I first heard about Second Life in October 2007 as my colleagues at the Spencer Museum of Art were pulling together information for a grant proposal. Intrigued by my eavesdropping, I set out to explore a little. Come to find out, my 2005 iBook was filled with too much cargo and too many leaks to stay afloat in the Metaverse. I borrowed my brother’s sleek MacBook Pro a couple times and nosed around a little, but he moved to another city and I was once again without a portal.
A year later, when I found myself in the position of coordinator for the same, now-funded grant, I decided it was time to get serious as an explorer. The museum was behind it, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), our project funder, was behind it and I was the one pulling it all together. I just needed to know which direction to pull.
My initial explorations had taken me to various hotspots and islands featured in the Showcase portion of the SL search engine. I had a grasp on how to get around and a few highlights to share with people. So I thought I was prepared the day my officemate, retired art history professor and author of numerous books – including the textbook most KU students use in their beginning art history class – wanted to look around. Marilyn Stokstad, at almost 80 years old, was excited to learn more about this new world. What should I show an art history professor? The Sistine Chapel on Vassar College’s island, of course. “This will be right up her alley,” I thought as I waited for my avatar to teleport.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t as impressed as I’d hoped. We walked through the chapel doors and I waited for her oohs and ahhs. What I heard instead was “Oh no! What garish colors!” and “Look at the walls – they must have taken these pictures before they restored it and the ceiling pictures afterward. Oh, that’s just awful!”
Uh oh. I didn’t have a response. Personally, I loved the opportunity to see the Sistine Chapel in a 3D setting, only having seen flat images in textbooks – I could finally see the relationship between Michelangelo’s many vignettes. But that didn’t change the fact that the museum’s project would need to appeal to art connoisseurs like Marilyn. And she was excited about the project in the first place. What was I going to say to someone who was skeptical from the beginning? I renewed my search, now looking for other entities which were using SL in a way which broke the bounds of ordinary.
That brings us to today. The Spencer’s goal, and the goal of the IMLS: Engaging Communities grant, is to create a model for museums (and other organizations) to incorporate Second Life and social networking as an educational tool to reach new audiences and current audiences in new ways. As part of that creation process, I’ll be blogging on a regular basis, letting everyone know what’s happening, what road blocks we’re encountering and when we find successes beyond our wildest dreams!
To start off, I wanted to share two of the best ideas I’ve seen so far for using Second Life as an educational tool. The first is an idea by Peggy Sheehy, a staff member of the Ramapo Central School District in Suffern, NY (see the discussion here). Sheehy facilitated a body-image project for middle school students. After watching a video about the media and body image, students created avatars in their own image and discussed their experiences via IM-chat in-world. The next day, they changed their avatars to represent what they thought of as the media’s image of ideal beauty and discussed that experience. On the final day, they again recreated their avatars to represent the media’s image of ideal beauty for the opposite gender. A final discussion centered around which avatar-incarnation each student felt most comfortable with and why. Sheehy says, “I expected them to enjoy the process of creating avatars, but I had no idea how profound their discussions would become when they formed groups in the ‘pods’.” The somewhat impersonal qualities of IMing in the Second Life forum allowed the middle-schoolers to open up in ways they normally wouldn’t in face-to-face chats. This project made use of Second Life in a way which could only be done in a virtual world.
The second project originated from the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, CA. While most of the places and ideas I’ve come across in SL use real life as a jumping off point, the Tech Museum is doing the opposite – using Second Life as a starting point for real life exhibitions. (see more about their ideas here). They have created a space where anyone who joins (free of charge) can either get in on a project already in the works, or start their own. These projects are basically designing and creating an exhibition in the Tech Virtual. Museum staff choose the best of these projects to recreate in the real life museum in San Jose – using Second Life as inspiration for real life.
As I have wandered the new world of SL, I have come across many strange and interesting things including underwater classrooms, a shop attendant who looked like a cardboard box robot and vampires. All have only served to peak my interest and I’ll continue my search for projects and places which are truly innovative. Anchors away!
Spencer Museum of Artblog 