|
|
2008 ORION Learning Award of Merit Recipient
Virtual World Design Centre at Loyalist College
Students and faculty at Belleville’s Loyalist College has been using the virtual world of Second Life to get real world expertise they could never get in a classroom, through its Virtual World Design Centre, a first in Canada.
Maureen Piercy, President of Loyalist College, accepts the award on behalf of the Virtual World Design Centre team.
The school is now sharing and marketing its new-found found expertise and best practices with institutions around the world.
The first Canadian college to build a campus in Second Life, Loyalist College has developed its expertise by creating educational and interactive simulations in virtual spaces, which allowed the college to launch its own Virtual World Design Centre to meet worldwide requests for consultation and design assistance.
The virtual world has transformed the Loyalist College faculty and students by opening up new opportunities for simulation and role-play, creating a forum for discussions with international visitors, and as an avenue for a variety of social activities. Through the Virtual World Design Center the college is now sharing its skills in design, architecture and experiential creation, and in building and scripting in Second Life with other educational institutions—plus business and government organizations—interested in developing their own presence in the virtual world.
Loyalist’s new centre offers two services: enterprise services that provide consulting on the design and construction of virtual worlds, learning spaces and simulations; and operational services, which include event planning, production, hosting, custom scripting and animations, custom avatar creation and “machinima” (or in-world video production) development.
Use of the environments created by The Virtual World Design Centre is allowing the college and its partners to expand from the classroom into a more engaging, immersive and immediate environment.
As the college’s gateway to the virtual world of Second Life, the ORION network has been a critical component in the development of the Virtual World Design Centre.
Since its launch earlier this year, the Virtual World Design Centre has engaged in several interesting projects. It has assisted the Queen’s University Faculty of Education and the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University on experiential and collaborative learning in cyberspace projects. The Centre has also hosted officers from the Canadian Defence Academy, designing a mock-up of a Forces base and uniforms in Second Life.
Demonstrating the power of simulation in the Second Life environment, the Centre also engaged a project with the U.S. State Department, Ohio University, officers from Canada Border Services Agency and Loyalist College students to design and facilitate simulated border services exercises.
The Virtual World Design Centre created the realistic border crossing to enable Loyalist College students to role-play their future positions as officers and experience various real-life situations.
Visit the website at www.infinitespaces.ca.
Back to the 2008 Awards Winners page
|
 |
|
|
