Typically, one of the main benefits of taking a course online is that you don’t actually have to go to class. However, the online world of Second Life has changed that for eight multimedia students at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill.
Ed Lamoureux, an associate professor of the Multimedia Program and Department of Communication at Bradley University, will be teaching a course, as "Professor Beliveau," in the virtual universe. The course aims to familiarize students with working in virtual environments and new media.
“Most of the multimedia students at Bradley want to learn to author 3-D, immersive media,” Lamoureux said in a presentation to the New Media Consortium on Nov. 8. “Doing meaningful things in Second Life, like holding class, making presentations, observing others, will help them further understand the products they want to someday make.”
Developed in 2003 by Linden Labs in San Francisco, Second Life is a 3-D virtual world in which people can interact, play, do business and otherwise communicate. The site now has more than one million residents online that spend an average of $600,000 “real” dollars per day in the online world.
Second Life allows its residents to create an online version of themselves, called an avatar, as well as purchase land, build homes and businesses, socialize and earn money that can be cashed out for real money.
Lamoureux’s course, which is scheduled to begin in January 2007, Field Research Methods in Second Life, aims to study learning in online environments.
He has developed a virtual campus in the Second Life universe, complete with buildings that resemble the “real” buildings on Bradley’s campus, where students will meet in the game for class.
The students will meet for one hour daily in a conference room on the virtual campus, where they will hear his lectures, engage in question-and-answer sessions and report on their out-of-class work, Lamoureux said in a statement.
“Distance and online learning are interesting to me and, in my view, are of crucial importance to the future of education,” Lamoureux said in his blog. “Our program is pretty interested in innovation --our students need exposure to great new stuff, though we can’t keep up with everyone on everything.”
Lamoureux said that online courses such as his might appeal to students who are interested in gaming and virtual environments online.
“My students are, generally, multimedia degree majors, some gamers -- almost all want to make games or do animation,” he told the New Media Consortium. “They have equipment, network and know how.”
Lamoureux said Second Life has much more to offer than the average online game.
“I’m the theory guy in our program,” he said to the New Media Consortium. “I have been opposed to teaching games directly as I’m uninterested in shooting, killing and fantasy. But Second Life presents us with a wonderful opportunity to learn and teach about virtual environments for living and learning.”
Read More
No comments:
Post a Comment