From Virtual Worlds at Seton Hall
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Overview of Projects
The Teaching, Learning and Technology Center at Seton Hall University has been exploring the educational potential of virtual worlds in the college classroom for the last three years. Instructional designers, faculty and administrators have worked together to define best practice, identify strategies for the integration of virtual worlds into the learning experience, and find solutions to training and support challenges.
Business in Second Life
Offered during the spring 2008 semester, this Second Life seminar was a collaborative exploration between business and law students at Seton Hall University focused on examining the management and legal issues that arise when one engages in activities in online communities like Second Life.
Disaster Preparedness
As virtual learning becomes a convenient and accepted pedagogical tool, health management faculty are challenged to successfully update face-2-face team exercises into web-based scenarios available to both on-campus and online students. This project successfully integrated a virtual learning scenario (Play2Train) in a Master in Healthcare Administration (MHA) course using the Second Life platform.
House of 7
The House of 7 project was initially designed to give students the opportunity to co-create a learning environment, specifically Nathaniel Hawthorneâs House of the Seven Gables. Based on research into the period and the principles of material culture theory, students created projects and assignments that enable visitors to the House in Second Life to learn about such nineteenth-century topics such as the cult of domesticity and true womanhood, the impact of the railroad on the economy, and gardens as gendered space. Since the project's inception, the scope has expanded to the House of 7 becoming a Gothic Center where Second Life residents can come to experience, learn, read, write, and discuss Gothic Literature.
Supporting Virtual Teams
The ability to work in a team is highly valued in today's corporate environment and globalization is shifting team work to virtual workspaces. Undergraduate students may be give opportunities to work in teams while completing course work but few will be given the experience of collaborating virtually. The goal of this exercise is to expose students to the successes and challenges of virtual teamwork within an emerging medium that is quickly being adopted by corporations.
Virtual Marsh
This project proposes to develop a salt-water marsh learning ecosystem within the virtual world of Second Life with the goal to explore, assess and document the effectiveness of using virtual environments to enhance teaching and learning in the sciences.
This project is now called Salt Marsh Dynamics.
Virtual Worlds for Healthcare Education
The TLT Center will host a special presentation on the use of Virtual Worlds for Healthcare Education on Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 from 11:30am - 1:00pm in the Computer Training Center (CTC) on the first floor of the Walsh Library. This 90-minute presentation will include examples of how this immersive learning environment is expanding the possibilities for professional development and education. Both clinical and management opportunities will be highlighted (one example can be found here.)
