Real-Life Teaching in a Virtual World

Citation: Harrison, D. (2009). Real-Life Teaching in a Virtual World. Campus Technology. Retrieved from http://campustechnology.com/Articles/2009/02/18/Real-Life-Teaching-in-a-...

Summary: Overview of teaching at the university level with Second Life as of 2009. Provides some resources for further exploration, such as universities that use 2nd Life and an email distribution list.

Key Points:

• Education is thriving in Second Life
  • Harvard
  • Texas State
  • Stanford
  • James Madison University -- http://www.jmu.edu/news/madisonscholar/SecondLife.shtml
  • Arizona State University
  • Princeton
• More than 200 educators and about 200 universities are using Second Life.
• Second Life Educators (SLED) community is an email list of 4,700 working in or interested in education in Second Life. 
• Email list called SLED is available: https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/educators
• CC International, a company dedicated to helping educational institutions develop Second Life presences: https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/educators. 
• Uses for Second Life
  • Teaching in Second Life
    • Facilitates experiential learning, simulation, roleplay, collaboration, co-creation, experimentation with new ideas, learning from teachers and each other. 
    • Astronomy with virtual planetariums
    • Supports the use of PowerPoint presentations and multimedia tools.
    • Plays videos.
  • Using Second Life as a supplement to teaching
    • Office hours.