RIT on TV News: Second Life

WROC-TV (Channel 8) reports on how RIT is using the virtual world of Second Life to enhance educational opportunities.

Second Life is a 3-D virtual world. You create a character on your computer and you interact with other people all over the world. People you use Second Life say its filled with experiences and opportunities you might not get in the real world. More and more universities and colleges around the world use Second Life to connect to students and professors outside the classroom. In todays Hot off the Web report, News 8s Laura McDonough shows us how RIT is using Second Life as a teaching tool.

RIT is the first college in our area to use Second Life. Its up and running at 300 universities and RIT officials hope that students that use second Life will get more out of the classes theyre taking. Students can just hang out or talk about classes and group projects. If theyve got a tough math problem to solve, they can fly to the white board and work together to figure it out. Teachers also supplement their class work with Second Life projects.

Katie McDonald: They come to us and they say, Id like to build this. Id like to show it to them in a 3-D environment so that They can interact with it.

Students designed second life at RIT and they're the ones working with teachers to build their projects.

Katie: The next projects are going to be things that don't exist in real orld. e're working on actually an economic simulation that the students will go in and walk down one street and experience a communist society, walk down another street and experience a capitalist society and walk down a third street and experience a socialist society. That's obviously not something that we can easily bring to the fingertips of students to experience but in second life we can. So over the years I think it will expand into more really interesting project that you couldnt do anywhere else other than a 3-D environment.

Come this Wednesday, you can experience RIT Island for yourself. Just download second life. I put up a link to Second Life's Web site as well as RITs page on Second Life. Head to rochesterhomepage.net and click on this story for those links. I'm Lauren McDonough for what's hot off the Web.

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Education

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• Learning