Fri 15 Jan, 2010
The work has been fantastic. Thanks to all the students involved. The URL to access the island from the net is http://tiny.cc/6ZS2v. From here you can teleport to it, and it can be sent out to friends and family wanting to attend the opening next week. Thanks again for all your efforts- it has been great. /Jim
Tue 1 Sep, 2009
Welcome to HUMlab and the new term. This is the administration blog for both the Museologi and Kulturanalys program courses that will be run in HUMlab this term. Much of our work together will take place in the online virtual world of Second Life. There are a million things I would like to tell you about virtual worlds and Second Life (I have been working with them since 2003) but I thought maybe we should just start with a simple introduction to Second Life (hereafter SL).
SL is an adults only, multi-user persistent (means that it does not go away when you log out, but continues on, like the world does when you are asleep – believe it or not) social online virtual world. Sometimes these sorts of things are called MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) or to be more precise, as SL is not strictly speaking a game, a MUVE (Multi User Vitrual Environment). The most important feature I think that defines SL is that it is social. There is no goal or quest as part of being in SL, like there is in World of Warcraft or Starcraft and other such MMORPGs. The people who use SL make it what it is. It is for this reason that SL is perfect for a number of things that are useful in higher education:
* As a stimulative environment it is possible to replicate a lot of situations and behaviors in SL from the worlds of fashion, language, physics, sex, architecture, genders, religion and more. Often these situations and behaviors are just the users themselves as they communicate with each other and express themselves. Everything you see in SL (buildings, clothes, programmed behaviors) is made by the users, for better or worse. The population of SL is several million but no one is sure. Being able to access such large groups of people and their creations means it is easy to gather information and watch how people express themselves within the frame of ‘culture’ in the virtual world. It is important to remember that while the word ‘virtual’ does have some meaning in relation to SL, everything that happens in the world has a basis in what can be called ‘reality’.
* As a tool SL can be used to create films, build a three dimensional archive, hold meetings, teach classes, build communities, meet people, make art, advertise, do market research, hold religious services and worship, create online museums and probably a lot more.
* SL is used as a teaching and learning environment. For the rest of this term SL will be your environment for the course. An island has been created for the museologi students to experiment and create a project for each of the groups. The kulturanalys students, who will have a base in a re-creation of Umeå University’s Lindellhallen will be using SL as a type of research field and for the raw materials for a film.
For our first meeting Stefan Gelfgren and myself (Jim Barrett) will introduce ourselves and SL. We will show you around the HUMlab islands in world and speak about how we can help you and what is expected of you over the coming months. This is going to be an amazing experience for everyone concerned. Again welcome!
Once you have opened a SL account and created an avatar you can teleport to the HUMlab Island in Second Life by clicking or pasting this URL link: http://xrl.us/HUMlabSL
Sat 17 Jan, 2009
Virtual worlds such as Second Life have become an area of ever expanding interest for pedagogical and artistic experiments. Now, students from the museology program at Umeå University have engaged with the 3D virtual world platform.
A vernissage exhibition will take place on Tuesday 20 January at 7:00 PM at HUMlab at Umeå University, located one level below the University Library.
Second Life is a 3D virtual world accessible via the internet with users around the entire globe. Countless galleries, museums and artists are already engaged in worlds like Second Life. The museology program students at the Department of Culture and Media Studies are the latest example of how virtual online worlds can be used in education.
For several intensive weeks within the framework of their study program, the students have explored the possible opportunities that virtual worlds have as museological platforms. The result is four exhibitions that illustrate and adapt to themes such as gender/sexuality/disability, social stratification, place/region/nation, and ethnicity/religion.
Existing Second Life users can experience the exhibition from the 20th of January via: http://xrl.us/HUMlabSL
The 3D world of Second Life is a social arena that makes it possible to communicate and learn in new and different ways than previous digital platforms. A far as we know, the museology programme at Umeå University is the first in Sweden to use Second Life in this educational format.
Time: Tuesday 20 January, 7:00 PM
Place: HUMLab, Social Sciences Building
Web site: http://www.humlab.umu.se/about
For further information, please contact:
Susanne Lindström, Department of Culture and Media Studies
Phone: +46 (0) 90-786 69 79
