Lehigh Unveils its Second Life Island

On Thursday, November 13, 2008 in Linderman Library, Director of Faculty Development Greg Reihman unveiled Lehigh's new  program entitled: “Second Life: What’s It All About?.”

Second Life is a popular virtual world that has attracted many universities who are interested in exploring how such a space might be useful for education and research. Greg writes about SL in more detail in the November 2008 issue of Lehigh Lab Notes addressing the question: “Faculty Developments: Why Second Life?” Lehigh Lab Notes is an online publication, accessible at http://www.lehigh.edu/~inllnote. 

After an explanation of how Second Life works, Greg describes his own experience using SL in his teaching multiple times and recounts similar experiments by both Professors Bob Rosenwein, Sociology and Anthropology, and Roger Nagel, Computer Science and Engineering.

Greg notes as well that “Some Lehigh faculty are also using Second Life as part of their research. Roger Nagel and Brian Davidson are leading a cross-disciplinary team looking at Virtual Worlds and Social Networking. Cathy Ridings is researching how businesses are adapting to virtual worlds.

Chava Weissler is researching the performance of Jewish Identity in Second Life.” Weissler’s article can be read in full in the October 2007 issue of 2Life magazine, available online at: http://www.2lifemagazine.com.

Natalie Foster, a Professor in the Chemistry Department and the current Lehigh Lab Faculty Fellow, has also written on Second Life in the November 2008 issue of Lehigh Lab Notes. Her article, entitled “Life is Just a Bowl of Pixels” chronicles the six months she spent exploring SL. Some of her main conclusions follow:

“What direction will Lehigh take on its island? I hope early adopters of new technologies among us will be encouraged to explore this opportunity and look for ways to use it to expand our teaching and learning environments."

"We need to experiment, with a realization that there may be nothing in SL that meets our needs, but I think that outcome is unlikely. That learning and teaching have highly social aspects is undeniable, and SL, with its ability to make you feel like you are actually experiencing events, seems fertile ground on which to explore presenting information and sharing ideas.”

To follow along with Lehigh's progress with this experiment or to learn how to explore Lehigh’s Island, visit the website here. 

Student assistants Nicholas De Peyer and Kathryn Lieber were instrumental in designing the Lehigh Island as were members of the IMRC staff.


--Susan A. Cady
  LTS Director for Administrative and Planning Services

Article posted February 11, 2009

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