Kari Swanson, Acting Head of the Science Libraries, took us on a tour of Second Life with her avatar Kari Meadowbrook. Second Life is a 3-dimensional online environment populated by graphical representations (avatars) of over 1 million people. Kari explained how Second Life offers the potential for radical changes in the way information and services are provided, and also in the way teaching and research are conducted in traditional and new, innovative ways. She walked us through some of education hotspots in Second Life such as Info Island, the New Media Consortium Island, and the ICT Library. While in the ICT Library she pointed out how users have access to educational materials such as powerpoints, blogs, flickr photos, posers, online newspapers, and other information sources. There is even something called Think Press, which allows Second Life users to publish a book in the virtual environment.
See Kari’s presentation for more information.
Kari explained that a Second Life account is free unless you want an island. The Instructional Technology Group at Yale has an Island, Elihu Island, where some experimentation is going on. Second Life offers free space to any first time teacher in the virtual environment and it was observed that distance education seems to be the primary educational use of Second Life.
Ken Panko, Manager of the Instructional Technology Group, spoke about ways in which his group has explored Second Life. He made it clear that, although there are many educational spots in Second Life, there are also many places and interactions that happen in Second Life that are not appropriate for education, i.e. mature content. Ken mentioned a few education projects:
- student curated exhibitions using digitized images from the Yale University Art Gallery. The gallery walls were replicated in Second Life and students can hang an exhibit in the virtual space.
- the industrial ecology department (engineering, environmental studies, and chemistry) is using Second Life for meetings and collaborations.
- the Mudd Library may undergo renovations in the near future so the ITG group is partnering with the New Media Consortium to build a model of the Mudd Library in Second Life for planning purposes.