"UCit Instructional & Research Computing Second Life Learning Community"

Category: Second Life

University of Cincinnati (Partners: Raymond Walters College, Hughes High School for Teaching & Technology, Mother of Mercy High School)

Goals:
Our major goals are to share and develop resources as we examine the use of the Second Life virtual environment for instruction, pool our talents to build reusable learning objects and spaces in Second Life, and ultimately create a web-based resource for other educators that describes our process, the results of our experience, and our recommendations for its future use as an instructional tool. . Members will:

*Develop a better conceptual understanding of the technology necessary to use an integrated web-based platform such as Second Life, by increasing their understanding of streaming audio/video, 3D modeling, graphic design, and manipulation and delivery of educational content in virtual environments.
*Acquire the “soft” skills necessary to educate in a virtual environment through: identity formation of the digital self, accessing social and professional networks through online collaborative environments, and developing confidence using these flat and 3D media for their own learning, in order to teach others these fundamental skills.
*Participate not only in a local, cross-institutional learning community based at the University of Cincinnati, but also in a larger collective of educational partners across the world through the EduIsland initiative in Second Life, a collaborative project among 19 institutions of higher learning dedicated to many of the same goals as the FPLC.

We will create:
*A virtual space within the Second Life environment for exploring the possibilities of teaching there. These virtual facilities will be available for use by the learning community, future instructors and students, and possibly the public/educator community in Second Life.
*Reusable scripts and learning objects to be made freely available as open source resources to the Second Life community.
*A publicly accessible web-based resource for other educators who wish to explore Second Life as a teaching tool