http://www.andrewmercer.ca
Whether it is Star Trek's holodeck, The Matrix or the movie Avatar, science fiction writers have dreamed of technologies that would allow us to connect and immerse ourselves into a 'make believe' environment. If real, this would be an incredibly entertaining piece of technology and offer great educational potential? Students could visit and explore an artificial environment such as the inside of a volcano, the Globe Theatre on the day it burned, or the inside of a human's vocal mechanism. We would need only to dream up where we want to send our students. My advice to educators is to start dreaming, because with a technology called Second Life these kinds of immersive educational environments are no longer science fiction.
Second Lifeis an immersive online technology. More specifically, it is a 3D virtual world where participants have opportunities to interact, roleplay and become immersed in an environment created by the participants of Second Life. The world within Second Life appears similar to the real world, with gravity, topography, locomotion, real-time actions and communication that include public and private text and voice capabilities. Second Life, for many who use it, is considered a game. However for other participants it is an 'educational game' or provides 'serious game environments' in which people can learn, work and play. (M. Brooks, personal communication, July 16, 2010)
Second Life is a free application that can be downloaded and run on both Windows and Apple computers. One can sign up for a free account and download the Second Life viewer from www.secondlife.com. Once 'in world' users are free to explore the vast regions found in the Second Life universe. These regions and all the content found in Second Life are created by users of the software. This means that anyone can create content in Second Life.
As with many emerging educational technologies there needs to be projects which highlight the technology's pedagogical potential. For Second Life, the 400th anniversary of John Guy's voyage to Newfoundland is one such project.
In August of 1610 John Guy and 38 men established the first English speaking settlement in Canada at Cupids, Newfoundland and Labrador. 2010 marks the 400th anniversary of this important historical event.
The settlement of Cupids was well documented in the journals of John Guy and his crew. These invaluable documents have not only given us insight into the society, culture and community of those early days, but has aided in the location and archeological excavation of John Guy's original dwelling house and plantation built in 1610. From the physical evidence unearthed in Cupids as well as the letters and journals written at the time, we have a fairly accurate account of what life was like in Cupids in early 17th century.
Through Cupids400, I have had the opportunity to contribute to several innovative educational initiatives designed to make this cultural and historical content accessible to students of Canada. One particularly exciting initiative is the recreation of the town of Cupids, circa 1612, in the online virtual world of Second Life.
Through collaboration with Memorial University of Newfoundland's Distance Education and Learning Technologies (DELT) division, we have recreated an accurate representation of the settlement of Cupids as it existed in the fall of 1612 in Second Life. Using an avatar, visitors to this virtual world can move freely around the harbour and engage in numerous learning activities, such as explore the inside of the original plantation house, interact with fishermen as they 'make fish' at the water's edge, go below deck of the ship the Indeavour and take a tour of the cove with John Guy himself. (More information can be found at www.cupids400.com) Second Life has allowed us to create an immersive experience for visitors that will give them a first hand view of the settlement in 1612.
Virtual worlds like Second Life offer boundless learning potential for our students. The first-person exploratory perspective used in Second Life is one of the most common video game environments found today. The familiarity of this game-like medium makes this format attractive to learners and offers them a relevant environment in which to learn. The immersive experience of the environment allows learners to easily become engaged and lost in the content.
Educational projects, like the one presented here, shine light on the learning potential of this medium. As arts educators, we need to consider how this immersive environment can be used to serve our students. Immersive 3D environments offer us learning opportunities that have not yet been dreamt of -- start dreaming.
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ITEC 2360 Video to Introduce Study and Second Lifeby c33royal12 views
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