The Second Life Unveiling @ TU event got some nice campus press - www.thetowerlight.com

Second Life used as way of teaching

University granted "visual island" to communicate in virtual social network

Olivia Obineme | 2/15/09

A screenshot of Second Life shows the unveiling of a visual island for students to learn in a different way than usual. [Click to enlarge]

Second Life, a virtual social network, is being used by some professors to expand the classroom environment for their students. Faculty members held a presentation in Paws Thursday to share with others their new method of teaching.

"Second Life is a virtual 3-D environment where you create a persona, an avatar, and you can exist in this environment," OTS instructional design technologist and trainer LaTonya Dyer said.

Dyer was one of the collaborators for this project, along with department of computer and information sciences lecturer James Braman and associate professors for the department of art Bridget Sullivan and Jan Baum.

According to Sullivan, the professors requested a teaching innovation grant to have a "visual island" in Second Life.

"I teach online, so this [Second Life] offers a different way to interact with each other instead of just through e-mail and Web page," Sullivan said.

"Now we can actually get together 'in world' and we can hear each others' voices."

Released in June 2003, SL has grown from a social network for anyone to an educational environment for many universities. "Many universities have their own islands, such as University of Delaware, Princeton and MIT," Sullivan said.

Sullivan hopes that SL is taken into consideration by more professors on campus and used as another way to teach students.

"It really extends the boundaries of teaching," Baum said.

"As a teacher, I am always looking for what is the new frontier in technology because I really want to prepare my students for their competition in the real world."

Baum, who teaches metalsmithing and jewelry, uses SL in her classes and has said unlike SL, traditional teaching is very labor intensive and very costly, when it comes to making the art and getting professionals to see her students' artwork.

"With SL it is much faster and free. My students can get immediate results to see what works and what does not work with their art pieces," she said.

"I could be in China right now and if my students needed feedback, I could simply log on and do so," Baum said.

Though the collaborators agreed that SL has potential to grow on campus, most of their students were skeptical at first using the virtual network in class. "Initially, most of my students thought it was a little crazy at first," Braman said. "Once they saw the potential and what could be done with it, they are more open to it and they think it is interesting."

Junior mass communication and communication studies major Melissa Novak went to the presentation and signed up for Second Life because it looked like her favorite video game, The Sims.

Although Novak felt that SL would be another way for meeting new friends, she is not too sure if it can be used for educational purposes.

"I am not sure if it can be used for classrooms. Professors on Facebook still freaks me out," she said.

On the other hand, there were students at the presentation who immediately felt comfortable with the emerging teaching method.

"Overall it is pretty easy to become acclimated to Second Life and students can benefit from this because you do not have to be in class at certain times and you can log on to Second Life from anywhere, on your laptop," graduate student Amy Klainer said.

According to Dyer, Second Life was officially unveiled to the University on Thursday.

Despite the skepticism, Second life has received positive feedback and provides a new opportunity for faculty and students.

"It is free; you just simply create an account. Just make sure that your computer meets the system requirements," Dyer said.