University of KY Island!

Second Life is a 3-D virtual world application used for social interaction and, increasingly, for education. Users create representations of themselves called “avatars” to communicate with other users and explore a vast virtual civilization. The application may look and feel like a video game, but users do not simply interact within a fixed environment created by a game developer. All content within Second Life is created by the users themselves, making this particular virtual world application specifically well-suited for educational use.

Find out about Second Life Resources here on the UK campus – and be sure to visit the page Get Oriented to UKySL island.    Have you seen the interview of Dr. Christopher Rice about UK’s Second Life for the College of Arts & Sciences Ampersand?  See what the UK SL community has been doing with classes, projects and research – click on the tab above.

To find out more about uses of Second Life by other universities, visit: Second Life Education Wiki – SimTeach; or SecondLife.com directory for universities‘ sites in SL.  A great place to learn more about higher educational uses of virtual worlds and gaming, visit the New Media Consortium site – they also offer a customized orientation to SL experience for university faculty and students. For other examples of educational and outreach uses of Second Life, see:

• Simulation and Learning @ University of Michigan using Second Life and a wiki where “faculty, staff, students, alumni and guests” co-author essays about what they’ve learned.
• University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Smith-Lever Farm case study on herbicides and water quality on Cooperative Extension island.
• Vassar College virtual Sistine Chapel
• Univ. of Wisconsin at Green Bay’s Nursing Department Poverty Simulation and other College of Nursing training and international collaboration in SL
• Virtual Harlem – interdisciplinary and multi-institutional in scope and support
• Virtual Mine – simulation and roleplay exercise (and teacher’s guide) to discover mountaintop removal processes and alternative energy sources
• International Spaceflight Museum is an outreach effort between educational institutions and NASA
• The SL Shakespeare Company is serious in its combination of historical roleplay and theatre