1. Social Media Tools and apps in
Higher Education: the case of
Second Life
IT College, Estonia | 06.04.2009
Luís Pedro, Carlos Santos, Pedro Almeida
Dep. Communication and Art – Univ. Aveiro
2. 1
Second Life and Education
MUVEs and Second Life brief overview
2 Second.ua project – Univ. of Aveiro SL presence
3 Pedagogical activities
4. What is Second Life? [1]
Metaverse (Snow crash – Neal Stephenson)
Social and economic interaction
Avatars
Technology (evolution integration)
5. What is Second Life? [2]
Developments:
The Metaverse (MOO) – Steve Jackson Games
SnowMoo – SenseMedia
Active Worlds
WoW
Croquet Project
Second Life
Kaneva
There
PS3 Home
Emphasis in social networking development, in content creation and in interaction
with collective/institutional purposes
6. What is Second Life? [3]
Business – money and transactions
Marketing –institutional presence, product launching...
Society– parties and events…
Technology Web 3D?
Education
7. Pedagogical build-up
Flexible environment (time, space and technology)
Distance learning
Professional training (role-playing and serious games)
CSCW
Simulation
New Media
Content (?)
8. Some numbers
Numbers:
15.000.000 registered users
~ 735.000 logged in the last 30 days
US $1.300.000 worth transactions/day
70.000 avatars simultaneously logged-on
Europe 54% of users
17. (from left to right)
Pedro Almeida Antero Eun Samuel Almeida Sanko Voom
Luís Pedro Zes Garfield Simão Oliveira Marca Falta
João Delicado Supermaxi Paine Pedro Correia Neozgul Rossini
Carlos Santos Carlosss Lukas João Vasco Zen Wilder
18. What is it?
Conceptualisation, development and exploration of an University
presence in SL
Curricular research project launched by the social media research
team
19. Motivations?
Institutional presence in Second Life
Multi-purpose environment for teachers, students, reseachers and staff
(communication, etc..)
Technology hacking (3D modelling and scripting)
20. How was it born?
Informal meeting with students from a
Masters course;
Experience Results
Challenge Project
22. Functional requirements
InfoZone meeting point, info point
Aularium regular classrooms
Showroom exhibitions, scientific dissemination
Second Caffé informal meetings and events
Auditorium shows, lectures
Scriptorium private meetings
and... soccer stadium :-)
23. The future?
Perpetual beta: LUA, AAUAv, ...
New spaces result from new pedagogical approaches (ex: serious
games), new needs, new technologies, ...
Inter-institutional partnerships
30. Some themes
Web 2.0
Interaction design
SL 3D modelling and scripting
Multimedia Communication MsC
SL in educational contexts
Usability tests
Social relationships in SL
Cef^SL Workshop cef^sl
...
35. Thank you
Luís Pedro | Zes Garfield | lpedro@ua.pt | nitratodocaos.blogs.ca.ua.pt
Carlos Santos | Carlosss Lukas |carlossantos@ua.pt| napraia.blogs.ca.ua.pt
Pedro Almeida | Antero Eun | almeida@ua.pt | intouch.blogs.ca.ua.pt
Dep. Communication and Art
University of Aveiro