Second Life @ DU - Update

CHECO Spring ConferenceApril 8th 2008

Chad Burnham (Chadwick Rau)

University Technology Services

What are we doing?What Divisions?

• Send out discovery e-mail – not many responses….

• Mass Communicaitons - lost interest• Daniels School of Business – not

much interest• Physics department and

University College are only schools currently engaged

DU Physics Depatment

• Early adopters• Research Professors Robert

Amme, Zeev Shayer, & Research Associate Jeff Corbin (Zazen Mambi)

• $200,000 grant from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Physics – Continued

• Purchased land with other scientists from around the world to create an archipelago of islands — called SciLands — dedicated to scientific research and education.

• On DU’s island, “The Science School,” are Olin Hall and a replica of DU’s Meyer-Womble Observatory on Mt. Evans

Physics – Continued

• Teamed up with with University Collge to form a new program for NRC Program

• Amme envisions helping students conduct experiments in radioactivity using programs that simulate how the material would actually behave in the physical world. But because it’s all online, there’s no risk to the environment and no risk to students. It also cuts expenses, such as the badges students would wear in real life to monitor exposure to radioactivity.

John Hill, academic director and instructor for DU’s University College’s master of environmental policy and management program, is a big supporter of work in Second Life. About 80 percent of his students take classes online, far from the lab facilities where experiments in radioactivity could be conducted safely.

SCILands members

Office of Communications

• Vice Chancellor is not interested• Does not take the medium seriously• Despite 15+ major press articles/pieces

mentioning DU’s Science School• Generated Chancellor and Provost

attention to the work• Asked Physics Department to remove

DU seal from DU’s “The Science School”

Center for Teaching and Learning

• Group that bridges cutting edge technology and teaching @ DU

• Does not feel medium is proven• No work being done in 3D virtual

space

Congressional Hearing 110th Congress

• House Subcommittee of Telecommunications and the Internet; “Online Virtual Worlds: Applications and Avatars in a User-Generated Medium”

• 1st Simulcasted House Hearing in a Virtual World – 4/1/08

• Created Virtual House for hearing• Invited several Avatars from many

disciplines to attend

Congressional Hearing-Con’t

• Upgrading Broadband access for all citizens

• Several Representatives are also in 2nd life

• Not the only online world• Linden Labs CEO testified on

several topics

Sources

• Sci Lands • House Subcommittee Testimony• DU Today Article• Second Life URL