Open Life: Teaching and Learning in Second Life

The Open University started with two islands in Second Life, Cetlment (a COLMSCT project island) and SchomeBase (belonging to the Schome project: www.schome.ac.uk). In early 2008 we moved from Cetlment to Open Life, located next to SchomeBase, and the two islands were developed together according to our experience, understanding, and observation of what works and doesn't work in this immersive environment. Spaces on Open Life, our formal teaching island, are naturally inclined towards creating communities and supporting smaller groups, with a variety of learning event spaces. Over 2008 the Open University representation in Second Life grew and developed into a lively, thriving presence. Anna's research focused on modeling this community according to real world concepts of community, and in 2009 we acquired a third island, Open Life Village, that has been developed using strong real world metaphors as a social presence for the University community.

Anna Peachey, and Liz Thackray, both COLMSCT Teaching Fellows, use Second Life for tutorials with students studying T175 Networked Living: Exploring Information and Communication Technologies, and have worked on other course resources and events for this programme. 

Anna is acting as liaison with all other interested parties in the University to converge in the development of our SL presence and capabilities, and providing an advice and reference point for those who have an interest in exploiting SL. In November 2008 Anna chaired ReLIVE08, an international conference on researching learning in virtual environments that was hosted at our real world campus in Milton Keynes. See the conference legacy website www.open.ac.uk/relive08 for further details.