What: Virtual Worlds in Education Conference presentation, “The New Great Good Place: Building Virtual Worlds for Education”
Where: In SL at East Carolina University’s Island or in person at the UWC (MOD 608)
When: November 10, 2008 from 2:30 pm to 3:30 pm, Eastern Standard Time at
http://slurl.com/secondlife/East%20Carolina%20University/33/158/26 on East Carolina University’s virtual campus. Please keep in mind that Eastern Standard Time is three hours ahead of Second Life (Pacific) Time.
Description: Virtual words, like Second Life, offer distinct advantages for online education over purely textual spaces. Importantly, the virtual world has the ability to be more interactive, which encourages collaboration. Whereas users were previously limited to textual exchanges in online chat, they can now take part in immersive visual displays as viewers and creators.
During a University Writing Center (UWC) consultant seminar, consultants were asked to map their ideal Online Writing Lab (OWL). Consultants’ maps were incredibly revealing, depicting everything from avatars to beach scenes. The primary users of our current synchronous chat space, consultants claimed that something was missing in the virtual spaces we use to teach students about writing. Consultants’ maps revealed that there is an interpersonal connection missing in the textual writing space of the chat room. If the UWC tries to emulate Ray Oldenburg’s “great good place,” a public place at the heart of the community, it has become clear that we cannot limit our online work to textual spaces. Second Life, however, offers improved opportunities for building virtual collaborative communities. The research discussed here suggests that textual spaces will disappoint, if we hold them to such high standards. As a response to this research, we built the Second Life University Writing Center (SLUWC, coordinates: 57, 104, 23), an environment developed primarily for students at our university but also available to all Second Life participants.
The SLUWC was built as a true virtual home for our UWC, a place where writers can engage each other in their scholarly pursuits in a virtual public space, much different from the isolated textual spaces of the chat room. Our goal was to build a truly public virtual meeting space that promotes a sense of community among visitors, especially our student writers. Much like they would use the face-to-face UWC, we wanted students to have access not only to virtual writing consultants but also resources like handouts and document exchange software like Google Docs in one convenient virtual location. We also wanted students to be able to hear or see the interaction taking place around them, in an attempt to create a true virtual public sphere. Research suggests that students will be more engaged in the virtual world than in the textual online chat space that we currently inhabit. In building the SLUWC, we attempted to use interactive visual elements to promote learning. Marcel O’Gorman might call these interactive visuals “hypericonomies,” a neologism meshing hypertext, icon, and economies.
Merging theory with practical building applications, this presentation will discuss the importance of hypericonomic visuals that promote learning within the SLUWC and how these visuals, ultimately, allowed us to build the SLUWC. Further, this presentation will discuss social functions held within the SLUWC that promote learning and writing instruction. SLUWC events include virtual writing consultations, student and staff meetings, presentations, interactive writing support areas, and the implementation of a virtual sign-in and student visitor kiosk that interfaces directly with our existing online scheduling system and allows us to track and schedule SLUWC consultations. Finally, this presentation will discuss our current research on writing instruction and support within Second Life and where we should go from here.
The UWC has remained busy through midterms. Few appointments are available for undergraduate or graduate face-to-face sessions, and KnightOWL is booking up quickly. We encourage students to visit, but please be flexible as we approach the end of the semester. Remember that you can always visit as a walk-in, but you will meet with the first-available consultant. 
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