Ohio University Second Life Campus

From VITAL Lab Public Wiki

History of Ohio University's Second Life Campus

The adventure into Second Life has been exciting and full of educational advances. The Ohio University Second Life Campus History page contains information about how Ohio University came to be in Second Life.

Places to See

On the Ohio University Campus in Second Life, there are many astounding locations. Ranging from beautiful buildings, fun and educational games, to true works of art; there is plenty to see. The Ohio University Second Life Campus Places To See page details some of the best parts of the OU Campus.

Stories about the Ohio University Second Life Campus

• 2/26/2007 “Virtual worlds an outlet for learning, teaching,” Columbus Dispatch.
• 2/21/2007 Linda L. Briggs, "Ohio University Opens Virtual Doors," Campus Technology.
• 2/2/2007, "Education meets virtual reality: Be anyone, do anything -- and learn in the process," Ohio University Outlook.
• 1/29/2007, "Virtual-reality software creates parallel campus, enhances education," Athens News.
• A video by Christopher Keesey http://youtube.com/watch?v=aFuNFRie8wA

Ohio University Second Life Campus Community Standards

• Ohio University Second Life Campus Community Standards

Designing Effective Learning Environment in Second Life

Figure 1. Virtual structures that resemble real-world buildings on Ohio University campus.

Three Ohio University units are designing a Second Life campus currently consisting of three virtual islands, including the “OHIO Outreach” and “Ohio University” sims on the Main Grid, and the “Ohio STEAM” sim on the Teen Grid. The blueprint was based around how best to serve traditional college students, adult and distance learners, high school students, and middle school students in a convenient and engaging fashion that would allow for both synchronous and asynchronous learning experiences. Our goal is to provide an attractive and engaging metaphor for Ohio University's beautiful real-world campus and extend Ohio University's mission into the synthetic world in Second Life.

On our Second Life campus, we are building both virtual buildings that resemble well-known brick-and-mortar buildings on Ohio University campus (examples in Figure 1) and futuristic virtual structures that may not even observe physical constraints of real-world buildings (examples in Figure 2). The former helps establish the identity of the Ohio University virtual environment, which local students can easily relate to because they can see the familiar landmark buildings. The latter allows our sims to be more functional and easier to navigate and manipulate because they were designed with the limitations of Second Life in mind.

Figure 2. A welcome center that does not resemble any real-world buildings on Ohio University campus.

We are currently completing the construction of the virtual structures on our sims. Next, we will add both general-purpose teaching aids such as voting and survey tools and course-specific learning objects designed for particular course subjects to the Ohio University virtual campus. We believe that ultimately, it is the effectiveness and appeals of these teaching and learning tools that will bring instructors and students back to visit our virtual campus again and again.

We currently plan to open our Main Grid sims for public visit by the beginning of year 2007. The status of the Ohio University sims of 11/28/2006 is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Ohio University sims in 2006.

Figure 4. Ohio University sims as of March 26, 2007. (The seven sims with names that start with "Ohio".)