Campus: Second Life
by Kit

Tuesday, September 21 2004

Online program allows colleges to use online tools to help budding game devs.

Linden Lab, creator of acclaimed
3D digital world Second Life, today announced Campus: Second Life, a
program to allow college level classes to use the powerful tools and
realistic environment of Second Life as a venue for learning. With a
fully physical simulation, robust 3D modeling and scripting tools, and a
complete economy and social systems, Second Life provides students with a
collaborative framework to experiment in real time with everything from
urban planning, to game design, to the formation of social communities.

Campus: Second Life formalizes a program which over the last two years has
welcomed classes from schools and areas of study as diverse as the Media
Studies Department at Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, NY), Trinity
University, the University of Buffalo, the Department of Design and
Industry at San Francisco State University and the School of Architecture,
University of Texas, Austin.

"We're now formalizing and expanding what has been a successful pilot
program, and making it possible for more students to investigate important
design and social aspects of digital spaces within the context of Second
Life," said Robin Harper, Senior Vice President, Linden Lab. "The enormous
flexibility of the underlying systems, including the ability to establish
communities and design and create interactive objects and structures,
offers these students an unparalleled palette for learning and
exploration."

"My students set out to investigate the early development of the resident community within Second Life," said Anne Beamish, Assistant Professor in the School of Architecture, The University of Texas at Austin. "They became residents of the Second Life world, contributing their different skills and testing the limits of the system. They worked together in real time and addressed a variety of issues, including economic structure, social architecture, building density, and traffic patterns. Second Life gave my students a laboratory for testing their ideas that just isn't readily available anywhere else."

Campus: Second Life is available for use in college-level coursework including architecture, game design, sociology, design and media studies. Faculty and students can integrate into the existing world community, or work together on unique private "islands". Linden Lab works closely with faculty to make sure they have the support they need, including complimentary account access and the temporary use of land for their projects. Students are offered complimentary access to Second Life for the duration of their course work, and are then able to take advantage of special pricing to subsequently maintain their online characters and creations within Second Life. Interested faculty should contact Linden Lab (education@lindenlab.com) for further information.

--- Kit