online collaboration and community building.
The Stanford Humanities Lab (SHL) is building the Life Squared project on a private island in Second Life. SHL has also established a virtual center on the mainland of this online digital world: SHL-SecondLife (SHL-SL). "In what promises to be a perpetual work in progress, a series of galleries has been created to showcase SHL's research." In addition to the galleries, SHL-SecondLife will provide "space for meetings and presentations, incorporating multiple streaming video and audio feeds" facilitate collaboration among staff and researchers.
In early 2006, the New Media Consortium (NMC), in which Tufts is a member, designed the NMC Campus in Second Life "to inform the New Media Consortium’s work in educational gaming." The goal of the project was to "create an immersive 3-D virtual environment for higher education and museum professionals to interact, collaborate, and experiment."
According to an article in last September 2005 Chronicle of Higher Education, "Second Life, in particular, has become a magnet for researchers because the world places few constraints on them. And Linden Lab, the San Francisco-based company that created the game two years ago, allows college students and scholars free entry to its make-believe world of 50,000 players worldwide."
Read more at:
Second Life Officially Opens Digital World to College Students for Exploratin and Study of Design and Social Communities
http://lindenlab.com/press/releases/04_09_20
Right-click to learn: Second Life offers students a virtually real education
http://www.thephoenix.com/article_ektid20561.aspx
Harvard to Offer Law Course in 'Virtual World'
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i03/03a02902.htm
The Avatars of Research: Students and professors join popular virtual worlds like Second Life to study the real-world interactions they represent
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v52/i06/06a03501.htm
Preparing to Teach an Undergraduate Course in SL
http://www.nmc.org/sl/2006/07/19/preparing/
Second Life Education wiki
http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Second_Life_Education_Wiki
