This document provides tips and best practices for teaching in virtual worlds like Second Life. It discusses using avatars and virtual spaces to create immersive learning environments that support different teaching and learning styles. Tips include preparing content and activities, developing communication and assessment strategies, and getting comfortable with virtual world navigation and building tools. The goal is to effectively utilize virtual worlds to enhance teaching and create collaborative, applied learning experiences for students.

1. Second Life: Teaching Tips from the Virtual Frontier Copyright Cynthia M. Calongne, 2008. Permission is granted for this material to be shared under a Creative Commons Attribution - Share Alike 3.0 United States. You are free to copy, distribute, display, perform, remix and make derivative works. Attribute the work to Cynthia M. Calongne and distribute it with a similar or compatible license. Cynthia Calongne Colorado Technical University TCC 2008 Conference April 15-17, 2008

3. MBA 770 Class at Wright State Shu’s students prepare for a collaboration exercise in Second Life

7. The Many Faces of CTU Faculty

8. Communicating with students in Second Life Left to right Teleport Group Notice 2nd row Voice Chat (*) Instant Message URLs embedded

9. Middle School Students at Ramapo Roleplay and conflict in an immersive literature class Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, portrayed by Suffern Middle School students

12. Shall we dance? Movement in Second Life

13. TCC Learning Times Reception Dance animation menu displays after clicking the floor; control menus on screen

14. Social Networking A screenshot of the TCC Reception in Second Life from a dual monitor system; notice Twitter in the back channel

17. Instructor-designed classrooms use creative and innovative environments Experimental Design Classrooms

18. Content at Virtual Hallucinations Words leap out at you, simulating an experience

19. CS 820 at CTU included novice users who learned to build their class projects

20. A self-guided tutorial for building a 20-minute project

21. Student projects and class content on display at Acheron LV426

22. Interactive Learning Spaces Dr. Dobb’s Life 2.0 visit http://life20.net Acheron LV426 CTU class work space

23. Science Comes to Life The National Physics Laboratory presents the advances in Nanotechnology Interactive Nano Labs

24. Preparing for student presentations and usability testing

25. Building class prototypes in a virtual world with students new to SL

26. Virtual Meetings, Interactive Content (top two images, left to right) The House of Seven Gables session (bottom image) Jared Bendis on Digital Tattoos NMC Fall Symposium in SL 2008

28. Second Life: Teaching Tips from the Virtual Frontier Lyr Lobo in Second Life Ryl Redgrave on the Teen Grid at Ramapo [email_address] For more information, contact