Second Life plays role in academic endeavors

By Zoe Hayes

Summer Reporter

Publication Date: 07/27/2009

Provided by Terry Patterson

A screenshot of the Purdue Bell Tower model in Second Life. The game allows users to create buildings and landmarks..

sponsored by

Computer games and social networking sites are usually seen as hindrances to learning. However, one Purdue community is working to integrate a combination of the two into class syllabi.

Almost a year ago, several campus departments and instructors came together with an idea: To integrate social networking site Second Life into classrooms and lecture halls – and to put both those things into the Web site.

Second Life was created in 2003. In it, users create a character, or ‘avatar,’ that they can manipulate to interact with other avatars on the Web site; it looks like a game, but is more of a communication model for people from around the world, who log in using a username and password and congregate on virtual “islands” to interact with other players.

Some islands are public; others, like the Purdue Island, are limited to authorized accounts only. Interaction can be verbal or written, but Second Life characters are controlled entirely by their users, making body language a means of communication as well. This is, according to Abe Walton, one of the site’s strengths.

“We are wired as humans to react to body language,” Walton, a graduate research assistant in the Center for Instructional Excellence, said. “We react to those cues with language. We also attach great meaning to persona. The world is flattening, so how can we best work on technology to include virtual collaboration? Companies are using it - IBM does all its orientation through Second Life.”

The Purdue Island was founded by the Purdue Professional Writing lab and Purdue Libraries, which pooled funds and contacted the Instructional Development Center about sponsoring the island. The center administers the site by providing logistical support, authorizing new users, and allocating space to professors interested in using the site.

So far, it has been used by professional writing and business classes. Purdue professors Thomas Goodrich and Scott Homan were the first lecturers on campus to utilize the CPS pad response systems in their business class and saw a place for Second Life in their lesson plan.

“A hypothetical client wanted to start a business in Second Life, and as it turns out the business applications are the same in Second Life as they are in real life,” Goodrich said. “The students wrote papers, then went on Second Life and used the concepts. Some hated it; some went crazy with it; most saw it as a learning experience to learn about business.”

However, professional writing professors first floated the idea. David Blakesley, a professor in the Department of English, says that although Second Life has a variety of uses, the original purpose was to provide distance learning students another place to meet. Other universities have similar islands, including Harvard.

“There’re all sorts of applications,” Blakesley said. “We teach some distance learning courses and those students never get to see each other, so we thought that Second Life might be one way for them to make a community so they get to know each other a little better and work together on projects.”

Katherine Tanski, a graduate student in the Department of English, is one of the instructors using Second Life, in part because of its professional uses. In an e-mail, she said, “I’m currently using Second Life to enhance the distance learning experience with my distance learning section of Business Writing in addition to simply familiarizing students with this new software that’s being used in professional contexts.”

One of those ways is to hold lectures or seminars in the virtual world. In 2010, for example, the Professional Writing Lab will host an online conference on computers and writing, the theme of which is “Virtual Worlds”; according to Blakesley, part of the conference will be held in Second Life.

Meanwhile, Goodrich will continue to use the game in his and Homan’s class and recommends it for other educators – with a caveat.

“It’s like anything else,” he said. “Technology just for the sake of technology isn’t useful. It’s only useful if it helps you teach.”