Second Life, OUWB broaden educational outlook
By Luke Wright, Staff Writer
February 1, 2008 | 12:48 a.m.
Every Friday until March 7, Ohio University Without Boundaries (OUWB) will be conducting orientation sessions for those interested in learning the basic fundamentals of Second Life.
Held in Stocker Center Lab 308, these orientation sessions will be at 2 p.m. every Friday. They are open to Ohio University students, staff, faculty and Athens community members.
As a learning source for professionals and adults, OUWB has utilized the space in Second Life to advance education over the Internet. In conjunction with Ohio University, OUWB has gone as far as purchasing a parcel of land in the virtual world. Designed to the likeness of the university itself, OU’s “island” is comprised of computer-generated renditions of College Gate, Stocker Center, a system of redbrick pathways, a student center and other Athens area landmarks.
OUWB has begun implementing its online learning plan by offering entire courses taught “in-world.” OUWB contests that learning in this fashion has added an entirely unique and interactive aspect to online education.
“I would have loved to take a class in Second Life,” said Meghan Louttit, OUWB’s orientation coordinator, a design assistant for OUWB and former Managing Editor of Speakeasy.
Discussions, which are essentially non-existent with traditional online courses, play a pivotal role in the learning process of students being taught via Second Life, Louttit said.
Education and entertainment, which in most cases are mutually exclusive to each another, have joined forces in Second Life to produce content that can both inform and amuse its audience. A nutritional game found on OU’s island is a perfect example of this compelling relationship.
Artists looking to exhibit their work can find an ideal forum for their expression in this virtual OU art building. Canvassed with artwork from all around the globe, the art building accommodates dozens of pieces that would otherwise have taken hundreds of dollars and several weeks to house and exhibit outside of Second Life.
In this same fashion, real-world institutions have begun to realize Second Life’s potential for such things as product testing, promotion, advertisement and recruitment. Numerous businesses have set up shop in Second Life to sell their goods to residents. Major cell phone companies, clothing outlets and jewelry stores have all branded their mark on Second Life by injecting the long-loved American pastime of mass consumerism into the bloodstream of the program. Companies have gone as far as to use Second Life residents as product testers, examining users' response to items before their “first life” unveiling, all at a much lower cost than in real-world testing.
Roughly comparative to Electronic Arts’ niche juggernaut The Sims, Second Life has grown exponentially since its 2003 inception. Starting as only a small population of users and islands, Second Life has ballooned to nearly 12 million residents, 900,000 of which have explored the cyber terrain in the past 30 days.
What makes Second Life stand out from its wildly popular cousin, however, is that it is created entirely by its residents. Everything from the terrain and buildings populating the landscape to the clothes on an avatar’s back are created by residents who spent the time manufacturing these commodities with Second Life’s in-game building application. Furthermore, the IP rights are handed over to the original builder of that commodity, giving him or her the right to sell their goods throughout the world.
For example, some of the furniture used to furnish the student center was purchased from an outside vendor, Louttit said. To keep their businesses protected against online burglary, many of these vendors have disallowed users to copy items more than a set number of times, if at all.
Second Life even has a flourishing economy. This economy is based on the Linden Dollar, which can be purchased on Second Life’s Web site or from other residents for a certain amount of real money. In this way, it is entirely possible for one to become rich by amassing enough Linden Dollars and selling his or her virtual fortune to other residents in exchange for their real-world cash.
Not all is well in Second Life, however. Chris Griswold, a student seeking his master’s degree in journalism, was disappointed that Second Life did not live up to its reputation.
“It’s apparently popular,” he said after the two-hour long orientation had ended, “but I can’t understand why.”
Griswold noticed that the program’s graphics engine was less than desirable in today’s visually-driven gaming society. “I was a beta tester for The Sims, and this is what it looked like,” he said, motioning toward the nearest computer with the program still running.
At nearly $20 per month for a premium subscription, Griswold thinks that “there are much better communities” out there.
For more advanced Second Lifers, the GRID lab on Court Street will be holding advanced classes in many specific aspects of Second Life, including object building and scripting.
Whether you contend that Second Life can hold its own against the first, or that it just lacks "something", it is clear that education will have a long-lasting relationship with the Internet. It may not be that Second Life is its ultimate bastion, but learning over the Web has so many possibilities that anyone willing to bypass this most rousing of mediums will find themselves lacking "something" as well.
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