Students create virtual sculpture garden in Second Life

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April 10, 2008

[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/sculpture-garden.jpg” caption=”Students designed a virtual sculpture garden featuring videogame characters in Second Life as part of a multimedia digital games course.”]Students in a multimedia digital games course have created a virtual sculpture garden featuring videogame characters in Second Life. The Gaming Garden is located on the McMaster University Library Second Life island, Steel City. McMaster has been developing this and other virtual spaces for teaching and learning. Now students are learning to sculpt and program as part of their classes.

Why Second Life? One of the challenges professor Geoffrey Rockwell faced designing the digital games class was coming up with meaningful assignments that would introduce students to an aspect of game design while being manageable in the context of a larger theoretical class.

Rockwell, immersive learning librarian Shawn McCann and fourth-year student Dave Marhal teamed up to make Steel City not just a place students could go, but make it a place they could create. Marhal had the important task of designing the Library island for his multimedia senior thesis project. He created the sculpture garden and designed tutorials for students.

Some of the lessons learned include:

  • We need virtual infrastructure where students can create and display their creations. The more accessible these spaces are, the more students will create with a larger public in mind. Second Life is just one type of space.
  • Students don't like to be programmed by the computer. They prefer to participate in creating the virtual.
  • Students can easily learn to create sophisticated objects in Second Life and program them with simple actions. Virtual worlds and virtual learning are for everyone.

    Immersive learning librarian Shawn McCann hopes to see more projects like this being initiated.

    “We're continually exploring the possibilities of our space in Second Life,” says McCann. “We're looking at how we can partner in teaching and learning in addition to extending our library services and delivering library collections in these virtual spaces.”

    The ribbon cutting ceremony will take place on Friday, April 11 from 1 to 2:30 p.m. in Togo Salmon Hall, Room 202B. Please contact Catherine Baird at bairdca@mcmaster.ca if you are interested in attending.