Getting Digital in ‘Second Life’
November 12, 2009 • By Ford Prior, Contributing Writer
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HARRISONBURG, Va. — The road is long for many to reach JMU’s campus but only in real life. Thanks to an online virtual world called “Second Life,” JMU’s very own virtually recreated campus is just a click away.
Last year, a group of JMU professors established the campus in the world of Second Life, a world of user-created residents, called “avatars,” that explore, meet other residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, and create and trade merchandise, property and services with one another using Linden dollars (L), Second Life’s own currency.
Creating an avatar and exploring Second Life is free but it costs to consume, just like in real life: one U.S. dollar can exchange for 265 Linden dollars. A personal virtual island costs $295, or about 78,000 virtual dollars.
“We really wanted to see a virtual world for education purposes at JMU,” said professor Kate Stevens, who teaches an Art of the Ancient World course using Second Life and spearheads JMU’s virtual growth by promoting Second Life to other faculty.
“If you’re a long distance student and can’t come to campus frequently, you can simply log in to your computer from home and participate with campus people for campus activities,” she said. “We’ve created landmark buildings to give you a sense of identity,” including Wilson Hall, ISAT and the Quad.
The University of North Carolina, Texas A&M University and Harvard University all have Second Life campuses.
The JMU campus is open to all 16 million registered Second Life users, but students pay traditional tuition for traditional JMU course credits. Stevens’ three-credit art history class offered this summer was “almost entirely” on Second Life, she said.
“We met on JMU’s Second Life campus,” said Stevens, whose class then zapped to the Parthenon, for example, to analyze its virtual representation in comparison to that presented in the course reading. Afterward, the class would meet in a “Second Life coffeehouse, somewhere that was fun in the virtual world,” Stevens said, to discuss Second Life’s potential for both enhancement and deception.
Students like Steve Irons, a junior ISAT major, are unsure about Second Life’s new role in higher education.
“The only thing I can say is that in order for stuff like [Second Life education] to work, we’ll have to change the way we think about communication in terms of a sender, a message and a receiver,” he said of Second Life’s lack of conventional in-class interaction.
Modes of communication aside, Steven said Second Life offers high-quality opportunities not available anywhere else. For instance, it allows students to experience exotic places like Stonehenge, the Parthenon of Ancient Greece and the Stepped Pyramid of Djoser in Egypt.
“I can’t take my students to Egypt,” she said, “but they can log in and get a sense of how immense the structure is.”
Other JMU professors are taking similar interest. JMU marketing professor Toni Mehling said she is using Second Life to “give my students real world experience that would not be available to them sitting in the classroom.”
Her class helps the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) market itself to the country’s population of several million Second Life users, which defines its own market niche.
“They are working on a real project with a real client, and they’re producing real documents,” says Mehling of her students, who package and present business proposals to the IRS.
In theory, the virtual businesses will attract money-spending avatars to the IRS-owned region of Second Life. Walking in IRS neighborhood to find a college-logo T-shirt for their avatar — just one of the classes’ business ideas — Second Life users are more likely to see IRS job advertisements.
Mehling’s class meets twice a week; once in real life Chandler Hall and once on the virtual Second Life JMU campus.
“[My students] can see my avatar, and I see all my students’ avatars sitting at a table in a classroom,” said Mehling, who communicates verbally with students through an audio headset.
“I loaned them all headsets, so they can answer me back.”
Other professors are employing Second Life. Anthropology students under Clarence Geier are recreating an archaeology museum to showcase weekly findings from an ongoing virtual dig, and even JMU Study Abroad is entering the cyber world.
Lee Sternberger, executive director of JMU International Programs, has virtually recreated the Palazzo Capponi, a 16th century palace in Florence, Italy, which JMU leases for its study abroad students.
“We can use [this Second Life recreation] for orientation,” Sternberger said. “We can use it as a marketing tool. I also have the opportunity to use it in the classroom.”
Away from academics, Second Life offers cross-cultural interaction, which Mehling uses for practicing her French through a headset.
“I actually went online to meet some French-speaking region [of Second Life] to practice my French,” Mehling said. “We became friends in Second Life, and I practice my French, and he practices his English.”
If there’s no other reason to visit JMU’s virtual campus, access to off-limit areas is motivation enough: Virtual recreations of Wilson Hall’s bell tower and the steam tunnels under the Quad are now open for virtual exploration.
Contact Ford Prior at priorww@jmu.edu
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