UCit Awarded Grant to Study Virtual World of Second Life
by Chris Collins
UCit Instructional and Research Computing established a pilot presence in the 3D virtual world of Second Life in late 2006, and in 2007 received a grant from the Ohio Learning Network to establish a faculty and staff learning community committed to evaluating the feasibility of the platform for higher education. Made up of faculty and staff from the University of Cincinnati and instructors from area high schools, the UC Second Life Learning Community is exploring the possibilities of using virtual worlds like Second Life for teaching, learning, and research.
Second Life has been widely covered as the first break through virtual world to cross over from the gaming community to broader use and it has also made the nightly news because of how much real money is being spent for virtual goods there ($1.6 million USD spent in the last 24 hours as of the time of this writing), but less well known are the possibilities it offers for educators. Since 2006, over 100 educational institutions around the world have joined Second Life and are using the platform to teach classes, recruit students, and even provide virtual tours of their real world campus facilities.
These virtual worlds borrow from gaming concepts; real world physics simulators; and existing streaming data/audio/video technologies to provide opportunities for real-time simulation and experiential learning that, like the "flat" web, does not require participants to be in the same physical location. While the potential for distance learning is obvious, digital literacy skills are increasingly important in every discipline, and 3D virtual worlds like Second Life offer educators a new medium to help students visualize scientific concepts and processes, create virtual campuses for online collaboration, or even offer Harvard Law courses to the public.
Like the World Wide Web in the mid-90s, the technology itself is still in very early stages. Use of Second Life requires a high speed Internet connection, a newer processor, and a high end video card. In addition, creating content in Second Life requires specific technology skills that have a relatively steep learning curve. These barriers to adoption aren't insignificant, and as members of the UC Second Life Learning Community have discovered, creating content in virtual worlds is not as easy as posting course material to Blackboard.
But early adopters have always faced technology hurdles, and the UC Second Life Learning community has harnessed the pioneering spirit of faculty and staff willing to test the affordances the platform offers. Professor Tom Wulf from the College of Applied Science incorporated the Second Life platform into his Special Topics in Web Technology course during Spring Quarter 2007, and his students helped create a wiki for the Linden Scripting Language (LSL) used to program interactive objects in Second Life. McMicken College of Arts & Sciences Assistant Professor Nancy Jennings asked her students to write feedback papers after reviewing information about Second Life. Their comments ranged from “the creation of Second Life was a great idea” and “Second Life is incredible new technology” to “the type of people that I picture using this type of game... are lacking in social confidence” and “video games are an escape from reality and have no benefit to an individual’s growth.”
As evidenced by the “Essays of Experience” on the UC Second Life Learning Community web site at http://homepages.uc.edu/secondlife/, entry to Second Life has been accompanied by questions about identity, self, what it means to operate in a virtual environment, moral and ethical dilemmas, and a whole host of associated questions. These issues have sparked engaging discussions at meetings and members continue to question what these 3D environments might mean for us as individuals, as educators, and to society as a whole. These questions seemed especially relevant after Reuters recently reported that Gartner estimates 80% of Internet users will be using non-gaming virtual worlds like Second Life by 2011.
In the meantime, members of the learning community are developing plans to build out a 16-acre island in the virtual world and researchers in the group recently completed an observational study of the virtual presence of educational institutions already in Second Life to provide a benchmark for future study. Publication of the article is forthcoming in the International Journal of Social Science. In addition, the E-Communications Planning Committee recently formed a Second Life Taskforce to make a recommendation about its use institutionally, and members of the learning community are participating in that effort as well.
It may be very early days, but from all appearances, virtual worlds are not only here to stay, they will increasingly be used for real world business and real world education. UCit Instructional & Research Computing matched the Ohio Learning Network grant in support of the UC Second Life Learning Community, and has upgraded hardware and installed the Second Life software in a Zimmer Hall computer lab for the university community’s use. IRC staff also conducted informational sessions about Second Life through the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching & Learning and will likely offer more sessions in Fall Quarter 2008.
For more information about the UC Second Life Learning Community, see the web site at http://homepages.uc.edu/secondlife, or to schedule a Second Life visit from the Zimmer Hall lab, please contact the author at Chris.Collins@UC.Edu.
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