Virtual Worlds Forum

The island is due to go live on 18th December. The university is promising to start with a "blank canvas" approach, as professor of eLearning and learning technologies Gilly Salmon explains:

"We have created an Island in Second Life for communities of learners, teachers, technologists and creative practitioners to explore the educational benefits of 3D worlds. At a time when the 'buzzword' is student experience?we must push out the boundaries. For the first time in the history of higher education, the digital world has offered us a low cost 3D environment for exploration and construction. No-one yet knows whether it's 'worth it' and the nature of the value it will add to learning. But it's up to us- the educators of the 21st Century- to find out."

The university is working with UK firm TwoFour Learning on the project, which will include RSS feeds and a Virtual Reality theatre in an attempt to go beyond the traditional academic Second Life experiments. Salmon says science subjects could benefit particularly, along with any discipline that involves collaborative work or distance learning. University of Leicester Beyond Distance site