Good afternoon!
Last week, I had the wonderful opportunity to participate on a webinar with one of our partners, Intelliworks.
The topic was ‘eMarketing Best Practices for Continuing Education and Workforce Development.’
The webinar attracted over 100 participants from around the nation and the panelists were Todd Gibby (CEO of Intelliworks), Chuck Terrell (VP of Workforce Development at Virginia Western Community College), and myself.
The 60 minute webinar covered a lot of ground in terms of how community colleges can use eMarketing to grow enrollment in their continuing education departments (a topic that I am fascinated by!)
At the end of the webinar, we had some great questions from the audience, such as how to create an engaging microsite (a small, few-page website), how to develop more engaging emails for email marketing, and others.
The question I did not have a good amount of background on was in regards to Second Life.
If you’re not familiar with Second Life, it is an incredibly innovative online world. As wikipedia states:
“Second Life is used as a platform for education by many institutions, such as colleges, universities, libraries and government entities. There are over one hundred regions used for educational purposes covering subjects such as chemistry[65] and English.[66] Instructors and researchers in Second Life favor it because it is more personal than traditional distance learning.[67] Research has uncovered development, teaching and/or learning activities which use Second Life in over 80 percent of UK Universities.[68]“
And it’s growing like crazy! Just look at the growth in signups from January 2006 – March 2007:
Second Life for Community Colleges
I’ve already seen many great examples of Community Colleges using Second Life, such as:
- Valencia Community College
- Caldwell Community College
- Northern Virginia Community College
- Community College of Aurora
- Mesa Community College
- Moraine Valley Community College
- Brevard Community College
- Monroe Community College
- Broome Community College
- Lane Community College
In fact, there is a wonderful wetpaint wiki online with a vast amount of resources for you if you are interested in learning more about it:
Community College in second life wiki
The wiki features community colleges currently using SL, how to get started, consultants that can help you out, teaching tools, and much more. I have to say though, the best way to get started is to dive in. You’ll be amazed at how large this world is and how people are using it.
How can you take advantage of Second Life?
In Dr. Steven Warburton’s presentation on “virtual spaces, second lives: what are the potential educational benefits of MUVEs?” he discusses examples of Second Life used in different educational contexts. (A MUVE is a multi-user virtual environment):
- Visualization
- Roleplay
- Self-paced tutorial
- Simulation
- Problem solving
- Conferences and lecture-spaces
- Workshops
- Virtual reality
I personally feel that SL can be used not only to improve classroom experiences and help students retain learning through an innovative and engaging environment, but I also feel it can be used to attract students:
- What if you held a virtual seminar in Second Life, giving prospective students a taste of your school in a virtual world?
- What if you ran virtual workshops in SL for free, giving prospects value-based examples of the kind of lessons they could learn at your institution?
- What if you sponsored a SL party that encouraged prospects to sign on and meet other students with similar interests?
The potential of Second Life is only bound by our imaginations.
Videos about Second Life
I’ve gathered together some videos that I think do a great job of giving you a good picture of how SL works, and how educators are using it at their institutions. Take a look:
Slideshows on Second Life
I’ve embedded a slideshare ‘pack’ of some of the best slideshows I’ve found on Second Life. Some of these are introductions to SL, and some are more geared towards Educators and Higher Education institutions:
Just dive in
Now, I can go on and on telling you about how cool Second Life is, but you have to see if for yourself. Jump on in, the water’s warm.
Happy eMarketing and Second Lifing,
-Brad Kleinman
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