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Executive Summary: The New Media Consortium (NMC), a non-profit consortium of learning-focused organizations founded in 1993, has nearly 300 members, including most of the top colleges and universities in the world, museums, research centers, foundations, and other forward-thinking organizations. Since 2006 the NMC has used Second Life as another medium to achieve their mission - to encourage the use of emerging technologies in support of teaching, learning, research, and creative expression – with remarkable results. By helping more than 150 colleges and universities learn to make broad use of virtual spaces, including institutions like MIT, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, USC, Rice, and many others, the NMC has built the largest educational project in any virtual world. The NMC’s not-for-profit project has recovered all its costs through virtual world operations and became completely self-sustaining in early 2007. “In a live videoconference, I could make a
gesture and you’d see that, but we’re still not together. We’re not
affecting each other’s space. In Second Life, we…experience things together.” |
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| Second Life Enhances the NMC’s Visionary Pursuit of Innovation and Creativity | |
Intel’s internal platform used for online meetings would have excluded non-employee participants. Other methods for online communication were considered, but Cook’s group ultimately made the unanimous decision about which technology to use after walking through the Intel campus inworld. “My manager wanted something forward-thinking, innovative, and fun,” said Cook. “We explored Intel’s Second Life campus and we liked it.” |
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| The NMC Experience in Second Life, By the Numbers
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| The NMC Conference Center is a Hub of Activity | |
The NMC’s two full-time developers, Christopher Holden and Beth Sachtjen, keep the project moving forward with the assistance of other NMC staff. They not only help create member spaces, they also provide best practices and training. With a vibrant roster of live events, a wealth of content from the NMC’s robust online libraries (including 7,000 periodicals and research databases), and outlets for experimentation, the NMC now attracts nearly 1,500 unique visitors each week to its Second Life campus. This is testimony to the fact that the NMC does not just create learning environments— they help clients build communities.. |
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| Supporting a Global Virtual World Learning Community | |
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| Encouraging & Sharing Best Practices for Quality Interactive Spaces | |
To document the goings-on within their virtual campus and further connect its members, the NMC publishes the NMC Campus Observer, a rich online resource of news including research, links, and videos about their growing inworld community. Educators such as Dr. Cynthia Calongne of Colorado Technical University save time and money reading tips and tricks about working and learning in the virtual world as compiled by the NMC and its members. In turn, they become inworld educators, too. Dr. Calongne has taught over a dozen university classes and over 40 conference presentations and seminars on research and education in Second Life. “Aside from research and conferences,” Calongne says, “the NMC provides technological solutions, creates new communities for institutions and helps to identify what is needed in the future. They also help each educator, instructional designer and student to create their own content, demystifying how a school can provide quality, immersive educational experiences with limited resources.” The NMC continues to focus its efforts on stimulating learning space development in Second Life with atcost and pro bono work. In early 2008, the NMC offered $100,000 in Virtual Learning Prizes. The content suggested within each proposal was then built by NMC and released as open content.
