The document discusses the potential educational benefits of multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) like Second Life. It notes that over 40 UK universities and colleges have a presence in Second Life. Research estimates that around three quarters of UK universities are actively using or developing Second Life. The document then provides examples of how Second Life has been used in educational contexts like visualization, roleplaying, tutorials, simulations, and conferences. It concludes by discussing challenges and directions for further research on using virtual worlds for education.

2. Q. how many institutions have created a virtual presence in Second Life? See http://www. eduserv .org. uk/foundation/studies/slsnapshots A. the Eduserv July report 2007 on activity in SL lists over 40 UK universities and colleges that have a building, land or island on the grid. by May 2008 … “taking into account institutions who haven’t responded but where there is reasonable evidence of SL activity, and institutions who are developing in SL but not in a public way, then a figure of roughly three quarters of UK universities are estimated to be actively developing or using Second Life …”

3. does this answer surprise you - why ?

4. the predicted growth in virtual worlds by population and age retrieved October 2007 from http://www.kzero.co.uk/blog/?p=1314

5. the uniqueness of SL what is Second Life: a unique configuration of freedom , creativity , interactivity , identity construction and tangible economy?

7. SL demographics from Linden Labs for July 2007 Notice how large the European representation is becoming – a shift challenging the dominance of the United States

9. ten examples of Second Life used in different educational contexts

10. Visualisation 1. Visualisation I: View from outside a large-scale interactive model of the human testes. The scale of the model allows the student to navigate and fly through objects and receive pertinent information at key points along their journey.

11. 2. Visualisation II: This snapshot shows the docking of a malarial enzyme molecule. Students can use chat commands to control the molecules floating in the air. This particular model demonstrates a chemical reaction where all of the intermediates are made visible. Normally something that is hard for to visualise on paper, but easy to demonstrate in three dimensions. http://www.sl-educationblog.org/?p =130

12. roleplay 3. Roleplay: Many opportunities exist for roleplay within games-based and other community participation events. This can be used to promote learning by role taking as opposed to learning by doing.

13. Self paced tuition 4. Self-paced tutorial: An example of self-guided and self-paced learning. Here an avatar is following a tutorial on building objects at the Ivory Tower of Primitives on Natoma.

14. Second Health 5. Simulation: SciLands is a mini-continent and user community devoted exclusively to science and technology with over twenty teaching locations. Second Health is a virtual hospital campus commissioned by Imperial College, London, illustrating a healthcare setting of the future - http://www.sciland.org

15. 6. Quests and problem solving: The Pot Healer Adventure on Numbakulla Island is one of the largest and most detailed puzzle solving mysteries in Second Life bearing much resemblance to the classic adventure game Myst. Quest type activities like this have been extensively used in the area of language learning.

16. Conference and presentation spaces 7. Conference and lecture spaces: Presentation style spaces can be creative and imaginative. Here at the MetaverseU conference, held at Stanford University, video was streamed live into Second Life. Multiple-media forms were used for audience presence including text, audio and moving image.

17. Hatmaking workshop 8. Workshops: Small group teaching settings are easy to create and the freedom of space and movement combined with a strong sense of co-presence can provide a compelling learning experience.

18. VRR 9. Virtual Reality: The virtual reality room is a 360 degree photo-realistic space created with captured images converted into a QuickTime VR panorama format and uploaded to SL. http://sl.nmc.org/2008/01/15/vr-demo/

19. Sloodle 10. SL to VLE links: The SLOODLE project links 2D and 3D teaching environments by creating channels for data transfer between Second Life and Moodle, an open source Virtual Learning Environment - http:// www.sloodle.org

20. yes, plenty of activity, but where is current research focussed?

24. Final slide Dr Steven Warburton School of Law King's College London Email: steven.warburton@kcl.ac.uk Liquid Learning at http://www.liquidlearning.org Second Life: StevenW Bohm