Update on Uses of Second Life in UK Education

(Please note this is directly copied from an email posted into the JISC email list, and not written by me :-). SECONDLIFE@JISCMAIL.AC.UK. You may wish to think about joining this list. Contact me if you're not sure how.)

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Regarding the latest survey and "hunt for examples".

To date we've noted SL developments by people in/from 67 UK universities (plus colleges). There are some leads to chase up and responses promised, so we're expecting this number to rise.

Thus:

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A majority of UK universities are developing, or have developed, something in Second Life.

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A very fragmented picture is emerging:

- A significant minority of developments are non-public/open to invite only; the intention of some of these is that they'll never be fully open to all. The rest am trying to get around to taking pictures and descriptions of, for inclusion in:

www.flickr.com/photos/silversprite/sets/72157603982005324/

- The majority of developments are "bottom up" or "grassroots" i.e. it's usually one or more academics or students, often thrown together from different departments, building stuff. There are a few "top down" developments coordinated from central institution units, but these are in the minority. In a few places, central units are unaware of SL developments elsewhere in their institution :-)

- The reasons for developing in SL are quite diverse e.g. running courses, running meetings, exhibition of students work, experimenting with the technology, increasing learning participation, part of funded research, promoting the institution, or just for the hell of it. And so on.

Basically, there's no standard "This is how most UK universities are going about developing in SL" model.

There'll be more on all this in the next snapshot report provided by the Eduserv Foundation:

www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/studies/slsnapshots

The Flickr set of pictures will be added to beyond the current snapshot and kept live long-term.


Regards,
John Kirriemuir (SL: Silversprite Helsinki; RL: john@Silversprite.com)
(Research supported by the Eduserv Foundation)