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“At
the NMC, we see Second Life as the most currently evolved of the virtual
world platforms today, and wherever this technology takes us, Second
Life will be seen as the seminal first instance of what the 3D web might
look like. “ |
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| The Educational Technology of the Future is Virtual Worlds | |
Johnson summed up his experience in Second Life and said, “I think it’s safe to say now that nearly every college and university has some project in Second Life.” The NMC will undoubtedly continue to play a leading role supporting and encouraging learning institutions to find their own way into the virtual world. |
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About the New Media Consortium: The New Media Consortium (NMC) is an international 501(c)3 not-forprofit consortium of nearly 300 learning-focused member organizations dedicated to the exploration and use of new media and new technologies. Through its many projects, its comprehensive website, and its series of international conferences, the NMC stimulates dialogue and understanding through the exploration of promising ideas, technologies, and applications. For more information on the NMC, see www.nmc.org. The NMC’s Emerging Technologies Initiative focuses on expanding the boundaries of teaching, learning, and creative expression by creatively applying new tools in new contexts. The centerpiece of this initiative, the Horizon Project, charts the landscape of emerging technologies and produces the NMC’s annual Horizon Report. For more information on the NMC’s Emerging Technologies Initiative, see www.nmc.org/horizon. |
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About Second Life and Linden Lab Developed and launched by Linden Lab in 2003, Second Life is the world’s leading 3D virtual world environment. It enables its users -- known as Residents -- to create content, interact with others, launch businesses, collaborate and educate. With a thriving inworld economy that saw over US$360 million in user-to-user transactions in 2008, and a broad user base that includes everyone from consumers and educators to medical researchers and large enterprises, Second Life has become one of the largest hubs of user-generated content (UGC) in the world. Linden Lab, founded in 1999 by current Chairman of the Board Philip Rosedale and headquartered in San Francisco, develops revolutionary, immersive technologies that change the way people communicate, interact, learn and create. Privately held and profitable, Linden Lab is led by CEO Mark Kingdon and has more than 300 employees across the U.S., Europe and Asia. Linden Lab Copyright © 2009 Linden Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Linden Lab, Second Life, Second Life Grid and the Second Life and Linden Lab logos are registered trademarks of Linden Research, Inc. . |
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The
NMC was founded on a deep commitment to exploring and embracing new
collaboration and learning technologies. By 2005, virtual worlds had
caught their attention. Larry Johnson, CEO of the New Media Consortium,
and his team instinctively understood that virtual environments free
users from physical constraints while fostering meaningful interaction
and collaboration. They began to search for a platform to serve as the
NMC’s virtual world hub, and in 2006 they chose Second Life. The NMC
then created a new services unit — NMC Virtual Worlds — to spearhead
their work creating virtual campuses and learning spaces for their clientele
of educational institutions and NMC member organizations. Their collective
work in Second Life is called the NMC Campus Project.
The
NMC campus in Second Life was originally built to provide NMC members
a place to experiment in virtual space, but quickly became a conference
center venue for virtual conversations, such as the MacArthur Foundation
series on Digital Media and Learning and the IBM Global Innovation Jam.
The original design has since evolved into a full campus with dozens
of thoughtfully designed virtual facilities for meetings and learning
interaction. There is a library, a fine art museum, a conference center,
an orientation island, an island-sized open-content object repository
and much more. Over a 100-day period in 2008, 15,518 visitors from 56
countries visited the NMC’s virtual campus for an average of 98 minutes
each.
In
conjunction with the shared spaces provided by the NMC, many member
organizations have created their own unique campuses that are an essential
part of the NMC Campus project. In fact, at the time of this writing
nearly 100 Second Life regions have been developed by NMC members. The
list of Universities on the NMC’s membership roster with campuses in
Second Life includes Princeton, Yale, the University of Southern California
Marshall School of Business, Ball State, New York University, Pennsylvania
State University, and international members such as the University of
Helsinki and The Open University. Museums and not-for-profit organizations
add to the NMC’s multi-disciplinary mix of global members and clients.
From
2007 to date, the NMC has oriented a remarkable 11,000+ educators and
students in Second Life. These new Residents use Second Life for a wide
variety of collaboration and innovation initiatives. For example, there’s
a simulation curriculum and environment for dental and medical students
to help them prepare for situations they will eventually face in the
physical world. Virtual science labs and art studios have been created.
Students across the globe can visit virtual campuses and are provided
educational opportunities to attend seminars, lectures, or symposia
without having to travel.
Furthermore,
the NMC holds a semiannual two-day Series of Virtual Symposia where
attendees build community, explore new educational tools, project mashups,
and other innovative teaching practices and topics. “We did a lot of
research on how to bring people into Second Life,” said Johnson, “and
how to convene a group of people...because that’s what we do.” Symposia
Series participants save budget, travel time, and avoid jet lag by networking
with colleagues in a richly interactive environment. While the first
event was free, attendance fees from subsequent symposia have allowed
the self-sustaining NMC to continually deliver sophisticated educational
design, architecture and development services at cost.