February / March 2007


Loyalist College logs onto Second Life

First Canadian college joins growing number of educational institutions in virtual world

Journalism students gather for class at Loyalist College, but not on the Belleville, Ontario campus. Instead, they meet and interact on a virtual campus in cyberspace.



Prof. Robert Washburn in front of the Loyalist College classroom in Second Life.

Loyalist College is the first Canadian college to establish a presence in the social-networking simulation universe, Second Life. A unique 3D virtual world, Second Life is entirely built and owned by its "residents"; a digital world where participants meet and socialize with other like-minded residents. They build and design objects, retain intellectual property rights of their creations, are able to own and control the land where they live and congregate, and even start businesses that are paying off in real-world income. Second Life (SL) is currently growing explosively at more than 20 per cent each month and currently claims more than 2.6 million residents.

Recently, SL creators Linden Lab launched Campus: Second Life, a program allowing college and university level classes to use the realistic online environment as a venue for learning. With a fully physical simulation, 3D modeling and scripting tools, and a complete economy with social systems, SL provides students with a collaborative framework to experiment in real time with everything from urban planning, to game design, to the formation and study of social communities.

Loyalist College has established space on "Edu Island" that it shares with 18 other higher educational institutions worldwide, including New York University (NYU), George Washington University and Empire State College (of the State University of New York). So far, 60 schools and universities have set up virtual presences inside Second Life, most in the past year. Even Harvard University has a space for a law school course entitled CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion.

So far, college and university courses that are benefiting from the SL framework include those in the fields of architecture, game design, sociology, design and media studies. Faculty and students can integrate into the existing world community, or work together on public or private (i.e. invisible) 'islands'.

"We're making it possible for more students to investigate important design and social aspects of digital spaces within the context of Second Life," said Robin Harper, Vice President of Community Development and Support. "The enormous flexibility of the underlying systems, including the ability to establish communities and design and create interactive objects and structures, offers these students an unparalleled palette for learning and exploration."

For example, teachers of architecture bring their students to SL to build things that would either be too expensive or physically impossible to create in the real world. Others, such as psychologists and sociologists, study what people choose to do in SL and why they're doing it.

Another educational use for SL that schools have discovered is bringing together distance learning students. Virtual classrooms in SL can make students thousands of kilometres apart feel like they've actually gathered together for a class. Since students and faculty can 'see' each other, at least virtually, they can interact in a way closer to the physical world, as 'avatars' (their digital world simulation) move and express themselves true to human form.

This term, the Loyalist College virtual presence has been set up for classes to explore how this environment can be developed to best support teaching and learning. Two confirmed groups, one from the Journalism program and another from Business, are currently using SL as a platform to extend the traditional classroom space. The first Loyalist students arrived in SL last month.



Loyalist students attending class in Second Life.

"We are extremely excited about the possibilities SL may provide to the learning community. While we are in the early stages, we see great benefit in providing simulations, collaboration and most importantly, context to the vast expanse of information available over the web," said George Burton, VP, Enrolment Management and Student Services at Loyalist College.

"Second Life offers an unparalleled opportunity for social networking and real-time simulation," said Ken Hudson, E-Learning Facilitator at Loyalist College. "Our first steps into this vast metaverse are small, but part of our work here is to evaluate how we could best use this environment to facilitate learning for our students."

"Second Life will be used as a means of facilitating group discussions outside the traditional classroom setting," said Hudson. "We anticipate the uses will be varied and exciting as this process develops further."

Robert Washburn, a professor in the Journalism program at Loyalist, is the first instructor at a Canadian post-secondary institution to lead a class into SL. For the majority of his students, this was their first foray into this virtual world.

Much of Washburn's course, Topics in Journalism, is based on discussion, so is well suited to a Second Life forum. The goal is to give students a different learning experience. Having used Web chat previously, he has noticed how differently students communicate in a virtual environment as opposed to a physical one.

"Some of my more quiet students suddenly come alive online," said Washburn. "The SL forum allows students to be more engaged in a less structured, more casual environment where they feel freer to express themselves."

"There's a huge cool factor associated with SL. The students become very enthusiastic about participating in class. It helps motivate them to get involved with the subject matter."

Washburn hopes his students will come away from the experience having gained a different perspective of communication and interaction. Part of the discussions will be about the experience of being in a virtual environment of this kind and how the students themselves think it affects the learning experience.

Colleges and universities are not the only institutions hopping on the SL bandwagon. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is creating simulations inside SL to teach the public about tsunamis and other phenomena. A U.S. federally funded bioterrorism-preparedness project, Play2Train, has built its own virtual town and hospital for training purposes.

"Education is actually growing to become a very significant part of how SL is used," said John Lester, Community and Education Manager at Linden Lab. "It's still a pioneering space. We're still trying to figure out how best to use it."
To learn more about Campus: Second Life, click here.

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