Eduisland

From CyberOne Wiki

Eduisland is a public island where a number of higher education institutions have offices or space without having to own or maintain an entire island. On this island I focused my efforts on the University of Cincinnati public office building. On their main desk was a bell I rang which IM'ed their representative. After a short wait, the avitar Fleep Tuque appeared and greeted me.

Fleep works for the University of Cincinnati(UC). They have their own private island which they use for six courses this semester in disciplines such as communications, digital design, and environmental health. Fleep, who has been a member of Second Life since it's beta testing over two years ago, along with a graphic design professor built their entire island. She was extrodinarily knowledgeable and helpful (especially considering it was a weekend) and gave permission for me to post her name here if you had questions.

The University of Cincinnati has a website that documents their efforts to create a virtual home for their educational institution. I would suggest visiting http://homepages.uc.edu/secondlife/ if you are interested in learning more about creating an island for educational use. It also has great resources for both in world and out. Included on this website is the paper Fleep (in real life) presented on the best practices for education in Second Life.

The six classes involving SL at UC all meet in person on a private island. They have created their own orientation process which begins by a new avitar receiving a teleport offer when they first appear on the SL orientation island. Because of this in person requirement, all the avitar's identities are associated with their real life personas. Also, because their island is private (only UC students, staff, and faculty are allowed on this island) there is no real problem with disruptive behavior. Their classes use a mixture of voice and chat depending on the circumstance. They have yet to take advantage of streaming live into SL, but are looking into it. Fleep has found one of the most difficult parts is getting people acclimated to virtual worlds with such a varied familiarity with gaming or similar technology. Also, Fleep has tried a number of tracking software for her virtual island and found that http://homepages.uc.edu/secondlife/ has been most useful for her.

I would highly recommend looking through the UC Second Life wiki (link above) if you are at all interested in higher education in virtual worlds.