2. Virtual Worlds: Hype or Reality? Jane Chandler (RL) / Lane Erde (SL) Emma Duke-Williams (RL) / Emmadw Rickenbacker (SL) School of Computing & The ExPERT Centre CETL Work also supported by a grant from the HEA-ICS Subject Centre http://secondlife.com

3. http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/online_communities.png Virtual Worlds

4. What is a virtual world?

5. Dipity Timeline First 100 years (from 1787)

6. Dipity Timeline (Last 25 years)

8. What is an avatar?

13. How often do the people you interact with see every aspect of you and your life?

22. Lion Gate Building, University of Portsmouth

23. Lion Gate Building, University of Portsmouth

24. Portland Building, University of Portsmouth

25. Portland Building, University of Portsmouth

26. Portland Building, University of Portsmouth

27. NOAA

28. NOAA Virtual Morocco

29. NOAA Virtual Morocco Virtual Darfur

30. Photo via Flickr from danceinthesky Linden Gallery of Resident Art

31. Harvard Law School

32. Harvard Law School University of Portsmouth

33. Harvard Law School University of Portsmouth University of Plymouth

34. Harvard Law School University of Portsmouth University of Plymouth Genome Genome

35. Iowa State University: Blooms Taxonomy

36. Students’ thoughts on learning in a virtual world …

37. Best thing about Second Life? “ Interactivity to explore, relative freedom of expression and overall thoroughly enjoyable.” “ Different from the norm...”

38. Worst thing about SecondLife? “ Found myself spending most of the time trying to accomplish basic tasks, rather than complete the coursework assignment.” “ Playability was not very good in comparison to other computer games.”

39. When should/shouldn’t we use SL? “ I don’t believe it should be used at all, puts experienced users at a massive disadvantage to nonexperienced users.” “ Online meetings in SL was a bonus.”

40. Other comments. “ I thought SL was even more irritating to use than flash within Edcom.” “ Definitely a positive part of the course.”

41. Second Life and other platforms

42. Resources