Get educated, in Second Life
January 27, 2009 10:00 amRory Cellan-Jones reports from the BETT show in London, the world’s largest educational technology exhibition: “One firm (Mark Mullis of Middlesbrough City Learning Centre?) from the north of England is using the virtual world of Second Life to showcase a new school that, for now, does not exist. Construction work on Acklam Grange School has only just got underway, but developers at Middlesbrough City Learning Centre have created an exact representation of what it will look like in Second Life. The idea is for teachers, pupils, and governors to see exactly what the new school will look like, familiarising themselves with the layout and spotting any potential problems before the building goes up.“
Take a look at the YouTube video here, UK residents can watch the video here on the BBC website as they are not allowed to watch it on YouTube. Disregard the BBC describing Second Life as an “internet phenomenon” (ok, we can live with that) and a “virtual social networking site” (we’re Facebook 3D with un-real people! yeey! errr?!!!).
From the SLischool wiki: “As the ‘Building Schools for the Future’ initiative moves forward a large amount of money is being spent on buildings that we hope will provide effective learning spaces well into the future. Mistakes in the building of these schools can cost thousands of pounds to put right. However, imagine if you could build the school in a 3D virtual world, to scale and have the key stake holders walk around and interactively engage with the building as part of the consultation process. It would enable spaces to be experienced, mistakes to be spotted, placing of equpment equipment* and furniture to be tried out and familiarisation with the new building to speed up. Interactive functionallity functionality* could be built into all aspects of the building to allow anything from art work selection to trying out automated lunch purchasing systems.”
If the pupils are allowed to walk around in their “new” school, then is this located on the Teen Grid? A “private” grid in agreement with Linden Lab? Or are they using OpenSim?
* Spelling errors in a school project? *grins and says “tssss!”* ;)
One Response to “Get educated, in Second Life”
Wow! This is some pretty crazy stuff. Watching the youtube video, and seeing how kids can virtually walk around their school to become familiar with it is pretty cool! It reminds me of playing the SIMS or other computer games. But this isn’t just a game, its REAL! This really shows me HOW FAR technology really is coming, and what huge advances are being made. I think once this school is built and actually (not just virtually) functional, it will be a huge asset to the students who attend. Technology is growing so much, and so is learning. Because technology helps students in the classroom with learning, I think it is a great advantage to be building schools like these that are based around technology, and the fact that teachers and students can virtually see what the school will be like is very cool, and will help people become that much more familiarized with technology itself!! :)
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