Teaching & Learning

From Open Habitat - learning in virtual worlds:

"Taking part in a teaching session in an MUVE is more than simply using a tool or achieving a task, it feels like an event, a particular moment in time when you have the chance to interact with others at a level of intensity which is rarely felt in other online spaces.

A teaching session in a MUVE can become a focal event for a significant slice of teaching. A learning design can be created which leads up to and then away from a MUVE session."

Further reading for teachers new to Second Life:

Getting Started with Second Life (JISC) (PDF)

UTAS Orientation Sessions

Every Tuesday from 9:00am - 12:00am there will be a UTAS representative available in Second Life for informal orientation.

For further details on access to Second Life contact Ben Cleland at the Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching.

Videos

Aside from experiencing Second Life directly, the best way to get a sense of what is possible in-world is video.

This collection gathers videos of varying length, quality and topics to give you an idea of the types of learning experiences that are being created in-world.

Clinical Scenarios: Medical Devices (8:58)

Respiratory Ward - Imperial College London (3:29)

Macbeth in Second Life (8:27)

Practice Foreign Languages (1:23)

The Naval Undersea Warfare Center (6:14)

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) (10:02)

Introduction to Second Life and science education (7:50) Part 2 (9:11)

University of Auckland - School of Architecture and Planning (2:07)

Collaborative Design and Architecture (2:15)

The Dream Creatures of Kazuhiro Aridian (3:28)

Case Studies

Concrete examples of learning within Second Life are beginning to be documented at a greater rate in 2009.

Here are a few examples:

Open Habitat - learning in virtual worlds

Learning and Teaching in Immersive Virtual Worlds

The Virtual Birthing Unit Project

Border Security Training

Open University

New Media Consortium (PDF)

Memorial University