C21U is hosting the Practitioners Leading Edge Talk Series to highlight some of the most innovative thinkers in the Higher Education space. The first talk will be on "Second Life:  A Model for Entrepreneurial Courses." Register online here. 

Abstract       

Second Life is a virtual online world where the participants or residents create and build their own fantasy life and socialize with other in-world residents.   With a little time and creativity educators may design a world around their specific discipline that allows students to experience learning from an entirely new perspective.

Wesley Smith, Director of Instructional Distance Education & Advanced Services (IDEAS) at Georgia College, will explain and demonstrate how he uses Second Life to teach entrepreneurship to undergraduate students. This course is taught both online and within a hybrid setting.

During the past three years Georgia College has experimented with using Second Life (SL) as a creative outlet to augment the learning process.  In recent semesters GC faculty have used the virtual world to create and model various situations that are closely related to real life situations.  Within SL students are able to create their own learning experiences and gain valuable insight from the successes and failures that occur as they progress through the semester.  These experiences are based on course objectives and are tried and tested in-world.  Students are able to see their plans come to virtual life and they are able to make adjustments, if needed.  Later, the students report their findings.  In most cases students are able to learn by doing and may take their virtual world experiences forward into the real world. 

During the Talk, Smith will discuss and demonstrate how they created a business model in SL, how the students interacted with the software, and their evaluations of the learning model.  He will also be able to answer your questions and explain future plans for the software in classroom settings.