Second Life Projects

I have been working in Second Life since 2006. I joined the Educators in Second Life email list this morning, but when I sent in my introduction it bounced. Not a good sign. As I spent some time on it and it summarizes some of the main projects I have been involved in from about 2009-Present (and I am amazed so much has actually been done) I thought to post it here.

My name is James 'Jim' Barrett. I work at HUMlab at Umeå University in the north east of Sweden. HUMlab is a digital humanities lab and studio where all manner of wonderful things happen (http://blog.humlab.umu.se/ is the blog in English).

I work in Second Life with teaching, research and art.

Teaching has been done with museum studies, culture studies, social linguistics, language learning (Sámi and English as a Second Language), mixed reality content delivery and consulting on a pharmacy program. Some of the results of teaching in SL by HUMlab staff can be seen here:
http://www.umu.se/english/about-umu/press/press-releases/newsdetail?contentId=18034
http://blog.humlab.umu.se/?tag=second_life
http://blog.humlab.umu.se/?p=1387
http://blog.humlab.umu.se/?p=880
http://blog.humlab.umu.se/?p=1371

A mixed reality seminar was created by a team at HUMlab in 2010 and can be seen here: http://stream.humlab.umu.se/index.php?streamName=avatarsandposthumanism

The consulting for pharmacist simulation is explained here http://www.upc.umu.se/om-upc/projekt/kommunikationstraning-i-virtuella-apotek/ (In Swedish)

The course blog for the museum studies course is here; http://blog.humlab.umu.se/museologi/

We are very proud to be working with Hanna Outakoski in her teaching of North Sámi language over distance using the resources of HUMlab. We are also an associate partner of the Avalon Network (Hello guys!), which has been wonderful to be part of. More information about Hanna's Sámi course can be found here; http://avalon.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/NorthSami1FINALScenario.pdf

We are also devoted machinima fans in HUMlab and have been using it in teaching cultural studies and art.

I have published a bit on what I have been involved in. Including a chapter in 'Learning and Teaching in the Virtual World of Second Life' edited by Judith Molka-Danielsen, Mats Deutschmann (Mats also works in HUMlab) on the HUMlab SL project. We (Stefan Gelfgren http://bit.ly/gJdcF6 and myself) have a follow up to that chapter coming out shortly in 'Multi-User Virtual Environments for the Classroom: Practical Approaches to Teaching in Virtual Worlds' edited by Giovanni Vincenti and James Braman, which reports back on three years of teaching museum studies in SL.

We have also been running HUMlab's Second Life Yoshikaze "Up-In-The-Air" Residency (along with Sachiko Hayashi, who recommended this list serve to me). Yoshikaze is an artists' studio in Second Life, run by Goodwind Seiling with support from HUMlab. Its main activity is to provide SL-Artist-In-Residence (Up-in-the-air Residency). The residency is project based and can be applied to throughout the year. The artist is expected to give at least one presentation of the project at the end of the residency. The residency length is normally 1-3 months. We have a blog and a Facebook group:

http://yoshikaze.blogspot.com/

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Yoshikaze/124286834263363

A video of myself presenting the work of artist Garrett Lynch from the Second Yoshikaze Residency in HUMlab is here: http://youtu.be/0HFbRg4boho

We will be holding a vernissage for the current Artist in Residence, Selavy Oh, on May 11 at 14:00 CET on the HUMlab/Yoshikaze space in world; http://slurl.com/secondlife/HUMlab/95/215/351/ (it is currently a work-in-progress site)

More of HUMlab in SL here http://blog.humlab.umu.se/?cat=96